It’s a fair bet that Thelonious Monk is the most performed jazz composer. Who else might be in the running? Ellington, of course. Gershwin, perhaps. Maybe Wayne Shorter, more recently. But for a composer for all occasions – to make [...]
Strange, sometimes, to be a musician these days. Live long enough, and you may get a call asking you to relate how it felt to play a concert whose recorded ghost is about to emerge from the archives fifty years [...]
In just a few years, Nod Knowles’ January jazz jamboree in Bath has become a bit of a local institution, as well as being the first notable jazz event of the year anywhere in the country. The programme for the [...]
Pianist Thandi Ntuli opened this richly varied evening with a sung recitation over characteristically rolling South African piano,that brought a questioning note to this gala night for the end of the London Jazz Festival. It was a celebration of the [...]
Master percussionist Zakir Hussein had to drop out of this tour, but any dampening of expectations attending Crosscurrents Trio’s return to the London Jazz Festival after five years was quickly dispelled when the three players took the stage. Eric Harland’s [...]
“What are you reading?”, a visitor asks? Oh, a book about Pat Metheny (visitor looks blank) explaining how his music works. Visitor: “Well, if the music needs someone to explain how it works, then obviously it doesn’t really work the [...]
What’s a conference for? Discussion, certainly. Decisions? Not essential. After the Jazz Promotion Network’s two-day bash in Bristol another feature, more nebulous but still positive, comes to mind. Now the meeting is established as a regular thing – it was [...]
Pianist Huw Warren, long one of the most versatile players to grace these isles, is a brilliant composer, improviser and leader, but also an outstanding accompanist. And, as decades of work with the peerless June Tabor, or his equally vital [...]
Satori’s opener ‘Old Happyhansel’, with its neat little tenor theme leading into a measured solo over a steady lope from the rhythm team, suggests a session in classic saxophone trio mode. That would be welcome if done this well. Josephine [...]
Jazz, even lovers of the music may agree, is a minority sport. (Yes, I know the Ezras won the Mercury Prize, but still…). By the same token, jazz journalism is more marginal still. If the number of people making some [...]
