On Thursday 10 October, French guitarist / singer / band leader Benoit Viellefon is launching his new album Out of Dates at The Brunswick, Hove with a concert by his Hot Club. Benoit Viellefon, originally from Northern France, has led [...]
I love the work of Italian, Cuba-born author Italo Calvino (1923-1985), so I was immediately drawn to a new piece of music inspired by his work. He has inspired many artists, composers, and film-makers; wrote libretti for operas by Luciano [...]
On International Women’s Day 8 March 2024, British soul, jazz and R&B singer Sarah Jane Morris launched her new album The Sisterhood. It is her tribute to ten iconic women singers and songwriters, who have had a massive influence on [...]
Sarah Jane Morris has a new show, The Sisterhood. “I have written ten songs about the lives of ten female singers and singer-songwriters who have inspired me over the years and who have made their marks on musical history”, she [...]
This new release is the first that I have come across devoted entirely to arrangements of the music of English composer and jazz giant Mike Westbrook. And who better for such an endeavour than saxophonist Chris Biscoe, who occupies a unique [...]
The dedication on this new album from guitarist/composer Bill Frisell is “to dear old friends”. It’s a beautiful piece of work, infused with melancholy and wistfulness. It is redolent of “the strange time we’re in”, as Frisell puts it – [...]
This second collection of reworked tunes from the Blue Note archives reminded me of the samplers of my youth. You recognise a few names and the rest – well you hope you will discover some great new musicians to look [...]
Things Happen That Way is Dr John’s final studio album – he was working on it when he died unexpectedly aged 77 in 2019. The project was something he’d been planning for years – a look back to some early [...]
At last, Bertrand Tavernier’s ‘Round Midnight is re-released today (9 May 2022) on Blu-ray by Criterion. The film, originally made in 1986, is master film director Tavernier’s impressionistic love letter to the Black American bebop musicians who, escaping the appalling [...]
Voice on Shellac is the new album from songwriter/guitarist Virginie Lacour-Puiboube (VL-P) and her talented septet Laughing with the Raindrops. Lacour-Puiboube is a Parisienne who settled in London in the late 1980s, and who has played variously with all-women Reggae [...]
