Table of contents for March 2022 in Jazzwise

The 2022 Cheltenham Jazz Festival returns from Wednesday 27 April to Monday 2 May with a bumper lineup to mark not just a full in-person return, but also its 25th anniversary edition. Following its cancellation in 2020 due to a UK-wide lockdown and its partial digital return in 2021, this year’s programme runs the gamut of crowd-pleasing headliners – with stars such as Gregory Porter, Jamie Cullum, Emeli Sandé and Imelda May with the Ronnie Scott’s Big Band all headlining the Big Top – to a wide-ranging core jazz programme packed with top international names and the cream of the current UK scene performing in the Arena, Parabola Arts Centre, Town Hall, on the Free Stage in the Montpellier Gardens festival site and at participating venues around the picturesque Cotswold…

Oh the irony of yet more Groundhog Days thanks to repetition of news cycles clogged with details about lockdown busting booze-ups at No. 10 - ‘Down-In-One’ - Street. Another serious effect of lockdowns is that musicians are still facing tough times, with grassroots venues bearing the brunt of December’s Omicroninduced losses. As the Music Venues Trust (MVT) reported in December, a survey of the sector showed attendance at shows dropped by 23%, with over 140,000 ‘no shows’ from ticket holders resulting in a 27% decline in gross income. As MVT CEO Mark Davyd puts it: “It feels like we are back exactly where we were in March 2020, when confusing government messaging created a ‘stealth lockdown’ – venues apparently able to open but in reality, haemorrhaging money at a rate…

1 Lily-O by Sam Amidon “Listening to Lily-O makes me feel passionate about life and longing for something deeper. I want to embrace the present and live every moment just like an animal without concept of time, as well as purely trusting my instincts.” 2 The Essential Joyce 1970-1996 by Joyce “This record is pure positivity for me. Listening to tracks like ‘Feminina’ and ‘Aldeia de Ogum’ makes me want to move and puts a smile on my face. It represents female strength, sensuality, affirmation as well as lightness of being without restraints.” 3 Held on the tips of fingers by Polar Bear “The warmth of sound, heaviness of groove, beauty of composition and originality of each track makes me feel love and excitement about life, about being a musician…

It’s not just the cover art – a sort of trailer for the movie Blazing Saddles – that caught people’s attention. It was the innovative sax-bass-drums set-up, which has since become an established instrumentation for all sorts of people, and the fact that NYC colossus Rollins was working with California names such as Shelly Manne and Ray Brown. Although domiciled there, Brown was still touring with Oscar Peterson, while Manne was so busy in the studios and so versatile that he was never solely identified with ‘West Coast Jazz’. No longer contracted to the Prestige label, Sonny recorded this trio in March 1957 while visiting the West Coast as a member of Max Roach’s group (in which Kenny Dorham replaced the departed Clifford Brown). Of course, the album title itself…

Montreux Jazz Festival and BMG have announced the next instalment in the Montreux Years series with the release of John McLaughlin: The Montreux Years on 4 March 2022. Curated and compiled by McLaughlin himself, the album is a collection of his finest performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival between 1978 and 2016, which have been beautifully restored and remastered at Metropolis. The recordings will be available in multi-format configurations, including audiophile triple vinyl (for the first time), as well as double and single CDs, and hi-res streaming audio. All but one of these tracks has been previously released on the 17-CD Warner Bros 2003 box set, The John McLaughlin Montreux Concerts, but are now available in a far more digestible package. One of the most influential guitarists in jazz, John…

