This was the upshot of yesterday’s Brexit episode in Brussels:

They don’t leave on 3/29

They potentially leave on 4/12

They potentially leave on 5/22

Perhaps they leave at some later point.

Perhaps they don’t leave at all.

Theresa May had to have dinner all by herself, being asked to give the room to the grown-ups. This was after “90 minutes of nothing” as one listener described her speech to The Guardian.

How she’ll manage to get her parliament to agree to a plan after the last two failures is a mystery.

We’ve read a lot about – and I have previously discussed here – the debilitating political and economic consequences of the Brexit deal, no matter in what form it will eventually be accepted, short of a new vote that might reverse direction.

Today I want to point to a tangential effect that affects music aficionados. (Much of it learned from an article here, alas in German:)

https://www.zeit.de/2019/12/jazz-szene-grossbritannien-brexit-folgen

Britain has a burgeoning Jazz scene, recently recognized by the US and many other European countries who constantly book acts for diverse festivals. If Visas become an issue in Europe (time, effort, and particularly costs) it will be much more difficult to travel for British bands.

It is also expected that a hard Brexit will raise the cost of daily living, which will hit hard given the already precarious existence of musicians who live by their live gigs, not necessarily records sales. If these gigs disappear with Visa requirements it will have existential consequences.

The Brexit debate’s poisonous increase in xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment and expressed racism is also affecting the Jazz scene which has much more racial diversity than many other musical genres in GB. Afroeuropeans, Black Brits, or musicians with Caribbean roots might have been labeled world citizens before May stereotyped them as Citizens from Nowhere as a concerted insult. Westminster is clearly hostile to immigration – just remember last year’s Windrush-scandal, where Caribbean immigrants whose families had lived and worked in GB since the 1940s were expatriated to pacify the far Right. Here was the musical response:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/18/windrush-a-celebration-review-barbican-anthony-joseph

And here is the current pick of the scene:

Your Queen is a reptile by sons of Kemet, an astounding album.

Kevin Le Gendre’s review: “Your Queen Is a Reptilemay reflect Hutching’s desire for political provocation, but it is first and foremost the music that inspires the imagination with its astute rewriting of key elements of jazz history and Caribbean folk. With a tuba and two drums in addition to Hutching’s tenor saxophone, the Sons of Kemet have a rough, nervous, polyrhythmically charged sound that explodes on stage. Their bass-heavy rumble hits the nerve of a younger audience that has grown up with hip-hop, dub and dance music, but also the older listener, who appreciate the abstract avant-garde character. What the 35-year-old Londoner also conveys is a full pride in his Barbadian roots – a pride he observes among many of his Afro-Caribbean colleagues. “We say: this is our vision of music.”

And still we have no clue how it all ends. Not well, I’m afraid.