John Bungey

You may well know the single album that emerged from Mingus’s show at Carnegie Hall in January 1974. The old LP featured rumbustious versions of Ellington’s C Jam Blues and Perdido that lasted a side each. Guest Mingus alumni – [...]

If I was one third of a piano trio (which luckily for the health of British music I am not), I don’t know how I’d feel about this album. Awe, almost certainly, but that might tip over into despair that [...]

So, deluxe editions … an energetic attempt to extract cash from super-fans or a valuable new perspective on an admired body of work? The answer is probably both, though in these tough old times you can’t begrudge any artist a [...]

Clamp on the headphones, kick the cat off the sofa, and settle down for a journey into the land of the free. A whisper of piano, a swish of brushed snares, a satisfyingly resonant thud from the Norwegian Thomas Strønen‘s [...]

After more than a decade without a new recording and a good distance from the limelight, Pharoah Sanders must be a little taken aback at the excitement his latest album is generating. Promises is a 46-minute continuous piece that mixes [...]

Nik Bärtsch is one of that esteemed band of musicians whose work you can recognise within 30 seconds (*). The Swiss pianist has been recording his unique “zen funk” – minimalism meets James Brown – for ECM since 2006. It’s [...]

Charles Lloyd says he has enjoyed lockdown – in part. This elder statesman of the saxophone has always relished isolation and solitude, and for a year he’s avoided travel and the departure lounge life. But, as he told Downbeat, that [...]