“Let us now turn to the bloodbath,” Jazznytt magazine’s reviewer Jørgen Schyberg shivered when Supersilent’s debut triple-album Supersilent 1-3 (1998) introduced a new, shocking Nordic sound, repudiating Jan Garbarek’s ECM school, and conjuring not icy fjords but a rock club's sweat-drenched heat. Drawing on prog and jazz-rock, and at first dubbed ‘impro-noise’, it’s a specifically Norwegian, increasingly fertile scene, currently including Motorpsycho, Elephant9, Krokofant and Hedvig Mollestad. Red Kite’s second album, Apophenian Bliss, puts them in the wild front rank of that scene, capable of explosively improvising as if Led Zeppelin were a jazz band, yet with the range to write ‘Apophenia’, a sultry, melodic tone poem anchored by Black Sabbath-like bass. The band’s skyscraping guitarist and writer, Even Helte Hermansen, borrowed that bass riff from his doom metal band,…

Melissa Aldana begins by offering me a tour of her flat, a Through The Keyhole moment for the Zoom generation. Apologising for the messiness of the place as she carries our video call down the hallway, she informs me that her renovation is halfway there, having moved into her Brooklyn apartment during last year’s lockdown. New York offers more than just top-tier musical sparring partners – there are practical benefits to having a clan of jazz musicians in the vicinity. After Aldana found herself in need of a place to live on her own, step forward fellow tenorist Seamus Blake. The space she bought from Blake (who'd relocated to Utrecht) is a small one-bed, to which Aldana has added a grand, slightly cumbersome new purchase – her own recording booth,…

12 Stars Blue Note 3882781 (CD, LP, DL) EDITOR’S CHOICE Melissa Aldana (ts), Lage Lund (g), Sullivan Fortner (p), Kush Abadey (d) and Pablo Menares (b). Rec. date not stated It’s a brave move indeed to make a label debut as introspective as Aldana does here, but equally remarkable is how 12 Stars manages it without ever feeling forced or leaving the listener overwrought. Aldana’s first leader disc on Blue Note already feels like an album of the year contender. And yet, it never sounds particularly sure of itself. It’s a music of chattering sentences and few full stops; when layers are peeled away, its bedrock of quiet hums and snuffles emerges. Aldana’s sweet-singing high register has long been a strength of her playing, but here it takes on a…

Live At Last Ubuntu UBU 0100 (CD, LP, DL) EDITOR’S CHOICE Omar (v, perc), Quentin Collins (t, flhn), Brandon Allen (ts, f), Ross Stanley (ky) and James Maddren (d). Rec. 29 May 2021 It’s remarkable to think that over the course of a 30-plus year career, Omar has never recorded a live album. Neither has QCBA, the organ-tastic jazz quartet co-led by trumpeter Quentin Collins and saxophonist Brandon Allen, with whom the British nu-soul legend has worked since 2010. This eight-track album, commissioned by Ubuntu label boss Martin Hummel and recorded at the Jazz Café in London in May 2021, deftly captures the essence of both acts – the falsetto-tobaritone range of Omar’s voice, QCBA’s 1960s and 70s-era Blue Note influences – along with all the excitement of a live…

Bodhiheart (featuring Mark Egan) Love Rules Self-release The cellist Noah Hoffeld at times can sound like a pedal steel guitar or an achingly romantic classical singer heading this meditative, Frisell-ish ensemble that features minimalist piano, Indian Tabla and ex-Metheny sideman Mark Egan’s Jaco-inspired fretless bass. SH Bootstrappers (Elliott Sharp, Melvin Gibbs, Don Mckenzie) Xenolith Klanggalerie This trio, led by influential guitarist Sharp, have a history of revolving-doors personnel since 1990; the new line-up teleport the Hendrix trio into the world of experimental improv, art-rock, contemporary classical and more contemporary beats with some stylishly leftfield funkiness. SH Cooper-Moore & Stephen Gauci Conversations Vol.2 577 Records Another collaboration between pianist Cooper-Moore and tenor saxophonist Gauci finds them on inventive and typically astringent form on seven varied improvisations. The pair have worked frequently…

