Maya Delilah on her Cork Jazz Festival gig: 'I’m really excited... the line-up for the whole festival is insane'

The conversation has been well-conducted at this stage about the wider jazz oeuvre and related movements, and their place as a cultural portal, a meeting-point of external influence, matters of geography and circumstance, as well as personal expression, that has kept them relevant and ever-shifting as the decades have rolled on and the world has changed.

Furthermore to this state of affairs, there’s much to be said for the changed availability of music in the post-millennial age, whether legal or otherwise. A generation ago, access to music largely depended on physical availability, listeners’ own awareness of where to seek music they were curious about, and the monetary factors involved with the prices of mass-market CDs, tapes, LPs, etc - a state of affairs blown wide open by piracy, legal download services, and latter-day music streaming services.

From the centre of this social and economic Venn diagram comes a generation of young musicians not chained to the same limitations or mindsets as those who have come before. For London-born 24-year-old Maya Delilah, the story of getting established and taking a road that’s led to signing with iconic jazz label Blue Note is a reflection of these factors.

“I started learning the guitar at age eight, and was just learning songs that inspired me - no classical training or jazz training or anything. It was literally just like, ‘I like the song today, I’ll learn it’. I think because I didn’t make it feel like such a chore, I loved it even more. 

I got really inspired by guitarists, by John Mayer and Derek Trucks and, yeah, loads of others, and there was lots of African music and Latin music playing around my house, and lots of different cultures around me [in Islington], and I would take inspiration from them.

“I went on a trip when I was younger to South Africa, came back with a CD from there, and it had all of these looping guitar harmonies, and then that’s when I bought my loop-pedal, started jamming on that kind of thing. I went to the BRIT School, which was a music school here in the UK, and met loads of other amazing artists and got inspired by them and the music they were listening to, which, at the time, was like the ‘proper’ London [jazz] music, and got really inspired by that. Yeah, here we are.”

The BRIT School, of course, has more than a reputation as a developmental facility for pop music, as well as a finishing school of sorts for performers and professionals from other walks of sonic life. Becoming a star in her own right, however, wasn’t the initial plan for Maya.

“I mean, when I went into this, all I had in mind for my career was being a session guitarist. I think I went into it with this, I think luckily, a slightly different mindset than I would have had, going into it wanting to be an artist, because there’s definitely a level of it’s not so much competitiveness, actually. I expected it to be quite like, proper competitive, like, y’know, Glee vibes. I just took it as being inspired by so many people, and it got me into singing more, it got me into playing more, and it’s so great because my bass player now is from my class, and there’s so many other artists that I collaborate with.”

Of course, there are those of us reading this that might wonder what it is to enter a music business that’s changed so radically since their own formative experiences of consumption, education, performance, etc., and indeed, it’s a much tougher slog than even it would have been a generation ago, by all accounts and experiences, as possible streams of income and opportunity dry up or merge together awkwardly.

“It’s tricky. I think that social media can do so much, and I think with most artists, it’s a bit of a love-hate relationship, and I’m grateful for the fact that it can get your name out there. 

I definitely struggle with it at times. I think we need to use it to our advantage, but I think it’s all about staying authentic and it’s tricky doing so as a guitarist. 

"The ‘angle’ that seems to get my name out there the most is just playing guitar, but then when it comes to promoting my artistry, it’s building a different part of the platform. It’s definitely a challenge, but often it can be fun.”

Much has been made of the ‘TikTok effect’ among casual consumers, where the super-time-compressed format of the site means snippets of songs can accompany viral videos and wide-reaching trends. The upside is more exposure and all that attends, of course, but the oft-discussed downside is a newer audience developing different levels of patience for unfamiliar material, an impatience for the big chorus or what have you.

“I think it’s hard. I think that artists can really benefit from people wanting to come to their shows, and knowing them because of one song on social media. I haven’t had, like, a big TikTok song, but I hear that, y’know, they know not even the whole of that song, they’ll just know the chorus, and then I’ll probably walk out straight afterwards. And I think that can be really rough, but then again, it’s getting people coming to their shows and getting more people to know about them, so it is a hard one to navigate.

“It’s a great way of getting people to know about your shows. I definitely built up the majority of my audience from social media during covid, and it was an interesting one to see coming out of covid, how many people actually translated into audiences that show, audiences that buy merch, y’know, all that kind of thing. It was lovely that my first headline show, I felt like it had translated, but yeah, keeping that up and keeping people engaged 24/7 is definitely a different kind of full time job than just writing music and playing music.”

That engaged audience won’t have long to look for Maya Delilah on Friday night as she takes to Live at St Luke’s in an evening performance, joining an eclectic weekend line-up of performers that treads the boards at the Northside’s church of noise.

“I’m really excited. I’m not on tour at the moment, I just have, like, little gigs here and there, but I’ve never been to Cork. 

I’ve only been to Ireland once, so I’m very excited to come back, and the lineup for the whole festival is insane. 

"I’m looking forward to coming along with my family, because it’s all our favourite artists, so, yeah, very, very much looking forward to it - and I enjoy playing in the winter and stuff, it’s nicer.”

Maya Delilah plays Live at St Luke’s on Friday, October 25, with support from Qbanaa. Doors 7.30pm, tickets available from eventbrite.ie.