Manchester is the city of music. From the commercial playground of Warehouse Project to the dingy corner of Big Hands, its selection seems to offer something for everyone. Yet, when I came to Manchester almost 4 years ago, a fundamental part of this music scene was missing — a part that I believe is dying amongst the younger generations: jazz.
While nights like Nossa (a neologism inspired by the Brazilian jazz genre Bossa Nova) are entering the student scene by establishing a spot at Soup Kitchen in the Northern Quarter, most nights dedicated to a good old-fashioned boogie are few and far between. However, last Friday, I had the pleasure of discovering a new night: one of liberatory sounds, smiles all around, and an ecstatic rhythm that pulsed through the crowd’s hips until the early hours of the morning.
Arriving at the Talleyrand in Levenshulme, a cosy, unassuming pub that looks like someone’s living room from the front, I bumped into Shade (co-director of Elody alongside Theo Ward) blowing up a balloon the size of a boulder. While it was still early in the trajectory of the evening’s events, I managed to grab him for a chat to tell me what Elody is all about.
Wanting to put on a night of his own for a while now and inspired by the master himself, Irfan Rainy, Shade spent months envisioning what Elody was going to mean to him and to Manchester. In personifying the event by adorning it with a person’s name, Shade wanted to elide any telling pretence about the genre of music his night would offer.
Mostly spinning genres such as broken beat, funk, soul, and jazzy house, he laments the preconceptions people often have when reading a list of convoluted, jumbled genres on a poster especially when it comes to anything jazz-related amongst the student population. While The White Hotel keeps its posters simple by merely adding the names of the DJs performing that night, Elody narrows it down further defining itself as a “party for everyone”. Embodying Elody allows each partygoer to build their own relationship with the evening, whether that be learning how to jazz dance with a stranger or discovering a new crevice of Manchester’s suburbs.
Touching on this topic of residence, I asked Shade why he picked the Talleyrand to stage his first night of Elody. While logistically convenient thanks to the venue being free hire, his aspiration in the future is to take Elody on the road to various grassroots and unorthodox locations. There was even talk of a small Church. All of this is to redirect the far-too-centralised scene and pay homage to the matrix of Manchester’s independent venues that are too often overlooked, especially by students limited to 256 and XLR.
Travelling around with an abundance of vinyl, turn-tables and a brand-new, hand-built Hi-Fi sound system developed by Turn-End Audio isn’t exactly an easy feat. However, it is a task that Shade and Theo are willing to tackle for the sake of supporting a plethora of community-oriented venues that are struggling in the current economic climate. When I guiltily admit that I haven’t been to The Talleyrand before, Shade’s excitement doubles: “I love that you haven’t been here before. I hope that more people who come tonight haven’t been here before either.”
Fresh out of uni and with little funds to establish the night on their own, Shade and Theo were lucky to pull some favours from their creative friends who are equally as invested in the development of Elody. Honest in their values and hopeful for a new generation of partygoers, they believe music is not only about the dance — although it is a large part of it — but about having a positive social impact and building a community that unites unlikely people of all ages and backgrounds. Elody excites me and I hope that it will excite more people of our generation who are disillusioned by the increasing disappearance of community venues and the booming of commercial giants in the music scene.
For Shade, the future of Elody is not limited to music alone, but will involve a multimedia menagerie of creativity. Although it can be scary launching a new night in Manchester considering the competitors and the expenses included, Elody has made a roaring debut, firmly imprinting its place in the Manchester circuit.
The Talleyrand that night was overflowing with newcomers, the velvet curtains providing a sensual backdrop to the sweaty dancers in the tunnel-like room. If you haven’t been to this hidden gem, I urge you to go and if you weren’t there that night, keep an eye out for more parties to come by following @elody.mcr on Instagram. You don’t want to miss out.
