Jazz Sabbath

Jazz Sabbath

Jazz Sabbath is a UK jazz trio project created by Adam Wakeman, who also plays keyboards and guitar for Black Sabbath and has been a member of Ozzy Osbourne’s band. The act presents itself as a fictional late-1960s English jazz group from the United Kingdom, with a story built around a lost debut album, disputed song ownership and a claimed link to Black Sabbath’s repertoire.

The project appears first in a mockumentary on YouTube in February 2020. In that film, Milton Keanes, the band leader played by Adam Wakeman, is interviewed by actor Robert Powell about the group’s early history, a cancelled debut album and the claim that Black Sabbath stole their songs. Jazz Sabbath performs jazz versions of Black Sabbath tracks, including material such as Fairies Wear Boots, Evil Woman, Rat Salad, Iron Man, Hand of Doom, Changes and Children of the Grave.

The first Jazz Sabbath album is released as a real album in 2020 through Blacklake Records. The discography also includes Jazz Sabbath Vol. 2, which appears in 2022 and includes jazz renditions of Paranoid, Snowblind, Behind the Wall of Sleep, Sabbra Cadabra, Symptom of the Universe, N.I.B. and Black Sabbath. The project is described as having reunited after the discovery of the debut album’s master tapes in 2019, with the second album then finally completed.

The group’s fictional backstory places it at the forefront of a new UK jazz movement in the late 1960s. According to that narrative, it begins recording two albums in 1969, but the release of the first is cancelled after band leader Milton Keanes suffers a heart attack, while the second is abandoned after legal disputes with a session player. The story also includes the destruction of recalled albums in a warehouse fire in June 1970, which is said to be the result of insurance fraud by the label owner, and the later discovery that the label owner is in jail.