“Now you have to play everything” – 2016 Yamaha Jazz Scholars get their groove on

Some things, happily, never change. But talking to these star graduates of the main UK conservatoires for jazz over a pint invigorates with their loving optimism for the jazz future they'll help forge, and diverse, deep interest in the lessons of its past.

Drummer Jake Long was inspired by free and spiritual jazz from the 1960s and 70s, but is most enthused by the scene around him in Southeast London. "It's a massively exciting time for jazz and music in general," he says, "to the point where I can look to be inspired by the people I know." The capital's cultural melting pot means Long's peers are exploring everything from trad to West African, Ethiopian and Indian music. "I'm doing all different genres," he says, "to make a living, and because I want to. People are taking from everywhere. Back in the day, you would only play a swing rhythm, and that would get you by. Now you have to play everything."

The mix of Malian music's "weird swing" and jazz in fellow drummer Ben Brown's main band, Waaju, confirms this. "I like playing jazz but also Latin and African music," he says, "which is all community music in different ways to British music." A trip to Morocco offered first-hand experience, "being surrounded by it, and the smells of the market. It seemed impossible to find a gig, it was more that music just happened in the main square. I'm trying to get that community element here. We try to play to places where it's not just musicians watching and people sitting – it's people dancing. The audience for jazz isn't necessarily thriving, so we've got to find new ways of finding people." But Brown also takes a lot from Miles' second great quintet. "I've always liked really ripping apart the traditional thing, but still maintaining and reverting back to it. I understand people who spend their whole lives doing the tradition. But I'm much more interested in seeing where things can go."

"It's important to balance respecting tradition and finding something for yourself," guitarist Tom Ollendorff believes. Also a keen, strictly amateur-level tennis-player ("though looking around the pub, I think I could take most of the people here"), he sees parallels with jazz. "You can learn a whole bunch of stuff, but you can't ever totally account for what's going to happen on a tennis court, with the ball's speed, spin, the weather, the surface. So a lot of it is reacting to your situation. A lot of jazz is like that."

Fellow guitarist Will Arnold-Foster experienced his own feeling of community in a music he finds "inherently social" in lessons with Gary Crosby's legendary finishing school, Tomorrow's Warriors. "I owe them," he says. "You could always rely on Gary being there on the weekend, wanting to teach people who wanted to learn, and it was all free, and you could be part of this community of young people from all parts of town. We'd hang out at the South Bank and learn together with mates your own age, and go round friends' houses to listen to albums. Everything was new then."

Pianist Mark Pringle also gained crucial insights from mentors. "I had lessons at Birmingham Conservatoire with [the late] John Taylor. He was such a great spirit, with a youthful energy about the way he approached playing, and lived his life. It wasn't so much the specifics of music, because he was mysterious about that. It was inspiring just to be around him, as a human and musician, which was the same with him." Pringle is currently listening to "a lot of music before the '40s and after the '80s." His love of Paul Motian and Charlie Haden is shared by bassist Roz Macdonald, who talks movingly of the humane character of Haden's playing. More unusually, this 21st century pianist loves stride. "It's one of the hardest things you can do as a jazz piano-player. Nowadays, you're usually playing with bass and drums in a bebop model, the left hand doesn't need to have nearly such ability. Teddy Wilson, James P. Johnson and all those pianists were really rounded."

Jake Long also mentions "a huge push in London of older genres and trad stuff", an unlikely revival confirmed by Arnold-Forster's gigs with the Dixie Strollers, and appreciation of the very specific culture of older players who've given their whole lives to trad. These are surprising strands in the rich tapestry these musicians will add to. "Jazz is a melting pot of so many different idioms," bassist David Bowden states. He began playing rock electric guitar, before Motown's legendary studio band brought him to jazz double-bass. "Reading about the Funk Brothers and finding out they were jazz musicians I thought, 'If they got that good playing jazz, maybe I should.' I like its freedom."

The 2015 Yamaha Jazz Scholar award (which includes handy vouchers for Yamaha instruments) was cancelled by a general election which cost former All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group chair Michael Connarty his seat and restructuring at Yamaha itself. This year's winners have been held over from their selection then, meaning they've had a year since graduation to make it in the outside world, mixing wedding gigs and teaching with proactively pursuing gigs. All are bandleaders, with Bowden's group Square One and Pringle recently releasing and touring albums.

Being presented with their awards before the gig in Parliament that night, wasn't deterred by the delay. "It meant a lot," he says. "A lot of my favourite musicians, like Kit Downes, have won this award, so I always hoped that I might be in with a chance. It felt really great." Long agrees. "When it came round to the recording session for Jazzwise [another of the prize's rewards], it was with a project that had been going for a while and I was passionate about."

Pete Long plays the Parliament Jazz Summer Event's opening set, then presides with APPJAG chair Jason McCartney MP over handing out the awards with old-school wit and charm. Though the winners only met as a group that morning, their set has a unified, melodic appeal. But the soft melodic warmth of Ollendorff's guitar meets the warm ripples of Pringle's rising piano, with its bluesy, stride intimations. There's shuffling, polyrhythmic Afro-funk with Long on drums. A Pringle solo leads into music of hypnotic slow washes, sea-cavern tides and dreamy falls you can sink into. A watching YolanDa Brown is so impressed, she wants to help this this ad hoc group get a gig afterwards. The future's already here.

– Nick Hasted