This latest Julia Hülsmann release on ECM conceals plenty of treats below its surface. The Quartet is a Quintet for much of the recording, with pianist Hülsmann and the now established line-up of Uli Kempendorff on tenor, Marc Muellbauer on [...]
Any programme curated by Nod Knowles will delight and surprise in equal measure, and the Bath Jazz Weekend’s 2025 edition was no exception. Performances that drew explicitly on folk traditions ran like a thick seam through the programme, intertwined with [...]
A few rippling chords, a skipping bass pedal note, the caress of a cymbal is all took to set up a viscerally grooving pulse. Guest-with-the-trio tenor-man Mark Lockheart eased in with a breathy, sighing phrase to kick off Beatrice, ‘This [...]
Just for a moment, I thought I’d fallen through a wormhole and woken up in a Sonny Rollins/ Thelonious Monk gig at the legendary Five Spot in New York. A packed underground room with a bar in the corner, all [...]
An attractive lilting melody pauses, and an urgent, pulse-quickening riff kicks in, spun out by the bass and the piano player’s left – hand. It’s an exquisite blend of what could be calypso melded with a swirling folk dance, but [...]
Diving into Doublespeak, Julian Argüelles’ latest release, and Listening to (Get Down) and Give Me 50), was a thrilling reminder of the distinctive sound and the urgent sense of momentum the composer/ reedsman conjures. The tumbling, swirling tenor lines are [...]
It’s not hard to hear why pianist Clara Haberkamp is making waves on the German jazz scene. Plateaux is her new release, and her first that features Norwegian drummer Jarle Vespestad alongside her long-term collaborator Oliver Potratz on bass. The [...]
The steady, resonant, metallic tick of a cymbal; ghostly ripples from a guitar; a distant piano phrase that sounds like a dripping icicle; then softly, a swelling call from a saxophone with a dreamlike vocal quality. It’s an arresting opening [...]
It just took a swaying bass line that immediately made bodies move in sympathy, pattering brushes on the snare leaning on the offbeat, a rising and falling pentatonic pattern with trumpet and trombone blending with a signature harmony, and the [...]
Guitarist Jakub Klimiuk’s quintet album (un)balanced announces itself with twenty-seven seconds of piping, squawking bubbling arpeggios from a saxophone that pause, as if for thought, then launch off in a new direction, before finding a satisfying resolution. It’s the first [...]
