Alina Bzhezhinska and Tony Kofi Livestream from Alina’s house Sunday 22nd March, 2020 ‘Unprecedented’ is the word of the moment, but there is nothing new under the sun. In 1918, at the dawn of the jazz age, the Spanish flu swept the world with devastating consequences, due in part to the authorities’ failure to recognise […]
New Generation Jazz: Nye Banfield The Verdict, Brighton Friday 31st January, 2020 With influences from Wayne Shorter to Rachmaninoff, and playing experience from bebop to hip hop, young saxophonist leader and composer Nye Banfield brought his exciting band of forward-looking musicians for the last pre-Brexit and first New Generation Jazz gig of the current decade to The […]
Joe Armon-Jones Patterns, Brighton Sunday 9th February, 2020 The wave of new young jazz artists flooding out of South London and into the media’s jazz Overton window seems to have eased as its vanguard move to consolidate their advances, but in the meantime Joe Armon-Jones has been unobtrusively but persistently touring the country (when breaks […]
Levitation Orchestra Inexpressible Infinity (Astigmatic Records) A noteworthy feature of the recent upsurge of young London-based jazz musicians has been their re-engagement with the brief and critically rather overlooked era of experimentation that took place in the early 1970s, as jazz artists sought to modernise by incorporating all manner of contemporary influences, from rock rhythms […]
Lakecia Benjamin Pursuance: The Coltranes (Ropeadope) The grand tradition of reinterpreting and bringing to life the music of famous composers past has indeed been done countless times in the history of recorded jazz. Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington springs to mind, Monk’s reimagining of classic big band tunes arranged for a simple trio have since […]
Ian Shaw/Iain Ballamy/Jamie Safir What’s New (Silent Wish SWRCD1) A simple proposition, simply delivered – a programme of evergreen standards performed by the UK’s leading specialist in such matters, backed by his regular accompanist and, for good measure, further enriched by one of our most acclaimed tenor players. Shaw and Ballamy are very well matched: […]
The Goods Project My Left Hand Man (Richman Music) UK listeners may not be familiar with Richie Goods’ name, and more shame them, as he’s amassed a truly remarkable CV that includes work with everyone from Milt Jackson, Russell Malone, Vincent Herring, the Manhattan Transfer and Walter Beasley to Brian McKnight, DJ Jazzy Jeff & […]
Alabaster DePlume To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 (International Anthem IARC0030) London-by-Manchester and spoken word-by-jazz musician Alabaster DePlume visits a collection of instrumentals from various settings and situations. It’s aspirational music, in the sense of breathing in and out – arrangements are loose but by no means sloppy, and the compositions are largely unhurried […]
Terry Pack’s Trees Into The Woods (New Leaf NL 001) For those of you who are unfamiliar with ‘Trees’ Big Band it is a contemporary jazz orchestra led by bassist, composer, arranger and orchestrator Terry Pack containing some of the finest jazz musicians from South East England and beyond. Back in 2017 they launched their […]
New Generation Jazz: North Ark The Verdict, Brighton Friday 20th December, 2019 Pianist Joe Hill released North Ark’s eponymous debut album back in 2018 and since then they’ve appeared at last year’s Love Supreme Festival. Usually the band features alto saxophonist Tom Smith and trumpeter James Davison, but for this New Generation Jazz performance they […]