My top ten jazz gigs of the year
It’s the right time to look back at the year’s live jazz highlights in the West Midlands. Feel free to add your own favourites in the comment section. Here’s my top 10 in countdown mode: 10 Rachael...
View ArticleThe medium-term West Midlands jazz forecast is sunny
No matter what the weather forecast for the rest of the winter, the outlook for jazz in the first months of 2014 is warm, sunny and equitable. Of course, with jazz one might also quite like the odd...
View ArticleReady, steady, bags on heads – Get The Blessing are on tour
Get The Blessing, the Bristol-based quartet of Portishead bassist and drummer Jim Barr and Clive Deamer together with saxophonist Jake McMurchie and trumpeter Pete Judge, began a UK and European tour...
View ArticleTwo nights of lyrical beauty in the week’s Midland events
The Midlands’ instrumental jazz highlight of the week is a double shiner: two opportunities to hear the Tord Gustavsen Quartet, in Birmingham on Friday and in Wolverhampton on Sunday. The Norwegian...
View ArticleRemi Harris – Ninick
(Big Bear Records BearCD 53) This is the debut album from a young Hereford-born guitarist who was influenced by his grandfather’s Django Reinhardt records to move from blues-rock to the European...
View ArticleWelcome visitors x 3 – the week’s Midland jazz highlights
Three strong visiting bands with distinctively different jazz styles share the limelight this week. First up is Sons Of Kemet, a quartet with the novel line-up of saxophone/clarinet, tuba and two...
View ArticleMiles Davis, Jeanne Moreau and just one word
What a simply perfect film clip - the combination of the introspective passion of Miles Davis and the inner monologue hinted at in Jeanne Moreau’s face as she walks the Paris streets. And isn’t this...
View ArticlePhelps, Fowler, Glasson and Hill – this week’s Midland highlights
One of the most exciting players of the young jazz set that has matured over the last decade – it includes the members of Empirical, pianist Kit Downes and saxophonist/rapper Soweto Kinch – is surely...
View ArticleMore jazz sent to Coventry this autumn
After a quiet spell with activity restricted to supporting Warwick Arts Centre-based events, Jazz Coventry is back on the up with a new venue and new gigs of its own in the autumn months. There is a...
View ArticleDylan Howe’s Subterranean by Garry Corbett
Garry Corbett was at the Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday evening for drummer Dylan Howe’s Subterranean. Here is his photograph plus some reflections: A great evening’s music. The Subterranean album was...
View ArticleEthiopian jazz grandee leads the week’s Midland gigs
The Ethiopian pianist, composer and arranger Mulatu Astatke brought a whole new jazz sound to me when I first heard him on a compilation of the Ethiopiques series that had been documenting the...
View ArticleRare chance to catch rising Finnish pianist in this week’s Midland gigs
Top of the week’s gigs has to be a rare appearance in this country by the young Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila. He has just been signed by the lively Cardiff-based Edition Records and is playing here...
View ArticleSpillett’s five play Miles standards, plus the week’s other good Midland gigs
The highlight of the week’s jazz calendar is over in Coventry on Sunday evening, with a visit to Warwick Arts Centre from the Simon Spillett Quintet. The tenor saxophonist is presenting the band’s...
View ArticleQuercus and Neset lead the Midland jazz attractions this week
There are two great gigs marked on the calendar this week. One is the mature folk/jazz trio Quercus at Warwick Arts Centre on Monday and the other is the brilliant young saxophonist Marius Neset at the...
View ArticleConcert review: Quercus
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry UK 29-04-2013 Quercus, the three-rooted oak of pianist Huw Warren, singer June Tabor and saxophonist Iain Ballamy, were ranged in that order across the stage. Musically...
View ArticleComing sooner (or later) to Birmingham and Coventry
The Jazzlines side of Town Hall Symphony Hall in Birmingham, and Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry, have new gigs on sale, and there are some exciting names within them. Top of the list has to be The...
View ArticleFrom Shatner’s Bassoon through Sulzmann to Empirical in seven days
There’s another of British jazz’s significant birthday this weekend – saxophonist, composer and bandleader Stan Sulzmann turns 65, and will be blowing the figurative candles out through his tenor at...
View ArticleAndy Sheppard Quartet
Pictures and review by Garry Corbett Warwick Arts Centre 19-11-2015 The quartet concentrated on material drawn from their most recent ECM album, Surrounded By Sea. The mood of the album was replicated,...
View ArticlePick of the Midland gigs – February 2016
Here are my top five recommendations (plus one) for this month: Ben Lee Quintet – young Conservatoire-grad guitarist with a band which comprises altoist Chris Young, trombonist Richard Foote, Dave...
View ArticleGoGo Penguin – Man Made Object
(Blue Note) The Manchester piano trio’s debut album for Blue Note consolidates their style and is probably their most fully realised album so far though not necessarily their most exciting. The way the...
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