Innehållsförteckning för May 2025 från Jazzwise

"Spring can hang you up the most"… or so the song goes… and yet, the arrival of some welcome sun is mirrored by some green shoots on the jazz scene it seems. We talk about the resilience of jazz musicians quite a lot in these pages, but more than that it’s the sheer perseverance of those in the arts that is a key, often under appreciated, skill. It’s this determined attitude that is finally starting to see the UK’s creative voices heard byArts Council England (see opposite) and for all the rhetoric being hurled at the UK and Europe from across the Atlantic, the upside is it’s spurred us on to work a little closer together with our European friends. Other milestones are being reached too: the 30th edition of…

A Bull in a Bop Shop There’s been a public house on the same site as the Bull’s Head, Barnes since 1672, according to historic records, but it took until late November 1959 to open a jazz club there in what was the pub’s former billiards room, and luckily without a single cue stick being broken over landlord Albert Tolley’s head in protest! By 1965, the Bull’s Head was presenting jazz seven nights a week with hip, knowledgeable programming that made it the go-to jazz joint south of the river, even being labelled, ‘the suburban Ronnie Scott’s’. In fact, the Bull’s Head ad in Melody Maker’s 15 May issue actually outstripped Ronnie’s that week with the great Dollar Brand Trio, which featured singer Sathima Bea Benjamin who he married the…

Bill Ashton, the founding father and driving force behind the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, has died of pneumonia, aggravated by a fall. He was 88. Bill’s legacy is multifaceted: it endures in the extraordinary success of the many jazz musicians who spent their formative years with NYJO, and in the band’s substantial discography as well as in the numerous publications and charts offered by Stanza Music, all overseen by Bill. William Michael Allingham (‘Bill’) Ashton was born in Blackpool, and began to play saxophone and clarinet while at Rossall School in nearby Fleetwood from 1950-55, and continued to perform during his RAF service. While at Oxford’s St Peter’s College where he read French, Bill founded the University Dance Band, the Modern Jazz Club and the Oxford University Big Band. Thus…

"I had good advice at the very start, that the prize is just keeping going,” Georgia Mancio reflects on her longevity in the music industry. “I’m not the type of person who makes five-year, 10-year plans. Maybe it would have been a good idea! Things have happened very organically.” The award-winning vocalist, lyricist and producer stands at a remarkable milestone – 25 years as an independent artist with nine albums to her name. Celebrating this quarter-century journey, she embarks on a 10-date tour alongside the release of her latest album, A Story Left Untold (Roomspin Records), co-written with the Grammy-winning pianist and composer, Alan Broadbent, with whom she’s written over 40 songs, published two books – and performed across Europe and the US during the past 12 years. A captivating…

Thomas Backman Nothing Self-release If you can make it through the abrupt, abrasive opener of Swedish saxophonist/composer Backman’s ‘I Shall But Drink The More’ and the intense ‘Scherzo Demoniaco’, the jarring mix of rap and surging strings eventually breaks into some calming widescreen melodies. The more you listen the more the contrasts make sense, with dark cinematic thrills aplenty here. (MF) Richard Baratta Looking Back Savant Records There’s a feeling that busy drummer and producer Baratta is letting off steam on this relaxed session. On the face of it, covers of James Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’ and Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ could fall flat, but the classy compadres tear into the artful arrangements, Vincent Herring’s alto sax soaring and Paul Bollenback’s gutsy guitar fired up by the leader’s free flowing stick…

Stomp Off Let’s Go – The Early Years of Louis Armstrong Ricky Riccardi Oxford University Press HB £26.99 It’s usual for biographers to tell their subject’s story in chronological order, but Ricky Riccardi’s third volume of his life of Louis Armstrong takes us back to the beginning, and the trumpeter’s earlyyears in New Orleans, Chicago and New York. It follows Heart Full of Rhythm (covering the middle years of Satchmo’s life) and the initial book What A Wonderful World, covering the later years. But there was method in this back-to-front sequence as all the major existing biographies (including those by Laurence Bergreen and TerryTeachout) tended to overlook much of the later All Stars days, so it was logical to focus on that period first. Riccardi’s careful and diligent approach has…

