Innehållsförteckning för June 2025 från Jazzwise

If there were hints of optimism expressed in last month’s issue; then having zipped between Jazzahead! and Cheltenham jazz festival in the space of a week, I can confirm that there’s a tangible feeling of positivity among jazz folks right now. This is underscored with the news as Jazzwise was going to press that the license for the UK’s first-ever Blue Note Jazz Club has finally been granted after a protracted process which saw a petition launched to lobbyWestminster Council into giving the go-ahead. Set to open in early 2026 the venue will be located within the basement of the St Martins Lane hotel near Covent Garden, with the license allowing the club to open until 1am on Monday–Saturday and midnight Sunday. This will be another jewel in the capital’s…

Ooh! Suit you, Sir! The relationship between sharp clothes and jazz has often been a brittle one, most often to do with money, sometimes taste. Mainly the lack of bread in many cases. Back in June 1961, a year and a half before the advent of The Beatles changed everything, jazz was a good earner in the UK and companies such as Samsons of Oxford Street, London would advertise in Melody Maker. But whether musicians spent much time talking about clothes between sets, as Samsons suggests, is a moot point. Unlikely, with other more enticing Soho temptations within reach. Mind you, props to Samsons for offering discounts to 'all members of the profession' and conjuring a neat headline!…

The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival returns in 2025 from Friday 11 to Sunday 20 July, with a programme brimming with international names and homegrown Scottish stars. The genre-spanning sounds range from bebop to boogie-woogie, funk to soul, and swing to blues-rock, with over 100 events at venues in and around the Scottish capital. Chief among the headliners will be top US names including guitarist Julian Lage (on a rare live date north of the border), popular singer/saxophonist Curtis Stigers and blues star Kenny Wayne Shepherd. There’s also a ‘Polish Jazz Focus’ strand that spotlights compelling artists such as exciting experimental pianist Joanna Duda, trailblazing all-women ensemble O.N.E., vocalist Aga Zaryan, and the acclaimed Pawel Kaczmarczyk Trio. This series is part of the 2025 UK/Poland Season organised by the British…

It’s been a busy year so far for clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen, not least with four concerts at the Lincoln Center’s Appel Room back in March, celebrating her 50th birthday. But in addition to that, she’s been busy on the recording front, having launched the album Bloom last year, with her small group, the Quartetinho, and this spring releasing Interaction, along with her two brothers Avishai and Yuval (‘the 3 Cohens’), playing with the WDR Big Band. One thing that struck me immediately on hearing the latter record was that there’s one track with just the three of them – Anat on clarinet, Avishai on trumpet and Yuval on tenor saxophone – playing the Gerry Mulligan composition ‘Festive Minor’. It took me right back in time to 2005 when…

Pat Metheny: Stories Beyond Words Bob Gluck University of Chicago Press PB £18 There’s a lot more to Pat Metheny’s music than most listeners imagine. Rather like the swan gliding across a lake, it looks easy. But unravelling the complexities of his music – melodically, harmonically and rhythmically – is decidedly not. There’s a lot unseen going on beneath the surface and you have to dive deep to properly understand it. Instead, Bob Gluck, professor emeritus at the University at Albany, offers what the back cover copy calls a “bird’s eye view” of Metheny’s musical ideas, explaining in the text, “Having engaged throughout my musical and scholarly career with issues of complexity, interactivity and abstraction I never could have imagined writing a book that featured the themes of simplicity and…

Atlantic London 'The Duke' tenor saxophone There are more saxophones out there than you can shake a stick at, so any new offering needs to have some unique selling points to be able to cut into the crowded market. Jamie Straker, owner of sax.co.uk, has seen and played plenty of saxophones over the years and his expertise together with that of his experienced staff not only know about the various instruments, but their knowledge base could be said to be second to none. So it’s not that surprising that Straker should set up a separate company under the brand name Atlantic London to launch his own model, bringing together all the best features of the myriad saxophones that have passed through sax.co.uk at one time or another. We took a…

