In one sense Soweto Kinch has moved perfectly logically from his last project, The Legend Of Mike Smith, to his current one, Nonagram. It’s a natural seven (as in the deadly sins which Smith was working his way through) to… Read More ›
londonjazz news
LondonJazz: PREVIEW: March live highlights in Birmingham and surrounding areas
Editor-at-Large Peter Bacon picks the choice jazz events close to his home. And remember, it’s often quicker to get up to Birmingham than to get to the other side of London… Here is a bunch of gigs worth getting to… Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Benedikt Jahnel Trio – The Invariant
My favourite tracks on this album keep changing. At the moment it’s Mirrors with its dense structure and perfectly controlled transitions through nine-and-a-half minutes. It feels like a classical piece in the thoroughness of the writing and in the romantic… Read More ›
LondonJazz: INTERVIEW/CD PREVIEW/ TOUR DATES: Tim Armacost – Time Being (Whirlwind)
Swinging for me has always been the main attraction to playing jazz, but that has meant finding the way to feel the music together. The Lonely Woman idea led to these explorations of creating tension by playing in parallel spaces,… Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom – Otis Was A Polar Bear
She drives Boom Tic Boom not just through her drums but in her compositions which, while they may incorporate snatches of klezmer and chamber music counterpoint along with long-lined melodies and loose-limbed rhythms, do so in a really cohesive fashion…. Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: The Baylor Project – The Journey
The pair share a church background and the gospel feel is there right from the start, with Block Party, which opens with old-school dropping of needle onto vinyl and has a real party feel along with good-time handclaps Source: LondonJazz:… Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Escape Hatch, featuring Julian Argüelles – Roots Of Unity
The lovely thing about this band is its ability to stretch out and create all kinds of emotional colour, passionate drive and diversity of artistic interest from what might be esoteric base materials. Source: LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Escape Hatch, featuring… Read More ›
LondonJazz: REVIEW: Duke Ellington’s We Love You Madly at Birmingham Town Hall
Here the energy and fun which had built steadily during the first half erupted not only in a musically circling mass saxophone solo, but a physically circling piano solo. Source: LondonJazz: REVIEW: Duke Ellington’s We Love You Madly at Birmingham… Read More ›
LondonJazz: PREVIEW: February live highlights in the West Midlands
Editor-at-Large Peter Bacon picks the choice gigs close to his home. And remember, it’s often quicker to get up to Birmingham than to get to the other side of London. Source: LondonJazz: PREVIEW: February live highlights in the West Midlands
LondonJazz: REVIEW: Emulsion Festival at mac, Birmingham
Trish Clowes, with the help of Tom Harrison, held the fifth incarnation of her Emulsion Festival in Birmingham. The name encapsulates the idea of combining different styles of music in to a cohesive whole which nevertheless maintains the integrity of… Read More ›
LondonJazz: INTERVIEW: Avishai Cohen (with BBC Concert Orchestra – Only 2017 UK performance – Barbican. Thurs 9th Feb.)
Singing is one of the most difficult and scary things I do, it’s like going to the street with no clothes on. You are naked in front of everybody’s judgement, but it is such an intimate reflection of your heart,… Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Andrew Woodhead – Pocket Piano Improvisations
Armed with a tiny keyboard and a few twiddly knobs (technical term), he explores improvised sounds with, it seems, often as little reference to musical conventions of key, chord progression, melody and harmony as he can manage. Source: LondonJazz: CD… Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: John Abercrombie Quartet – Up And Coming
Those who like Abercrombie’s wider emotional range on his albums of 20 years ago might find his more recent work a little too consistently mellow. To my ears the range might be restricted but the subtlety within these more constrained… Read More ›
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Nguyên Le & Ngô Hồng Quang – Hà Nội Duo
Guitarist Nguyên Le’s albums have always been richly eclectic affairs Source: LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Nguyên Le & Ngô Hồng Quang – Hà Nội Duo
LondonJazz: REVIEW : Laura Jurd’s Dinosaur at the Hare & Hounds, Birmingham (first night of tour)
Already the arrangements on the recording were beginning to loosen and lengthen as the quartet explored their live malleability. Source: LondonJazz: REVIEW : Laura Jurd’s Dinosaur at the Hare & Hounds, Birmingham (first night of tour)
LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: Nick Dewhurst Band
The trumpeter has always had a soft spot for funk and fusion as well, and in his compositions he cleverly mixes these elements. Read my review of Suspect In You, the debut album from The Nick Dewhurst Band. Source: LondonJazz
LondonJazz: PREVIEW: South Coast Jazz Festival (Brighton and Shoreham, 16-29 Jan)
The English South Coast, where Londoners of yore went for therapy. Though they didn’t call it that in them days. Today, this therapeutic easing of the January blues comes in the form of top quality jazz… My news piece is… Read More ›
