Mackwood – Sammy
“Sammy” started with one idea: take a hard, cutting jazz horn line and drop it straight into the framework of a club record. That’s how Mackwood describes it, and the track is named after the horn player who made it work, saxophonist and close friend Sam Norris.
Mackwood is a South East London drummer, producer, bandleader and DJ, and “Sammy” marks his debut release for Tru Thoughts. Alongside Norris, the track features Jay Verma on keys and Laurence Wilkins on trumpet, three players pulling from London’s overlapping jazz and soundsystem scenes. Mackwood calls his own sound “Future Jazz, born in the dance”, and “Sammy” is where jazz fusion, grime, bruk and bass music actually collide rather than just sit next to each other.
It plays like a jam session in one section and an instrumental grime riddim in the next, and Mackwood himself puts it simply: “this track feels like all of London at once.”