Write in to us here at Letters Dept, Jazzwise Magazine, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB or email letters@jazzwise.com Remembering Ron, a great writer and teacher I was sad to read your obituary of Ronald Atkins in the May issue and thought I might share some memories. When I lived in Hampstead in North London in the late 1960s I attended Ron’s weekly jazz evening class. My knowledge of jazz was largely based on blues and, at my cousin’s instigation, Ornette Coleman. Ron filled in the huge gaps getting his small group to listen to Count Basie and Ellington through to Parker and Mingus. What I remember particularly is his non-dogmatic approach. Everything was grist to the mill and he opened my ears to all sorts of possibilities.…

Renowned UK saxophonist Andy Sheppard has convened a special Quartet comprised of longstanding collaborators and friends, guitarist John Parricelli, bassist Dudley Phillips and drummer Nic France, touring for several dates across the summer and autumn. With a career spanning over three decades and a plethora of projects for a variety of imprints, including Island Records, Blue Note, Verve, and Provocateur, Sheppard has found what he calls "his spiritual home" on ECM for the past 15 years. The latter label has seen him build a catalogue of releases as a bandleader, including his works with the late great pianist and composer Carla Bley and her husband, bassist Steve Swallow. More recently, the saxophonist formed the Andy Sheppard Trio, featuring Italian pianist Rita Marcotulli and the Algiers-born, Paris-based Michel Benita on bass,…

HIGHLIGHTING SERIOUS TALENT BUBBLING UNDER THE RADAR…. NAME: NICCO ROCCO INSTRUMENT: DRUMS / MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST EXPERIENCE AND INFLUENCES: Nicco began his musical journey at the age of nine, before honing his craft as part of the acclaimed Tomorrow’s Warriors programme during his early teens. He is the founder of genre-blurring fusion outfit ‘oreglo’, whose debut EP ‘Not Real People’ was released on Brownswood Recordings in 2024. Alongside his work with the band, Nicco also tours with guitarist and vocalist Geordie Greep and saxophonist-singer Kaidi Akinnibi, cementing his position as a rising force in the UK’s new wave of jazz talent. THIS FUTURE MOVER SAYS: "From the day I began playing, music has meant everything to me. Nothing can ever compare to the transcendental feelings you get from playing music and improvising with…

The LP Smokin’ At The Half Note almost justifies Pat Metheny praising it as “the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made.” The 13-minute track ‘No Blues’ (its opening riff originally created byWynton Kelly for Miles Davis, who here receives composer credit!) has a 24-chorus solo by Montgomery that builds and builds, while ‘If You Could See Me Now’ typifies his relaxed, bluesy approach to a ballad. It’s interesting the LP billing was “Wynton Kelly Trio with Wes Montgomery”; Kelly did have his own Verve contract but doubtless, by this stage, producer Creed Taylor wanted to restrict Wes’ own albums to those with big-band or strings. Equally odd is that these two items from 24 June 1965 were the only live tracks on the original album, the rest being done three…

"All my music is based on how I hear the world and the gigs that I go to see. It’s kind of like I'm transcribing life. That’s how I try and think of it.’ So says Tom Smith, a London-based saxophonist and bandleaderwho is rapidly making a name for himself both as an exceptionally gifted improviser and composer. His debut album Gecko (2020) showcased a drumless chamber jazz trio featuring pianist Will Barry and vibraphonist Johnny Mansfield. His most recent release, A Year in the Life (reviewed in Jazzwise March 2025), finds Smith adventurously exploring the timbral possibilities of an 18-piece big band. "I've always loved listening to big bands. I think it’s probably the thing I grew up on. A big moment for me was seeing Guy Barker’s big…

“The piano is a great sound source,” enthuses Pat Thomas. “There’s no instrument like it in the Western world because it’s so self-contained. And the fact that it’s still being used, the fact that you can’t replicate it. I’ve yet to come across any sample that sounds like a real piano. You think of other instruments that are now regarded as outdated and it’s incredible. It’s still got a mileage of another hundred years at least. It’s way ahead of its time.” Thomas is well placed to make such pronouncements. Over the last couple of decades, he’s emerged as the UK’s preeminent modern master of the piano avant-garde. He’s also a deep thinker with compendious knowledge on a dizzying range of subjects. Chatting with him over Zoom from his home…