Classical BROUGHT TO YOU BY The Hermes Experiment Song Delphian DCD34274 The Hermes Experiment are a vibrant, deeply musical quartet. This follow-up to their previous album, Here We Are, is equally delightful and, if a touch less edgy, focuses more on lyricism in the 18 songs – apparent right from the start, with double-bassist Marianne Schofield’s enchanting arrangement of Olivia Chaney’s ‘Roman Holiday’. Only one composer – Emily Hall, an extract from whose cycle ‘Befalling’ closes the programme – featured on its predecessor, and the new disc casts its stylistic net wider, delving back to Lili Boulanger (the delicate, impressionistic ‘Reflets plus Attente’) and a love song (setting Rückert) by Clara Schumann, both in arrangement, of course. Indeed, two-thirds of the songs are rescorings of remarkable acuity by the four…

BBC RADIO 2 88-91 FM Big Band Special (Mon, 11pm), Jamie Cullum show (Tues, 7pm) BBC RADIO 3 90-93 FM J to Z (Sat 5pm) EFG London Jazz Festival 2021 Highlights: Mark Kavuma in concert, plus Nate Smith’s inspirations (19 February). Highlights from Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s 60th anniversary celebration live from SF Jazz, plus Alfa Mist’s inspirations (26 February). Artemis (pictured above) in concert, plus Jihye Lee’s inspirations (5 March) The best in jazz – past, present and future (12 March) Charles Mingus Centenary Special (19 March) Marquis Hill’s inspirations (26 March) Jazz Record Requests (Sun 4pm) Freeness with Corey Mwamba (Sat, Midnight) BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC DAB Gilles Peterson, Sat 3pm JAZZ FM DAB, Sky, Alexa, smartphone, tablet and online at jazzfm.com (Mon – Fri) 6am-6.30am Business Breakfast,…

Metheny magic Thank you for the great article/interview with Pat Metheny in the December/January issue. I have followed Pat’s career since Bright Size Life. I agree with Pat’s comment that he is playing way better than he used to. Pat’s 2021 live recording of his Side-Eye band is my favourite record of the year and also is one of my favourites from his career. I have caught two versions of Side-Eye live, in 2019 and 2021. Both shows were excellent, and Pat’s playing was memorable. In your article Pat stated that James Francies and the five drummers he has used in Side-Eye are very special musicians. Based on the two shows and record I completely agree with him. I started noticing Pat playing better and composing better starting with the…

The full line-up for the Jazzwise 25th Anniversary Festival, which takes place at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club from 21-27 March, has now been confirmed and includes international jazz names and high-energy late shows. Additional names now confirmed include a double bill of leading Danish bassist Jasper Høiby and his Planet B Trio, followed by jazz vocalist and spoken word artist Anthony Joseph (main picture) and his all-star band – both appearing on Thursday 24 March. A further addition to the closing weekend programme is exciting US trumpeter Marquis Hill (pictured, inset), best known for his global tours with bass boss Marcus Miller, and now signed to Edition Records for his solo album New Gospel Revisited – who plays on Sunday 27 March with a powerful group featuring drum star Makaya…

The April issue of Jazzwise, the 25th Anniversary Edition, will include an exclusive 15-track Ubuntu Music Catalogue Compilation featuring tracks from many of the London-based label’s rich and diverse roster of jazz artists. These include New York All-Stars, Roy Mor, Reuben Fowler Big Band, James Copus, Darius Brubeck Quartet, Andrew McCormack, Noemi Nuti, Matt Ridley and this month’s cover stars, Omar and QCBA among others. The label was founded by two individuals with complementary backgrounds: Martin Hummel, Chief Executive & Executive Producer, who has nearly 40 years of extensive experience within marketing, communications and advertising; and Quentin Collins, co-founder, producer, musician, composer, arranger and accomplished trumpet player who has toured the world. Order your copy now at www.jazzwise.com/subscribe…

