There are quiet heroes. Mike Westbrook is one of them. Since the early 1970s, the English pianist, composer and horn player has been offering elegant, rich and intelligent music that is off […]
Mike Westbrook at 85 – the Citizen Jazz interview
Peter Bacon
Idler
Kurt Elling/SNJO – ‘Apparition Bridge’ (Scottish tour 18-21 Nov)
Kurt Elling and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra are back together with a new collaboration – they are building an Apparition Bridge. Rob Adams reports: Works by the late Esbjorn Svennson, Danish bassist […]
Tony Coe & John Horler (‘Dancing in the Dark’ live duet album on Gearbox, release date 13 August 2021)
An hour of unrehearsed live interaction on a festival stage back in 2007 provides John Fordham with ‘a rejuvenating late-career bonus at the end of a sombre year for performing artists’. He […]
A Celebration of Keith Tippett (various venues, Bristol, 1-2 October)
The unfailingly creative pianist and composer Keith Tippett, who died last Summer, worked in a remarkable range of styles and settings over 50 years of music-making. So the idea of an event […]
Saadet Türköz & Beat Keller – ‘We Are Strong’
Saadet Türköz & Beat Keller – We Are Strong(Chinabot label, available on download and cassette. Album review by Tony Dudley-Evans) Saadet Türköz is the daughter of Kazakh parents who were expelled from the East […]
20 composers share £½ million Paul Hamlyn awards
Jazz musicians Cassie Kinoshi, Soweto Kinch, Yazz Ahmed and Tim Garland are among composers each receiving Paul Hamlyn awards of £25,000 with no strings attached. Peter Bacon reports: The Paul Hamlyn Foundation […]
Samara Joy – ‘Samara Joy’
Samara Joy – Samara Joy(Whirlwind Recordings WR4776. Album review by Adam Sieff) There have been plenty of good things written about the 21- year-old New Yorker Samara Joy since she won the […]
Michael Mantler: ‘Coda – Orchestral Suites’
Michael Mantler: Coda – Orchestral Suites(ECM. Review by Tony Dudley-Evans) Michael Mantler, the composer and trumpet player from Austria, has brought out two albums on the ECM label in which he looks back at and […]
Maridalen – ‘Maridalen’
Maridalen – Maridalen(Jazzland 377 935 6. Album review by Peter Bacon) The wooden Maridalen church, a former mission house from the 1880s, lies in a valley north of Oslo and not far […]
Julian Lage – ‘Squint’
Julian Lage – Squint(Blue Note. Album review by John Bungey) If your local jazz club had a huge whip-round or received a vast council grant (OK I’m dreaming), who would you want […]
David Burke – ‘Giant Steps: Diverse Journeys in British Jazz’
David Burke – Giant Steps: Diverse Journeys in British Jazz(Desert Hearts. Review by Tony Dudley-Evans) Giant Steps presents short chapters on 25 musicians from the British Caribbean, African and Asian (including West Asia) […]
Håkon Kornstad – ‘Out Of The Loop’
Håkon Kornstad – Out Of The Loop(Jazzland. Album review by Peter Bacon) This album is the result of a session in Sofienberg Church in Oslo at the beginning of March 2020, which […]
Sachal Vasandani (new duo recording with Romain Collin, ‘Midnight Shelter’, out 23 Apr on Edition)
Singer Sachal Vasandani is anything but “the traditional male jazz vocalist”. He chatted by phone to Nicky Schrire to discuss his latest musical offering: Sachal Vasandani has one of the most distinctive […]
Thandi Ntuli (‘Indaba Is’ – new South African music on the Brownswood label)
Nicky Schrire, for LondonJazz News, reconnected with Thandi Ntuli (the two overlapped while jazz students at the University of Cape Town) to ask her about the new compilation of South African music […]
Sibongile Khumalo (1957-2021) – a tribute by Nomfundo Xaluva (*)
Nomfundo Xaluva, now a lecturer at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town, writes in tribute to the woman who was a “mother” to her and her fellow South […]
