Fraser Smith says of bebop music: “I just love listening to that style, and playing with people who love it too. And I think the more you get into it, the more […]
Fraser Smith Quartet. New album ‘Tip Top!’ (Ubuntu Music)
Ben Crosland (New album ‘Songs of Solace and Reflection’)
Ben Crosland has a new album, Songs of Solace and Reflection, showing his essence as “an unaffectedly lyrical composer of direct and evocative melodies that draw in the uninitiated and the jazz […]
Nicki Leighton-Thomas ‘One Good Scandal’ at the Playground Theatre
Nicki Leighton-Thomas (Playground Theatre. 18 October – One Good Scandal launch. Review by Lavender Sutton) Vocalist Nicki Leighton-Thomas has released a follow up album of songs by the well-known poet and lyricist […]
Nicki Leighton-Thomas (new album, lyrics by Fran Landesman: ‘One Good Scandal’)
“‘There’s an honesty and integrity to Fran Landesman’s songs,” says vocalist Nicki Leighton-Thomas. “Straight from knowledge and from the heart – and she wasn’t afraid to deal with the dark side.” Leighton-Thomas […]
Chris Batchelor (Zoetic tour, 9 June – 2 July)
After the pandemic twice scuppered the unveiling of some of the most idiomatically diverse new music of his versatile career, trumpeter /composer Chris Batchelor, with the quintet Zoetic, is now finally touring […]
#IWD 2022 – Nikki Iles (Ronnie Scott’s, 6 March)
Pianist, bandleader, composer and educator Nikki Iles is a central figure in British jazz. At LJN we are pleased start off this year’s series of International Women’s Day features, now in their […]
Ruth Goller’s Skylla. (On tour from 11 February 2022)
Bassist Ruth Goller completely defied expectations in July 2021 with her first album as leader, Skylla. Her trio with Lauren Kinsella and Alice Grant (with Nell Greco on two concerts) will be […]
Kevin Figes – Wallpaper Music
Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator Kevin Figes’ new album, Wallpaper Music, with eight original compositions written during lockdown is released this Friday 3 December, with a launch gig at the Vortex in […]
Acoustic Triangle (20th Anniversary UK tour, starts 18 September)
Acoustic Triangle (the trio of bassist Malcolm Creese, saxophonist/bass clarinettist Tim Garland and pianist Gwilym Simcock) is about to embark on a 20th Anniversary tour. Feature by John Fordham. In June 2001, […]
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 […]
Samara Joy (debut album, Whirlwind Recordings)
“I can’t sing like anyone else but me” says Samara Joy. The New York-born singer, who won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan Competition, is a rising star in jazz. Feature by John Fordham. […]
Julie Sassoon (new solo album ‘If You Can’t Go Outside…Go Inside’)
Since moving to Berlin more than a decade ago, Manchester-born pianist Julie Sassoon has forged a substantial career in Germany. She appears as solo pianist, with her quartet, and in duos such […]
Georgia Mancio/ Alan Broadbent (new album plus songbook for release 27 March)
The sense of a special relationship slowly evolving has been unmistakeable whenever the gifted and versatile British/Italian singer-songwriter Georgia Mancio reflects on her now eight year-old partnership with the Grammy-winning former Woody […]
Will Glaser – new album ‘Climbing In Circles’
Climbing In Circles (Ubuntu Music) is the “culmination of a slow-burning three-year project” by Nottinghamshire-born drummer Will Glaser in his trio with Matthew Herd and Liam Noble. He explained the background to […]
TRIBUTE: Tony Allen (1940- 2020) by John Fordham
John Fordham pays tribute to Tony Allen. Of all the popular sounds of the 20th century fired up by the spontaneity and rhythmic creativity of jazz, Afrobeat’s morphing of that music into […]