On that rare occasion when a musician names a club after themselves they at least do the right thing and don’t attempt to play there every night: Even Ronnie Scott restricted his appearances to occasional slots outside of regular MC duties. But step back with us now to March 1957 and the Ken Colyer Club at Studio 51, 10-11 Great Newport Street W1, hovering on that invisible border twixt Soho and Covent Garden, haunt of several jazz players, drinking enthusiasts and the Dobell’s crowd. On this particular week the occasionally irascible trumpeter and New Orlean’s purist clearly knew no shame and booked himself for the entire week, leaving a non-too generous slot for The Storyville Jazzmen on the Wednesday. Nowadays Colyer’s legacy is marked at the site with a Blue…

US pianist Brad Mehldau returns with his explorative, sometimes hard-hitting, often rhapsodic new album, Jacob’s Ladder, via Nonesuch on 18 March. Featuring Mehldau’s labelmates including mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, drummer Mark Guiliana, singer/multi-instrumentalist Becca Stevens, NYC saxophonist Joel Frahm and others, the album very much picks up where his 2019 conceptual opus Finding Gabriel left off, stretching into new territory beyond his formative Radiohead covers and the groove-fuelled improv of his duo project Mehliana. Commenting on the prevailing influences on Jacob’s Ladder, the pianist said: “Progressive rock – was the music of my childhood before I discovered jazz. It was my gateway to the fusion of Miles Davis, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra and other groups, which in turn was the gateway to more jazz. The prog…

Whenever they’re gigging with a singer, QCBA like to come onstage first, laying out their chops with an original instrumental, reinforcing their credentials as an A-list quartet with a hard-hitting trumpet/sax frontline, groove-friendly Hammond organist and drummer of power and sensitivity. The tune they play will be cherry-picked from a repertoire informed by the greats of Blue Note, crafted over their two albums – 2011’s What’s It Gonna Be? and 2016’s Beauty in Quiet Places – and honed by decades of live work. The crowd, readied for a jazz set, get a feel for the colours to be daubed on the songs to follow. The songs they played at the Jazz Café in north London on Friday, 29 May, 2021, came courtesy of none other than British nu-soul legend Omar.…

Binker & Moses Feeding the Machine Gearbox (CD/LP) EDITOR’S CHOICE Binker Golding (ss, ts), Moses Boyd (d) and Max Luthert (live tape loops, modular syn, elec). Rec. March 2021 Binker and Moses arrived with a bang plus an attitude that had more in common with West Coast Get Down than the UK jazz scene when they debuted with Dem Ones in 2015. Going on to win the MOBO jazz award, this intensely energetic incantatory duo pre-empted a ‘new wave’ of jazz making connections to a young contemporary audience and resurrecting the ‘Jazz isn’t Dead’ headlines. But the Mercury-shortlisted drummer Boyd and saxophonist Golding are not the type to rest on their laurels. There was a welcome expansion of resources on 2017’s Journey to the Mountain of Forever with notable contributions…

Apophenian Bliss RareNoiseRecords RNR133 (CD, LP, DL) EDITOR’S CHOICE Even Helte Hermansen (baritone g), Bernt André Moen (ky), Trond Frones (b) and Torstein Lofthus (d). Rec. 27-28 February 2021 Elephant9’s recent epic releases have made them the breakthrough band in Norway’s hard jazz-rock scene, which uses electric Miles and metal as the volcanic bedrock for freaky improv flights. Red Kite are a sort of scene super-group, including Elephant9’s drummer and Bushman’s Revenge’s guitarist, but this second album confirms they occupy their own territory. This is thickly textured, almost claustrophobically heavy music, powered by Torstein Lofthus’ torrentially tumbling drums, a restless, shaping energy suggesting Elvin Jones in Led Zep. Prog’s classical ornateness is trampled underfoot, subsumed into Bernt André Moen’s wild Rhodes riffing and Even Helte Hermansen’s towering guitar squalls on…

