A foggy (Sun)day in London town might have felt like an unlikely time to engage with uncompromising, radical music, but that’s when Jasper Høiby was playing, and he’d sold out, so evidently people were eager to see him. Rescheduled due to a bout [...]
It was the end of the tour for US singer Dianne Reeves and there was a feeling of irrepressible excitement. Her band got into its stride with an instrumental Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise beginning and ending with a [...]
RYMDEN are Bugge Wesseltoft (piano), Dan Berglund (bass) and Magnus Öström (drums); it’s twenty-five years since Wesseltoft made his name with his “New Conception of Jazz” album, and nearly thirty since Berglund and Öström, together with Esbjörn Svensson, released their first record as the Esbjörn Svensson [...]
Earlier this year, Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek turned 75. In celebration of this landmark birthday, he took the stage at the Royal Festival Hall with his quartet as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, coinciding with the festival’s own [...]
It’s received wisdom that avant-garde jazz appeals only to a small audience. That was definitely not the case here at a packed Barbican. The audience for this concert had been warmed up nicely by a ferocious bout of free improvisation [...]
So many European festivals have lost funding this year, as political crisis piles on economic crisis and governments cut back. The Belgrade Jazz Festival was no exception, though the budget cuts came at alarmingly short notice, and not only from [...]
Disc 1: Mississippi River Blues Disc 2: Fort Valley Blues Disc 3: Out in the Cold Again Disc 4: Boot That Thing Disc 5: Two White Horses Standin’ in Line Disc 6: Jack O’ Diamonds Containing music originally released in [...]
A slow string bass groove deep enough to sink into, embroidered from the drums, was an immediately seductive, no-nonsense start to this riveting early show at a sold-out Pizza Express. By the time Linda May Han Oh and Jeff Ballard – an orchestra in [...]
Every year the London Jazz Festival’s opening gala: Jazz Voice at Royal Festival Hall sets the tone for the festival’s commencement and gives a taster of the wide variety of vocalists both locally and internationally that are contributing to the [...]
This year, JazzFest Berlin, presenting its 59th edition, returned to its natural home, the Berliner Festspiele, a venue near perfect for a jazz festival due to its size and flexibility. The programme, as in recent editions, was based on four elements, the Artist [...]