Jazz streaming dilemmas The development of jazz has always been influenced by changing technologies of sound recording and reproduction, so it was great to see Stuart Nicholson discussing Spotify and Liz Pelly’s new book on the platform (‘What the Ek?’, March 2025). I just wish he’d taken a slightly broader perspective on the topic; partly, to consider other streaming services (is Apple Music equally exploitative, for example?), but above all to focus specifically on the implications for jazz. I remember arguments, in the early days ofAmazon’s rise to cultural dominance in selling books and music, that this would bring smaller artists to the attention of more people (the idea of the ‘long tail’) and so help support more niche creativity. Instead, we have a world in which the algorithms promote…

Multi-Grammy winning singer Kurt Elling has announced he’s starting his own label, Big Shoulders Records. It’s 30 years since Elling’s Blue Note Records debut, Close Your Eyes, and he’s enjoyed an illustrious and prolific career since then. Following his six albums for Blue Note, he went on to record for Concord, OKeh, and the UK’s Edition Records, with his 2020 album, Secrets Are the Best Stories, winning a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2021. The first single released on the new imprint is a live version of his popular take on Joe Jackson’s 1982 pop-jazz hit ‘Steppin’ Out’, here performed with Germany’s WDR Big Band. This is the first track from Elling’s forthcoming solo album that is slated for release in the autumn. Commenting on the new recording…

NAME: ALLEY LLOYD INSTRUMENT: BASS GUITAR/VOICE EXPERIENCE AND INFLUENCES: Alley Lloyd has amassed a decade-long career as a session musician, working as a bassist for artists across the jazz, pop and Latin musical worlds, including Fleur East, Poppy Ajudha and Nectar Woode. Alley’s unique percussive bass playing style has been deeply informed by her work in Latin (notably Cuban) genres, Congolese music and studies in Senegalese sabar. THIS FUTURE MOVER SAYS: "Music is completely central to my life. Not only because of the soul-nourishing enjoyment I experience when performing or creating, but because music plays a vital role in activism and advocacy. Whether advocating for human rights and against injustices, or curating cathartic spaces where people can connect with their community, music is pivotal in facilitating those spaces, those conversations, and…

It’s not the first thing suggested by the phrase 'the Blue Note sound', but the label gave notable support to some distinctive pianists. Having first gone into business to record the boogie-woogie specialists Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons, two of their later successful signings were Herbie Hancock (during 1962-1969) and Horace Silver, who worked for them from 1952 till the label became temporarily inactive in 1980. More striking perhaps is the interest shown by co-owners Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff in pianistcomposers with less immediate popular appeal, such as Thelonious Monk in the late 1940s and Andrew Hill in the 1960s, in both cases recording far more material than they could initially release. A similar example was the musician who made his album debut for them on 6 and…

Ancient Psychic Triple Hyper Octopus Put Emojis On My Grave Not Applicable NOT080 (CD, DL) Alex Bonney (t, bass recorder, strohviol), Isambard Khroustaliov (elec) and Will Glaser (d, perc). Rec. date not stated Given the band name and album title, and coming as it does with a starkly declamatory booklet postulating the self-immolation of AI and citing both Situationism and ‘the accelerationist musings of the CCRU’ (look ‘em up!), there are various ways you can take this album but, clearly, ‘entirely seriously’ should not be one of them. This is a trio of well-respected experimental music names: Isambard Khroustaliov is aka Sam Britton, sound artist and Not Applicable label curator. Alex Bonney and Will Glaser are both producers as well as trumpeter and drummer respectively. Coming together as improvisers, they…

Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express Closer to It! Piccadilly Records/Soul Bank Music SBM019 (CD, LP, DL Brian Auger (org, el p, p, syn, v), Jack Mills (g), Barry Dean (b), Godfrey MacLean (d, perc) and Lennox Laington (perc). Rec. 1973 To be enjoyed best on vinyl, not least if you want to soak up the 1970s vibe that drips from each bar of perhaps the best-loved Oblivion Express release. After sorties into various genres post the demise of The Trinity – and a move towards prog – Auger finally hit funk pay dirt with Closer to It!. Still challenged in the vox department, Auger steps up, but this is principally an instrumental release, and all the stronger for it. From the Shaft-style guitar intro to ‘Whenever You’re Ready’, to that inimitable…

magsubscriptions.com/music-jazzwise subscriptions@markallengroup.com +44 (0) 1722 716 997 Never miss an issue of the UK’s only print and digital jazz magazine Jazzwise has been at the heart of the global jazz scene since the magazine’s launch in 1997, changing the way jazz publications look and think for the last three decades, with a stunning editorial and design package that reaches out worldwide to both the new jazz audience and established fans – qualities that have led to it winning Jazz Publication of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, the Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Awards and the Jazz FM Awards. Why should you subscribe? ▶ 11 new print and digital issues during the year ▶ Full access to every issue of Jazzwise with over 290 editions in our searchable digital archive and…