★★★★★ Landmark Recording ★★★★ Excellent ★★★ Good ★★ Average ★ Disappointing Dizzy Gillespie and Lalo Schifrin Studio and Live Collaborations 1960-62 Acrobat CD 3408 (CD) Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Ernie Royal, Joe Wilder, John Frosk, Carl Warwick, Nick Travis (t), Urbie Green, Frank Rehak, Britt Woodman, Paul Faulise, J J Johnson, George Matthews, Arnette Sparrow (tb), Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller, Jimmy Buffington, Al Richman, Morris Scott, William Lister, (frh), Don Butterfield (tu), Leo Wright (as, fl), Benny Carter, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Ventura (reeds), Lalo Schifrin (p), Elek Bacsik, Jose Paula (g), Art Davis, Bob Cunningham, Chris White (b), Chuck Lampkin, Mel Lewis, Rudy Collins (d), Candido Camera, Jack Del Rio, Willie Rodriguez, Ray Barretto, Julito Collazo, Jose Mangual, Pepito Riestra (perc) and Carmen Costa (perc, v). Rec. November 1960 –…

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Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer Philip Watson Faber & Faber £20 (HB) Stephen Foster’s Victorian parlour song, ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ is of course the perfect title for Watson’s first book, a weighty tome that, like a Frisell tune, takes its time slowly revealing the inner workings of its subject matter. And indeed, like a Frisell composition, Watson, in casting his net so wide in terms of the breadth of people he has interviewed, can disappear down rabbit holes that lead nowhere in particular. But that is the charm of both this book, and Frisell’s music. You are there for the journey, to explore those highways and byways, rather than to be led by either the biographer or Frisell to some revelatory endpoint. Foster’s song has become a staple of Frisell’s performances, notably…

Leading UK saxophonist and bandleader Courtney Pine OBE launched his first podcast, Courtney Pine Global, on Tuesday 1 February, which, he says, will be “promoting the musicians and music he’s passionate about”. The podcast is created by Jazz Pod, a partnership between Pine and producers Sarah Stringer and Stevie Cripps, who were responsible for producing the saxophonist’s BBC Radio 2 series Jazz Crusade, which ran during the 2010s. The Courtney Pine Global podcast will feature a new hour length programme every other Tuesday featuring the latest tracks from the jazz world. Introduced by Courtney, who plays Jazzwise’s 25th Anniversary Festival at Ronnie Scott’s on 25 March, they will be playing full tracks with no talkovers or early fades and namechecks will be given to all the musicians on the track,…

Beverly Kenney Sings For Playboys (Decca Records, 1958) Beverly Kenney, a wonderful singer who died tragically by her own hand in 1960 at the age of just 28, made six LPs during her lifetime. Sings For Playboys may be the best of them, but it’s ill-served by this crass cover, dreamed up by a hack in Decca’s art department, who was perhaps inspired by a furtive lunchtime thumb-through of Hugh Hefner’s then-fashionable soft porn rag Playboy. Not only is the cover (and title) completely inappropriate for an album of standards beautifully and intimately sung by Kenney (with spot-on accompaniment by bassist Joe Newman and pianist Ellis Larkins), but it’s just plain weird. Who bothers to sing to a suspiciously floppy paper bunny for starters (not much of a catch, is…

Whirlwind Recordings will release the third and final instalment of saxophonist Walter Smith III and guitarist Matthew Stevens’ acclaimed In Common project on 11 March – this time featuring a new all-star rhythm section of pianist Kris Davis, bass boss Dave Holland and drummer extraordinaire Terri Lyne Carrington. Previous guests included Nate Smith, Linda May Han Oh and Marcus Gilmore. Now on In Common 3, Kris Davis takes the piano chair vacated by Micah Thomas and completing the line-up are two stellar musicians: Holland and Carrington on bass and drums respectively. Commenting on the music, Smith said: “It’s longer, freer, and more spontaneous,” with the band stretching out on their inventive ‘onepage songs’ written with specific musicians in mind. The band also set out on a European tour with an…

