They really are Hurricane Bells. Back in 2018 Peter Shenai cast five bronze bells based on 3-D shapes derived from the formation assumed by Hurricane Katrina as it approached New Orleans. Byron Wallen has built their tones into a large-scale [...]
Just a few dates to go on their current European tour and James Brandon Lewis’s trio find themselves on stage in the somewhat chilly marquee that Cheltenham rather grandly call their Jazz Arena at 12.30 p.m. on a Sunday. That [...]
This striking new quintet sport an ambitious name, and while it’s not stated what it is they are transcending, their debut gig certainly showed that they have a lot to offer. You’d know that from the personnel, all richly experienced [...]
Bad Trad is the name of the band, as well as the album – led by London-resident drummer Jay Davis who here offers the first recording with a top drawer quartet of James Allsopp on reeds, Mike Soper on trumpet [...]
Twenty years ago or so I recall a happy Lee Konitz introducing Gwilym Simcock at the Pizza Express in Soho as the “wunderkind” at the piano. Now here’s mid-career Gwilym as half of a duo featuring a next-generation player, Emma [...]
The great Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem explores a new sound mix in this hauntingly elegiac new release. ECM stablemates Dave Holland and Django Bates return from his last recording, the gorgeous Blue Maqams eight years ago. But the quartet [...]
Bassist Marcus Vergette finds time for gigging and recording alongside his career as a sculptor, working the North Devon farm where he lives and, now, launching a record label, Nightjar Records, to highlight new music from the South West. Jon [...]
It seems a fair bet that the voice was the first instrument, and ever since humans began to sing, music, language, and musical language have been mixed together. They remain hard to disentangle. We turn to music to express what [...]
The subject of this welcome biography, of course, would tell us that a book about him would interest scarcely anyone, and that his playing left much to be desired, although he might have written one or two worthwhile compositions. Kenny [...]
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 [...]