It was announced on 12 March that Arts Council England (ACE) will fund two key events in support of England’s diverse jazz talent in the form of sponsorship of the Breakthrough Act of the Year award at the 2025 Jazz FM Awards as well as raising the visibility of England’s jazz artists on the world stage through enhanced presence at jazzahead!, the leading international jazz industry showcase and trade fair held in Bremen, Germany from 24-26 April. This is the first time since the pandemic that a stand will have been funded by ACE at jazzahead!. In a press statement ACE said: “These initiatives recognise the achievements of individuals and groups within the vibrant UK jazz scene underpinned byArts Council’s longstanding investment in leading English jazz organisations, including Tomorrow’s Warriors,…

The NN North Sea Jazz Festival, the world’s largest indoor music festival, has announced another blockbuster line-up for its return to the Ahoy Centre in Rotterdam from 11 to 13 July 2025. The huge international programme spans names from jazz, blues, soul, pop, and more with the likes of Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective, multi-Grammy scooping Samara Joy, guitar star Julian Lage, and top prog-jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan. Further names include Kurt Elling & Yellowjackets celebrating the music of Weather Report, Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s Quartet, multi-award-winning singer Jazzmeia Horn, the Lionel Hampton Big Band featuring Jason Marsalis, Robert 'Sput' Searight and Nate Werth’s fusion outfit Ghost-Note, and a sparkling array of visionary US saxophonists including Kamasi Washington, Immanuel Wilkins, Branford Marsalis and Lakecia Benjamin. This year’s programme is anchored…

Ronald Atkins, who was The Guardian’s jazz correspondent for over 30 years, grew up through the post-war trad jazz revivalist era where he was a school band clarinettist, he discovered bebop and began writing for Albert 'Mac' McCarthy’s Jazz Monthly magazine in 1957 before working for Carlo Krahmer’s Esquire jazz label. He started reviewing jazz for The Guardian in the mid-1960s, which he eventually combined with a civil service day job. During 1966 he was involved with the short-lived London Free School started by Melody Maker photographer John 'Hoppy' Hopkins and early Pink Floyd manager Pete Jenner, which led to the birth of underground paper International Times and the UK counterculture. Guardian and Jazzwise writer John Fordham says: "I owe it all to Ron for shoehorning me into the Guardian…

Touring musicians value their downtime. Rest, relaxation and conversation among band members are important, regardless of the rites of hotel room scales and time-stretch soundchecks. When they were gigging in 2018, saxophonist James Brandon Lewis pulled apart one particular subject with drummer Chad Taylor and bass guitarist Josh Werner that would have a major bearing on their future work. “On the road, you spend time talking about different players that have influenced you, different vibes and so on and so forth,” he says. ”At the time, I was reading Amiri Baraka’s ‘Apple Cores’, his regular columns in DownBeat magazine, and it was something that came up for discussion. “He covers, in the most respectful way, the music on the fringes: you know, free jazz, avant-garde, or whatever you want to…

"Money talks, Bebop walks” is a pretty good summation of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s career from 1975 (when he signed with Columbia), and, off and on, into the 1980s. Back then he described his outlook to DownBeat magazine: “When Columbia Records gave me the money, I moved to LA, bought my house, cars, a pool [but now] I ain’t makin’ enough money and I wanna live good. And the money’s out there and I want it. I wanna live good!” And his pursuit of $$$ was reflected in his recordings of the time – Liquid Love (jazz-rock), Windjammer, Bundle of Love, Love Connection (soul-funk) while the most commercial album of his career, Splash, described by DownBeat as a “pool full of chlorinated funk-jazz,” has vocals courtesy Jeanie Tracy, who was then…

Bugge Wesseltoft Am Are Jazzland 377 970 5 (CD, LP, DL) EDITOR’S CHOICE Bugge Wesseltoft (p, ky) with various combinations including Sveinung Hovensjø (b), Jon Christensen (d), Arild Andersen (b), Gard Nilssen (d), Rohey Taalah (v), Martin Myhre Olsen (saxes), Elias Tafjord (d), Jens Mikkel Madsen (b), Øyunn (d), Oddrun Lilja (g) and Sanskriti Shrestha (tbla, hp). Rec. 2019–2024 A very well-conceived and curated album project that brings together Wesseltoft’s collaborations with a variety of experimental trio combinations, plus one each of a solo performance and a duo performance. Despite the comings and goings of various personnel and the variety of approaches they bring, the album sustains an overall mood that frames both spontaneous interaction – the two tracks with Hovensjø and Christensen stand out – and those with an…

