Saxophonist Phil Bancroft has gone through some significant musical and extra-musical changes of late. Relocating from busy Edinburgh to rural East Lothian, he also recently completed a lengthy period of study into advanced rhythmic concepts that he feels has fundamentally [...]
French alto saxophonist Pierrick Pédron came to my attention over a decade ago with strangely brilliant pair of recordings for ACT Music. Kubic’s Monk (2012) found him approaching Thelonious Monk with a piano-less quartet featuring trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, and the [...]
Thinking of the great post-bop piano trios of my lifetime, few if any can match the trio of Leipzig-born pianist Joachim Kühn with Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Daniel Humair. An instinctive elision of the harmonic sophistication of Tyner and Corea and [...]
At this point in his career, Oxford-born pianist, organist and composer Alexander Hawkins really needs little introduction. A virtuosic improviser who can draw on seemingly infinite musical frame of reference, each of his half dozen or so recordings for the [...]
If the title of this, the debut album by the quartet of London-based saxophonist Sam Norris, suggests that the listener should approach the music with a degree of patience, that wouldn’t begin to reveal the full complexity of the conceit. [...]
The music of Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala can sometimes be difficult to place within the canon. Equally at home tearing it up in a small intimate jazz club as performing with an orchestra in a prestigious concert hall, he will [...]
The Leipzig-based trio of Olga Reznichenko (piano), Lorenz Heigenhuber (bass) and Maximilian Stadtfeld (drums) turned my head with their wonderfully nuanced 2022 debut Somnambule (Traumton). Conceived as a series of imaginary dream sequences, the classically leaning and melodically rich music [...]
In his sleeve notes to this, the second album by Swiss super-trio Helveticus, Manfred Papst wryly observes that the three musicians “could be grandfather, father and son”. In terms of their ages they are indeed separated by several generations, but [...]
There’s something about the career path of Munich-based saxophonist Moritz Stahl which speaks both to his great musical curiosity and patience. Gaining valuable experience as a member of the techno-influenced Jazzrausch Bigband, Stahl is also a regular collaborator with close [...]
From Loose Tubes, Perfect Houseplants and Polar Bear to session work with Prefab Sprout, Robert Wyatt and Radiohead, saxophonist Mark Lockheart has been at the centre of British music for four decades. Now a mainstay of the Edition Records stable, [...]
