Room 12a LP

Description

Contemporary UK jazz, soul, Brazilian music and 70s-inspired cinematic arrangements converge on ‘12a’, the debut solo album from 25-year-old producer, writer and pianist Billy Hare, set for release via Wah Wah 45s on 20th November. Hare has spent the last few years establishing himself within the UK contemporary jazz scene through his work with Tanhai Collective, writing and producing much of the group’s material and performing at venues and festivals including Jazz Cafe, Love Supreme and Brick Lane Jazz Festival. ‘12a’ marks his first album built entirely around his own songwriting, bringing together a ten-piece ensemble of young jazz musicians alongside strings, flute, trombone, saxophone, percussion and guitar. Following on from the release of debut single ‘Too Much’ - which found fans on Jazz FM, NTS, and Worldwide FM, as well as finding itself immediately added to Apple’s Jazz Scene: UK playlist - Billy delivers the foot-friendly ‘Formerly’, released as a single today alongside the album’s announcement. It’s a tune that owes most of its DNA to the bluesy 70s soul jazz sound of artists like Donald Byrd, and Johnny ‘Hammond’ Smith, driven heavily by stacked horn arrangements and a tight drum groove. The album ‘12a’ takes its name from the antique shop owned by a close family friend. It is a fitting reference point for a record concerned with musical history, lineage and the relationship between old and new. Hare draws on the vocabulary of 70s jazz, soul and funk, as well as Brazilian music and the expansive arrangements of figures including Arthur Verocai, Gil Evans and Deodato. More recent reference points include BADBADNOTGOOD’s ‘Talk Memory’, particularly its balance between contemporary production and the history of jazz. For Hare, those influences are less about recreating a particular period than understanding what can be carried forward from it. The musicians on the record bring their own backgrounds and listening habits to the arrangements, with electronic music, alternative rock, soul, Brazilian music and classical composition all finding space alongside jazz. “I think alongside the theme of emotional ambiguity, one of the central themes is the balance between the contemporary and history,” says Hare. “Knowing where to lean into a more vintage vibe and where to inject and subvert that and use super modern techniques and production is a great source of creativity and a central musical theme.” The result is an album rooted in melody and groove, but with room for quieter and more introspective passages. Hare describes his approach simply as “song first”, with the writing built around hooks, melodies and rhythm rather than a predetermined stylistic framework. “The album is ‘Song first’ as an approach to writing. Centred primarily on melody, hooks and groove,” he says. “Driven mainly by Motown, soul and Brazilian Jazz rhythms but grounded with catchy earworms and pushed with lush arrangements from strings.” The songs themselves developed almost accidentally. Hare writes at the piano he inherited through his mother’s side of the family, usually beginning with a chord and a melody rather than a fixed end point. The first track he wrote for the record was ‘Formerly’, a meeting point between his love of soul jazz and Brazilian music. The title itself comes from an in-joke around the song’s original placeholder name, ‘Grooves 3’. ‘Carolles’ brings Latin and funk rhythms together with driving piano, strings and woodwinds. ‘Too Much’, meanwhile, arrived almost fully formed after Hare’s first meeting with Wah Wah 45s’ Dom Servini. “I wrote ‘Too Much’ just after the first time I met with Dom,” says Hare. “He said the album could do with another tune and, with excitement, when I got home I just sat down at the piano and it seemingly fell out fully formed.” The album also contains more personal connections. ‘Smaller Church’, named in reference to Miles Davis and Hermeto Pascoal’s ‘Little Church’, grew from Hare’s memories of his great-grandmother playing the piano at Darley Hillside Methodist Chapel in the Peak District, where she was apparently reprimanded for “Jazzing up the Hymns”. “I think it’s very spooky that as someone who grew up playing on that piano every day of my life that I became drawn to jazz like her and the song ‘Smaller Church’ now feels like a bit of a devotional piece to her,” Hare says. That connection between family history and musical discovery extends further back. Hare first encountered jazz through classical piano lessons and later through Tomorrow’s Warriors, where as a teenager he learned standards and played alongside other young musicians. Among those musicians was Sravudh Tanhai, now the bassist on ‘12a’ and a member of Tanhai Collective. “Being able to get so much of my mental and physical energy out at the weekend learning Jazz standards, learning music through a rich tradition and actually playing music with other kids was such a blessing,” says Hare. Billy Hare and Tanhai Collective will play a headline show at 93 Feet East, Brick Lane on 17th November 2026, performing material from ‘12a’ alongside Tanhai Collective songs.