MOBO winning saxophonist YolanDa Brown is "widely regarded as the emerging 'voice' of mainstream jazz in the UK says her publicist (and Musicology magazine). What shade of meaning is in 'mainstream'? One imagines here the broadest usage, not much linked to Stanley Dance's coining of that term in the 1950s and its subsequent adoption to indicate the post-70s swing revival characterised by Scott Hamilton and his associates.
Brown plays funk and soul, and immediate correlates on both sides of the gender gap (and with due respect to those players' technical command) are David Sanborn and Candy Dulfer. Mainstream here probably means not free, not improv, not punk-jazz and not bebop - rather, jazz as accessible stuff with a melody, blues and (heavens above) dancing.
Her putative populism (that PR refers to "everybody's best kept secret") perhaps also interested the University of East London, which a few days ago awarded her an honorary doctorate, simultaneously honouring such other popular figures as Bianca Jagger and Time Out editor Mark Frith.
In any event, YB's debut album is out in 2011 so we'll hear what 'mainstream' has become.
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