Review and pictures by John Watson Town Hall, Birmingham UK 20-11-2016 “This one is for the ladies . . .” – Herbie Hancock, Town Hall, Birmingham, 1975. “This one is for the ladies . . .” - Robert Glasper, Town… Read More ›
Featured
Ben Lee Quintet – In The Tree
(Stoney Lane Records) The band line-up is refreshingly different – guitar, alto saxophone, trombone, organ and drums, and the tunes are as well. A couple – Folk Theme and Beginning Of The End – are adapted from the Devon-born, Exeter and… Read More ›
Ambrose Akinmusire and Dhafer Youssef
Review by Jon Turney EFG London Jazz Festival Barbican, London 19-11-2016 A classy double bill, this, with Ambrose Akinmusire’s regular quartet up first and getting straight down to business after the briefest of band intros. There were no further announcements,… Read More ›
London Sinfonietta & Marius Neset
Review by Liam Izod EFG London Jazz Festival Jerwood Hall, LSO St Luke’s, London 18-11-2016 Norway and Britain – an alliance of EU refuseniks. But if a collaboration between Norway’s foremost jazz talent and London’s premier contemporary chamber orchestra is… Read More ›
Miles Davis Quintet – Freedom Jazz Dance – The Bootleg Series Vol.5
(Columbia Legacy/Sony) Official bootleg releases usually feature out-takes, live and studio sessions not previously released. This fifth set in the Miles Davis Bootleg Series is a bit different. It features every sound recorded by Teo Macero that went to make… Read More ›
Harry Allen Septet
Review by Peter Vacher EFG London Jazz Festival 606 Club, London 16-11-2016. Having observed the much-vaunted AZIZA quartet sacrifice valid ideas for interminable noise and creativity for mindless repetition just a night before at Cadogan Hall, it was both a… Read More ›
Two Birmingham players awarded Take Five opportunity
It can be a gruelling climb for young jazz musicians trying to make a career in this music. That’s where the Take Five scheme, started by the Serious organisation and now in its 12th year, comes in. It provides a… Read More ›
Anoushka Shankar
Review and picture by Garry Corbett Symphony Hall, Birmingham UK 10-11-2016 The sitar in popular music has a chequered history. The 1960s of course raised its profile somewhat with the adoption of the instrument by a certain band and in… Read More ›
Is this the perfect song for these days?
Don’t you just love serendipity? For the past few days I’ve had Tony Bennett in my head. A very specific Tony Bennett. The one who, in 1976, stood in a recording studio not far from Bill Evans at the piano… Read More ›
Join the bass men gathering tomorrow to remember Tom Baxter
Birmingham’s jazz community will come together tomorrow evening to remember one of their own, and one who went too soon: Tom J Baxter. Organiser of this charity fundraising gig, Alicia Gardener-Trejo, explains: “Tom was a bass player at Birmingham Conservatoire… Read More ›
Andrew Bain’s Embodied Hope Quartet
Review and pictures by John Watson CBSO Centre, Birmingham UK 12-11-16 “Jazz can save the world – right?” Drummer Andrew Bain posed the question to the audience at his Jazzlines concert. Some of us were nodding hopefully, and he added: “Or maybe… Read More ›
New CDs by London Jazz Festival performers
There’s wall-to-wall jazz this week down at the EFG London Jazz Festival. Whether or not you can get to any events is down to the busyness of your diary and your proximity to The Big Quince. But there’s no excuse for… Read More ›
Émile Parisien & Vincent Peirani + Nikki Yeoh
Review by Peter Slavid EFG London Jazz Festival Kings Place, London 11-11-2016 The opening night of the London Jazz festival got off to a bad start for me since I had to head into London in a tube train full… Read More ›
Back on the Balkans beat
Words and pictures by John Watson Belgrade Jazz Festival 26 to 30-10-2016 Pancevo Jazz Festival 03 to 06-11-2016 It’s a mystery to me how I managed to miss out on a country’s marvellous jazz scene for so many years. Great… Read More ›
The London Jazz Festival is there – and some of it will be here
It’s arrived – the biggest UK jazz festival of the year gets underway today in London. The EFG London Jazz Festival runs until Sunday 20 November. There are far too many highlights to mention here – the best way to think about… Read More ›
Speak Low
Review and pictures by Brian Homer The mac, Birmingham UK 09-11-2016 Strange Fruit is very hard song to do because of getting the tone of it right and because Billie Holiday did such definitive versions of it. So not many… Read More ›
Tender buttons, Spike and Sharp – exciting events in Huddersfield
That jazz festival that’s about to start in the British capital might be drawing a lot of attention but there are some extremely exciting events happening further north that deserve your attention. They explore the region where jazz and the… Read More ›