Charles Tolliver Music Inc Live At Slugs Vol.1 & 2 Strata-East/Mack Avenue SES-1972-25LP (CD, 2 LP, DL) Charles Tolliver (t), Stanley Cowell (p), Cecil McBee (b) and Jimmy Hopps (d). Rec. 1 May 1970 Stanley Cowell Musa: Ancestral Streams Strata-East/Mack Avenue SES-19743-25LP (CD, LP, DL) Stanley Cowell (p, el p, kalimba). Rec. 10-11 December 1973 Pharoah Sanders Izipho Zam (My Gifts) Strata-East/Mack Avenue SES-19733-25LP (CD, LP, DL) RSD RELEASE Pharoah Sanders (s, perc), Sonny Fortune (as), Sonny Sharrock (el g), Lonnie Liston Smith (p), Howard Johnson (tba), Cecil McBee, Sirone aka Norris Jones (b), Majeed Shabazz, Billy Hart (d), Chief Bey (African perc), Leon Thomas (v, perc), Nat Bettis and Tony Wylie (perc). Rec. 14 January 1969 Charles Rouse Two Is One Strata-East/Mack Avenue SES-19746-25LP (CD, LP, DL) Charles Rouse…

Listings are free, but due to space restrictions cannot be guaranteed to appear – expanded gig listings can be found at www.jazzwise.com/gig-guide. To advertise your event, contact Ros McRae on ros@jazzwise.com THURSDAY 1 Stacey Brothers Royal Scammers 606 Club, 90 Lots Road, London SW10 1-2 Gregory Porter Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington, London SW7 1-3 La Linea: Silvia Pérez Cruz, New Regency Orchestra, Muerdo and more Various venues, London 1 David Preston Mu Quartet Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 1 Neil Cowley Trio Turner Sims, University of Southampton, Southampton 1 Emma Smith with Francesca Tandoi Trio Soul Mama, Gantry Hotel, 40 Celebration Avenue, London E20 1 New Regency Orchestra Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, Camden, London NW1 1 The Bossa Definitiva Trio SoundCellar, The Grasshopper, 139-141 Bournemouth Road, Poole…

BBC RADIO 2 88-91 FM and DAB Jamie Cullum show (Tues, 9pm) BBC RADIO 3 90-93 FM and DAB 'Round Midnight (Mon-Fri 11.30pm) Jazz Record Requests (Sun, 4pm) BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC DAB Gilles Peterson, Sat 3pm JAZZ FM DAB, Sky, Alexa, smartphone, tablet and online at jazzfm.com (Mon – Fri) 6.30am-10am Jazz FM Breakfast with Nigel Williams, 10am-2pm Danielle Perry, 2pm-6pm Afternoon drive with Simon Philips, 6pm-7pm Jazz FM’s Greatest, 7pm-9pm Jazz FM’s Dinner Jazz with Mark Walker. (Mon) 9pm-10pm Future Jazz with Ruth Fisher; 10pm-midnight Late Nite with China Moses. (Tues) 9pm-10pm Jazz Travels with Rouhangeze Baichoo; 10pm-midnight Late Night with China Moses. (Wed) 9pm-10pm Jazztronic with Dom Servini; 10pm-midnight Late Night with China Moses. (Thur) 9pm-10pm The British Jazz Show with Helen Mayhew; 10pm-midnight Late Night with…

ONLY £14.99 The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World is an exclusive 100-page definitive guide to the most important and influential jazz albums that have gone on to change and shape the course of the music from the 1920s to the present day. ■ Print-only, premium quality, publication edited and conceived by Jazzwise’s editor-in-chief Jon Newey ■ The first time a fully annotated top 100 jazz album countdown from 100 to No.1 has been published in book form ■ Includes new in-depth editorial on each album from Jazzwise’s acclaimed team of writers, plus in-depth features on the making of the top three albums, a look at the albums that almost made the cut and a guide to buying the featured titles on LP and CD “This superbly written assemblage is…