The Herts Jazz Festival returns in October, running from Friday 15 to Sunday 17. Oh, to be in Bishops Stortford at festival time. Well, that’s what it feels like writing this preview piece some months ahead of the restored Herts [...]
“As well as being a jazz musician I play classical music and pop. I love it all, so why not include it?” John Bungey interviews Manchester-based composer and bassist Joshua Cavanagh-Brierley, a man with no time for pigeon-holes whose work [...]
Sean Gibbs hails from Edinburgh but is now London based, after having spent four very productive years on the jazz course at Birmingham Conservatoire. He was always one of the stars there, both as a trumpeter and a composer. While there, [...]
Revival Room is both the name of the group and the title of the album coming out on Efpi Records, the Manchester-based label that has acted as a kind of musicians’ collective for jazz and improvising musicians in the North West. The [...]
It’s no doubt a cliché but it seems generally true that music from the west coast of America, and in particular west coast jazz, emphasises the optimistic, the redemptive and the transformational. And this is certainly true of the latest [...]
Familiar to jazz enthusiasts for having played double bass with many of the country’s best ensembles, it’s also probably fair to say that bassist Matt Ridley must be one of the most dapper musicians in British jazz (as can be [...]
The 31st of Jon Turney’s weekly selection (introduced HERE) sees an Ellington tune polished to a new lustre. The pianist and soprano saxophone player here were both immensely fertile artists. Yet something extra special seems to happen when they play [...]