Landmark Recording Excellent Good Average Disappointing Aarhus Jazz Orchestra & Michael Bladt Shapeshifter Jaeger Community Music 3617391461395 (DL) Johan Toftegaard Knudsen, Michael Bladt, Cesar Joaniquet, Michael Olsen, Kati Brien (reeds), Felix Meyer, Jan Lynggaard Sørensen, Lars Søberg, Jakob Sørensen (t), Stefan Ringive, Simon Harrer, Tobias Stavngaard, Niels Jacob Nørgaard, Henrik Resen (tb), Mads Bærentzen, Bodek Janke (p), Frederik Sakham (db, el b, syn), John Riddell (d), Jon Døssing Bendixen (org, syn) and Jeppe Lavsen (g) plus Nikolai Bøgelund (cond). Rec. 2023 Danish tenor saxophonist Michael Bladt and his colleagues in the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra salute the funky-expanded sound of Snarky Puppywith that fusion behemoth’s founding keyboardist, Bill Laurance, as producer. While this isn’t explicitly a Snarky tribute album, the keyboardist’s presence clearly helped focus minds and sharpen their already polished…

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…

1 Jaco Pastorius by Jaco Pastorius (1976) “Jaco was a force of nature and this masterpiece of an album completely blew my mind. His tone, phrasing, and use of harmonics on the bass were unlike anything I’d ever heard and opened up a world of expressive possibilities for me. Each and every track is a masterclass in groove, melody, and composition. A bold statement from a true genius which I still find deeply inspiring.” 2 Tales by Marcus Miller (1995) “I was instantly drawn to the energy, joy and emotional warmth in this album. Marcus plays bass with such swagger and soul, but also deep musicality. Tales really grooves hard, but it also tells stories – an idea that really stuck with me as a composer and bandleader.” 3 Communion…

Andy Bey: 28/10/1939 – 26/04/2025 Andy Bey, who has died at the age of 85, was one of the greatest singers in the history of jazz who never enjoyed the commercial success his talent warranted. Yet he was held in very high regard by his peers. Bey had a deeply rich baritone that was capable of as much sensitivity as strength, and although he could match the most powerful horn players in a band he was intensely moving when he used his sotto voce in whispered intimacy. That dynamic range was an integral part of his artistry. So was his prowess as a composer. During a six-decade career he penned fine original pieces, above all ‘Hibiscus’, ‘Tune Up’ and ‘Celestial Blues’, which all featured on his classic 1974 album Experience…

In October 1959, Jamaican trumpeter Dizzy Reece left London for New York on the liner Liberte, taking his wife and daughter with him. At the quayside, he was met by Alfred Lion of Blue Note records, the label that had already released his celebrated album, Blues in Trinity. [produced in London by Tempo boss and Jazzwise writer the late Tony Hall – Ed]. Bob Parent’s photographs, taken on his arrival, show a large African drum in Reece’s luggage. Within a couple of weeks, he was in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey, playing that drum on Africane, a little-known Art Blakey album not released until 1979. I have often wondered where that instrument came from. I finally got a chance to ask him on phoning him early last year…

Landmark Recording Excellent Good  Average Disappointing Neil Ardley Harmony of the Spheres Analogue October Records/Decca AOR-002-ST (LP) RECOMMENDED Neil Ardley (syn), Barbara Thompson (ss, fl), Tony Coe (ss, cl), Ian Carr (t, flhn), Geoff Castle (ky, syn), Billy Kristian (b), John Martyn (g), Richard Burgess (d, perc), Norma Winstone, Pepi Lemer (v) and Trevor Tomkins (perc). Rec. July-September 1978 There’s a lovely heft to lowering fresh vinyl to the deck. And especially so with this lovingly restored, high-quality pressing of Neil Ardley’s famous cosmic saga. Harmony of the Spheres is a concept (heh, this is the 1970s dude!) based on Ardley’s fascination with ancient Greek notions that the planets emitted music that reflected the harmony of creation. The results are redolent of that decade, down to the Storm Thorgerson (he…