For roughly 15 years, Jamie Safir has been one of those musicians whose presence can be felt everywhere without necessarily being the name on the marquee. The Manchester-born, London-based pianist has built a remarkable career as an accompanist, collaborator, songwriter and musical partner to some of the most respected names in jazz and popular music.
Now, with Momentism, Safir is finally putting himself at the center of the story.
Released September 4, 2026, on Chill Tone Records, Momentism is Safir’s debut album as a bandleader and composer. It is the culmination of years spent writing, performing and absorbing music from every direction, distilled into a deeply personal collection of nine original songs.
For Safir, the shift is significant.
“I've been writing, recording and performing properly for 15 years,” he says. “It's been exciting to travel around the world doing that, but I was never the artist; I was never the focus.”
That changed after the success of his one-man show, Piano Talk, which premiered in 2022 at Ronnie Scott’s and the Soho cabaret Crazy Coqs. Directed by award-winning singer and actor Ian Shaw, the show combines original music with stories from Safir’s life and career, creating an unusually intimate portrait of the musician behind the piano.
The production went on to enjoy successful performances around the UK and even crossed the Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary 2. Its mixture of music, humor, vulnerability and storytelling revealed something that had perhaps been hiding in plain sight throughout Safir’s career: he was not simply a highly accomplished accompanist. He had a voice of his own.
Chill Tone Records heard it too.
The label approached Safir about recording for them, setting in motion the project that became Momentism. The album features Safir at the center of a trio with bassist Conor Chaplin and drummer Luke Tomlinson, with renowned British tenor saxophonist Iain Ballamy joining the group on more than half of the tracks.
It is an ensemble perfectly suited to Safir’s musical personality. Chaplin, known for his work with artists including Jacob Collier and Marius Neset, and Tomlinson, whose credits include Callum Au and Labi Siffre, provide a rhythm section capable of precision, flexibility and understated musical conversation. Ballamy adds another distinctive voice, bringing decades of experience to music that is both composed and open-ended.
For Safir, however, Momentism is about more than assembling an impressive group of musicians. The album is deeply autobiographical.
Its material stretches across his life as a composer, from pieces that date back to his college years through music written in the weeks immediately preceding the recording sessions. The result is effectively a musical diary, capturing different versions of Safir while bringing them into conversation with one another.
The timing of the project made that personal quality even more pronounced.
The album emerged during a period of considerable upheaval for Safir. A seven-year relationship had ended, and after a decade living in London, he moved to the seaside. The changes brought uncertainty, excitement and emotional turbulence — all of which found their way into the music.
“It happened at a moment when my life was going through a lot of vicissitudes,” he says. “It was a pretty mad time, and a lot of that emotion is in the album.”
That emotional honesty is reflected in the title.
Momentism refers to the struggle to remain present — something that is fundamental to improvisation but equally relevant to everyday life. Jazz musicians have to make decisions in real time, responding to everything happening around them. But Safir is interested in the more complicated side of that idea, too: the decisions made in the moment that feel right now but may have consequences later.
“The idea of Momentism is about struggling to be present in the moment, which is a necessity in jazz but also in life,” Safir explains. “But it also has to do with making decisions in the moment that feel good now but may be damaging later down the line.”
It is an idea that gives the album a compelling tension. The music is immediate and inviting, but beneath its accessibility are stories about choices, relationships, identity and change.
Safir’s instinct for melody comes naturally from his upbringing.
Growing up in Manchester, he found himself surrounded by a city with an extraordinary musical history. His teenage years brought him into proximity with some of the figures who helped shape British popular music. Johnny Marr of The Smiths drove him to school because Marr’s son was in a band with Safir. Safir also delivered newspapers to Oasis guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs.
His family background added another connection to British musical history. His father grew up in Liverpool, on the same street associated with John Lennon.
Safir’s first concert was Paul McCartney.
But jazz was never far away either. Astonishingly, a jazz club operated on his street in the Manchester suburb where he grew up. Safir began working there as a sound engineer at just 13 years old — an experience that gave him an early education in the realities of live music.
He encountered a succession of major British performers passing through the club, including Georgie Fame, who even allowed the young Safir to use his famous Hammond organ for a support performance.
It is difficult to imagine a more formative musical education.
Manchester gave Safir pop, rock, soul and a deep sense of British musical identity, while his work in jazz clubs exposed him to improvisation and the collaborative nature of performance. Those influences remain audible in his music.
His writing is melodic and accessible, but never simplistic. There is a clear appreciation for the craft of a great song, reflecting his admiration for artists such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Rufus Wainwright and Burt Bacharach alongside jazz figures including Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock.
Steely Dan was his favorite band growing up, and remains so.
That mixture of influences helps explain why Momentism refuses to sit comfortably inside a single genre. Safir sees jazz as a form capable of absorbing different musical languages, and his own compositions reflect that openness.
“I think that a popular sensibility will always exist in my music,” he says.
It is an approach that makes sense for a pianist who has spent so much of his career moving between jazz and pop environments.
Safir has performed with Kylie Minogue at the Royal Albert Hall, toured internationally with Will Young and written a Christmas single for the singer, collaborated extensively with Ian Shaw, and worked with artists including Annie Lennox, Laufey, Jessie Ware, Veronica Swift, Jamie Cullum and Judi Jackson.
He is also a familiar presence at Ronnie Scott’s, one of London’s most important jazz institutions, where he has become a regular performer and hosted the club’s first weekly vocal jam session.
That career has given him an unusually broad understanding of what makes music communicate.
His collaborators have ranged from major pop stars to leading jazz improvisers, but the underlying lesson is the same: music has to connect.
That may be why the transition from accompanist to bandleader feels so natural on Momentism. Safir has spent years listening closely to other artists, supporting their ideas and finding the right musical response. Now, he is creating the environment in which other musicians can respond to his.
Iain Ballamy’s presence is particularly meaningful in that regard. Safir and Ballamy previously collaborated with Ian Shaw on What’s New, continuing a musical relationship that has developed over time. Ballamy, a founding member of the groundbreaking 1980s British big band Loose Tubes and a close collaborator of pianist Django Bates, brings his own distinctive perspective to Safir’s compositions.
At the center of it all remains Safir’s piano.
There is a sense throughout the project that he is no longer content simply to occupy the space just outside the spotlight. The experiences that once informed his work behind other singers now become the subject of his own music.
The result is an album that feels both newly arrived and long overdue.
Momentism gathers pieces written at different stages of Safir’s life and places them alongside music born from a period of profound change. It turns years of collaboration, observation and experience into something unmistakably his own.
There are heartbreak and humor, uncertainty and optimism, but also an infectious love of melody. The album does not attempt to disguise the contradictions of life. Instead, it embraces them.
That may ultimately be the most jazz-like thing about Momentism: the willingness to respond to whatever happens next.
After 15 years of helping other artists tell their stories, Jamie Safir has finally stepped forward to tell his own.
And judging by Momentism, he has plenty to say.
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