Each year, artists from Serious’ Take Five programme are showcased with a performance at the EFG London Jazz Festival.

2025 marks the 20th anniversary of Take Five, our flagship talent development programme supporting the UK’s most exciting jazz and improvising artists. For two decades, Take Five has been a vital launchpad for mid-career musicians, offering an artistic residency, industry upskilling, mentorship and a wider network of musicians and industry professionals alike.

Olivia Murphy has quickly established herself as an innovative, creative and colourful artist working in jazz composition and has developed her own distinct and personal voice. Her music fuses contemporary composition with elements of free improvisation, while always keeping story-telling at its core, hailed as “some of the most exciting large ensemble jazz emerging from the London scene today” (UK Jazz News). Murphy's Moonrise Ensemble, featuring long term collaborators Olly Chalk and Becca Wilkins, is a vehicle for Murphy to explore smaller scale composition and song-writing. The trio’s first performance at London Jazz Festival will be an opportunity to hear new music, also featuring guitarist Daniel Kemshell.

Swing You Sinners is the brainchild of pianist/composer Andrew Woodhead, inspired by the collectivism heard in the early jazz recordings of Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Cab Calloway, and how these tunes can be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century by a group of forward-thinking improvisers.

Born out of a love of Fleischer Studios’ dark, surreal animations which captured the spirit of depression-era New York City, the band revels in the same sense of anarchy and the joy of creativity which these animators first showed to the world in the late 20’s and 30’s.

Lewis Daniel is a Saxophonist/Singer & Composer from South London. Lewis has worked creatively over the last few years as an arranger/session musician for many artists including The House Gospel Choir, Boadi, The Last Dinosaur, Rachel Kerr and Tom Grennan. His career has seen him perform at venues including the Westholts Stage at Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Ronnie Scott’s, opening for Take 6, and The 02 Arena.

Having studied at The BRIT School, The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and with The Tomorrows Warriors program Lewis draws on a plethora of influences to create his own unique sound.