Just a few people are to be found at the World’s End. The large, roomy pub in Finsbury Park, North London, has the Africa Cup Of Nations football tournament on big screens and a sound system with ceiling-stationed speakers to enable drinkers to enjoy their ‘work meetings’, government-approved or not. Arun Ghosh has a passive eye on a clash between Cameroon and Ethiopia and an active ear on the strains of David Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, whose spindly, sitar-like guitar makes his face light up as soon as it rings out. The clarinetist covered the song several years ago. The hour or so of largely 1970s and 80s chart faves that provide a soundtrack to our conversation meets with favour from the horn player, who is known…

Landmark Recording Excellent Good Average Disappointing Jacob Anderskov Spirit of the Hive ILK Records ILK325 (LP, DL) Jacob Anderskov (cond, comp), Anders Banke, Francesco Bigoni, Calum Builder, Maria Dybbrae, Carolyn Goodwin, Matthias Sigurdsson (f, c), Nils Davidsen (clo), Tomo Jacobsons, Asger Thomsen (b) and Halym Kim (d). Rec. November 2020 This LP from composer Anderskov, a project inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s classic 1901 essay La Vie des Abeille (The Life of the Bee) is long-windedly – if appropriately – subtitled “Swarming tracks for 10 improvising musicians”; and so it proves: massed flutes and clarinets scuttle and circle in a musical hive-mind, with a buzzing cello and clattering percussion adding to the organic, sometimes nebulous feel. Like a Pollock painting (or indeed a beehive), this music at first appears chaotic, but…

Seclused In Light Camoci (CD, DL) EDITOR’S CHOICE Arun Ghosh (ct, g, p, el b, prod), Idris Rahman, Chris Williams (ts, as), Myke Wilson, Dave Walsh (d) and Aref Durvesh (tabla). Rec. 2020 Over the last 15 years or so clarinetist-composer Arun Ghosh has created a body of recorded work that has broached important socio-cultural subjects, notably on But Where Are You Really From?, and Seclused In Light is also an outlet for deeply personal expression as well as musical ambition. To a great extent, this double album is Ghosh’s lockdown record and the large amount of music reflects a certain gravitas and desire to make a statement on the nature of mortality and mourning as well as resilience in the faces of loss [Ghosh’s father died as Covid peaked].…

Friends With Monsters Whirlwind Recordings WR4780 (CD, LP, DL) Nishla Smith (v), Aaron Wood (t, flhn), Richard Jones (p), Joshua Cavanagh-Brierley (b) and Johnny Hunter (d, perc). Rec. date not stated Released on Whirlwind, this debut album from Australian-born, Manchester-based vocalist and songwriter Nishla Smith provides a perfect showcase for her storytelling gifts. An overarching programme underpins the album, which sees Smith inventively mining – over the course of a single evening – her own battle with sleeplessness and fear of the dark. She adroitly weaves her songs into the distinctive quadrants of the night, with four interludes - the melancholic, reflective mood of ‘Twilight’, the frustration of ‘Midnight’, the semi-delirious state of ‘3am’, the sense of relief at ‘Dawn’ which finally offers the hope of sleep - acting as…

Calvin Keys Proceed With Caution Black Jazz RGM 1294 (CD, LP) Doug Carn Adam’s Apple Black Jazz RGM 1297 (CD, LP) Walter Bishop’s 4th Cycle Keeper Of My Soul Black Jazz RGM1283 (LP) Rudolph Johnson The Second Coming Black Jazz RGM1286 (LP) Collectively: Calvin Keys (g), Water Bishop Jnr, Kirk Lightsey, Doug Carn (p, el p, org), Kent Brinkley, Nyimbo Henry Franklin, Gerald Brown (b, el b), Leon Ndugu Chancler Doug Sides, Bahir Hassan (d) Rudolph Johnson, Charles Owens, Ronnie Laws (ts, ss, fl), Oscar Brashear (tpt, flgh), Owen Marshall, Shakur M.Abdullah, Big Black (perc) Thurman Green (tb) Joyce Green, John Conner and Doug Carn (v). Rec. 1973-74 Hip-hop producer Ali Shaheed-Muhammad would surely be among the first to place an order for this latest batch of Black Jazz reissues,…