The Jago: The Sunday Sessions
A former print room for The Hackney Gazette turned hush-hush music venue.
Set the scene, you’ve spent your weeks wages, jumped around The Victoria Line, night buses and your favourite beer gardens and Sunday has set in. With your most recent gigs of the weekend only seeming like a distant blur, only to be distorted by the regurgitating thoughts of ‘the afters’ you ended up at. Sound familiar? Well here’s your cure, an almost perfect remedy to further your recovery and broaden your musical horizons from that speaker that’s never charged.
The Jago, which is situated on Richmond Road, just off Kingsland Road in Dalston, serves as the quaintest venue for easy Sunday listening. The last gasp of the weekend, stave off that hangover with a well needed dopamine shot which you can find yourself fully immersed into a range of fresh sounds including a smiles all round Latin section that will transport you overseas to a much more comfortable and relaxed sense of home. A jazz notion expertise house band that will hands down make you feel like the coolest cat in Dalston (because let’s face it, after this a long weekends antics you really need it) and often roots reggae inspired music flowing from the established grassroots of Dalston’s original West Indian music scenes and sometimes stretching to (and from personal experience) a blues funk fusion which can really get the crowd moving and grooving.
Aside from forcing yourself out of a state of self loathing and acting decrepit in your studio flat whilst avoiding to check Instagram, dating apps and your bank account - The Jago isn’t a secular community which is for the elite, albeit very talented musicians to showcase themselves. This is actually for all to join! That’s right! ITS A FREE JAM! Bring your guitar, scratch that, just bring yourself and you’re Uber eats renewed hungover Sunday vibes along and get up on that stage. After all, you wouldn’t be in attendance to all those wonderful gigs the past two days if you couldn’t play something or at the very least get up and dance! Before you know it you’ll have a drink in hand (everything is 6 quid, and we’ve all grown to accept that about the more bohemian venues) and you’ll be up on stage in full belief that you’ve not got work tomorrow.
The residing beauty of The Jago is that it is for the people, you know that everyone there is in support of each other and just want everyone to succeed. Aside from the coveted hangover cure that is the famous Sunday Session, they actually have live music through from Wednesday - Sunday which can really venture from anything your heart desires. With fluctuating Neo-Soul ensembles to angelic solo artists, they really showcase it all and even with a club night on the weekend nights!
It would be most beneficial for you to get yourself down to The Jago and appreciate what sounds you can experience. Really get yourself down to a syncopated bongo rhythm, paired with husky Spanish vocals, or hear the smoothest jazz scat (obviously sunglasses clad) and let yourself wind into the groove. There’s virtually no better way than to create a staple addition into your regular weekend gigging attendances than to get yourself through those doors and after all it normally kicks off around 8pm, which is a very relaxed timeframe, so that Sunday roast or just your empty stomach has settled, you’ve made peace with ‘The Fear’ and shot a message to the group chat to meet up at this very location.
Allow yourself to really be at one with such a chilled out vibe, shaking off those cobwebs by getting up, playing and grooving to those addictive rhythms set upon by Dalston’s finest musicians is such a fantastic way to get yourself back into a really friendly scene. Old and young musicians from all backgrounds and levels of expertise will encourage you from minuet one. If that’s not African inspired Tezeta-esq jazz or the aforementioned alluring Spanish syncopated beats, you’ll be surely surprised how much your foot is tapping and how much you’re joining in with the joyous call and responses.
If you’re in the know, keep spreading the word and if it’s your first time hearing about it, well make sure you save a small portion of your weekend energy to check out something so special.