The Jazz Warriors were an all-black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

-based group of jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 musicians that made their debut in 1986. The idea for the band came from the Abibi Jazz Arts - a London organization that promoted black music and black culture - in 1985. The Jazz Warriors provided black British musicians with a venue to showcase their talents, which until that time was limited mostly to funk music and reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

.

According to musician/writer John Chilton

John Chilton

John James Chilton is a British jazz trumpeter and writer. During the 1960s he also worked with pop bands, including The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Escorts....

, "...[the Jazz Warriors] proved to be the launching pad for the stellar talents of a number of important jazz musicians." The original band only released a single album - 1987's Out of Many, One People - although the group remained together until 1994, despite many of the original members leaving to start their own careers.

Former member Gary Crosby

Gary Crosby

Gary Evan Crosby was an American singer and actor. He may have become better known for writing a revealing memoir of his father, entertainment legend Bing Crosby, than for his own music and acting work. His mother was singer/actress Dixie Lee, Bing Crosby's first wife.-Personal life and...

 has said of the Jazz Warriors:

There were all these different writers, but everything ended up sounding with the same energy. I've never felt anything like that energy — raucous, raw ...It wasn't the most accurate of bands, but the actual power, and the wildness of the soloing...It was so exciting. Regardless of who wrote what, once we got to the meat of the music, there were fireworks...A lot of spunk, man, a lot of testosterone going around!

In October 2007, Courtney Pine assembled a new fifteen-piece lineup of the band for a new themed concert called "Afropeans" at the Barbican Centre, London, marking the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. The new band featured two original Jazz Warriors (Pine and Jason Yarde), but brought in two other established black British jazz players - pianist Alex Wilson and trumpeter Byron Wallen. It also contained younger black British jazz talent including Jay Phelps and Nathaniel Facey (both from the band Empirical), Ayanna Witter Johnson (on cello and vocals), Ebony Steel Pan Orchestra player Samuel Dubois and electric/acoustic guitarist Femi Temowo

Femi Temowo

Femi Temowo is a British jazz musician. Although known primarily for his guitar playing, Femi is also a well known producer and songwriter.He discovered and became passionate about the guitar at age 17 when he joined his local church choir, a couple of years later he was introduced to the music of...

 (known for his work with Soweto Kinch

Soweto Kinch

Soweto Kinch is a British jazz alto saxophonist and rapper.Born in London, England to a Barbadian father, who is a playwright, and British-Jamaican mother, who is an actress, Kinch began playing saxophone at the age of nine after learning clarinet at Allfarthing Primary School, Wandsworth, SW London...

), as well as Cuban electric violinist Omar Puente

Omar Puente

Omar Puente is a Cuban-born violinist and jazz musician, currently living in England.He studied classical music at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana from the age of 12 and then went on to make a career in classical music, studying at the Estaban Salas and then joining the Nacional Symphony...

. The concert was recorded for a live Jazz Warriors album, also called Afropeans, which was released the following year.