The exploits of Catherine and husband Darius, son of jazz legend Dave Brubeck, are explored in the fascinating book Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and on the Road (University of Illinois Press) and live on in the continued triumphs of the Jazz Studies course they established at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 1984. The music they created there lives on, including with the band The Jazzanians. The landmark 1988 album ‘We Have Waited Too Long’ was re-mastered and re-released on Ubuntu Music in April this year.

In a joint interview, Catherine, who is credited for “concept and management” for the album, recalled the inspiration for the recording. “We’re still not sure who thought of The Jazzanians for the name of the band, as at least three of us (including me) claim it as their idea,” she says. “Perhaps that in itself shows how united we were in achieving goals. One of these was a recording so that the music would last beyond the actual band. ‘We have Waited Too Long’ is the title of the album and a piece written by co-leader, Andrew Eagle. It’s importance lies in the fact that it is both a record of how great some of the musicians, now deceased, were and it revives the spirit of hope and freedom that the world needs again. We need a ‘rainbow’ world not just a nation.”

Guitarist Eagle was joined by Johnny Mekoa (trumpet), Zim Ngqawana (alto sax/flute), Nic Paton (tenor and soprano saxes), Melvin Peters (piano), Victor Masondo (bass) and Lulu Gontsana (drums) on the album, recorded at Sound Crew Studio, Natal, and produced by Darius Brubeck. Among the eight tracks they recorded was a version of his composition The Rainbow, inspired by the Durban jazz club of that name. “The Rainbow and its former owner and front man, Ben Pretorius, are legendary,” says Darius. “It was a place on the border between white and black areas that successfully flouted Apartheid laws by presenting jazz and selling food and drink to all comers. It was a contained but sustained realisation of what South Africa, the Rainbow Nation, was hoping to become as a society.”

His late father Dave, the pianist whose quartet sealed their place in music history with their 1959 version of “Take Five”, also had a notable past fighting racism – he once defied Ku Klux Klan death threats to play an integrated show in Alabama – and I wonder how proud he was of his son and daughter-in-law’s work in the fight against Apartheid in South Africa? “My parents were 100 per cent supportive of our work in every way they could,” he replies. “They were immensely hospitable to students when we brought them over as groups, starting with the Jazzanians and four more bands that followed. Their home in Wilton, Connecticut, was where we all stayed and rehearsed before and between concerts. They donated to our scholarship fund, maintained contact with South African students that continued their studies in America, and I believe they liked to talk about the work we were doing with their friends and in interviews. Dave wrote a piece called ‘The Jazzanians’, which my brothers and I often play.”

The joyful We Have Waited Too Long is a perfect example of the creative interaction the forces of Apartheid tried to stifle, but their work was not without its tough challenges. Catherine admits it was difficult sometimes to get the necessary funds together for their work. “Raising money to keep students at the University was difficult and was disheartening as well as heartening,” she explains. “We would receive financial support from some of the most unlikely sources, for example our own chemist who liked jazz and for whom the great guitarist Sandile Shange worked as a delivery ‘boy’ and then have to find the relatively few whites who were prepared to have black students stay on their properties.

“The hardest thing was adjusting to the immense disparities that existed and still do. One can’t give everyone what they need but we did have to find ways to make things work for people who didn’t have the basic resources for modern life. The downside was that so many musicians died young – in many, many cases unnecessarily – while we were there. We knew that we could get out of the country if we needed to but that this was not true for those we worked with, loved and admired.”

In addition to the album and book, the documentary film, ‘Playing the Changes: Tracking Darius Brubeck’, directed by Michiel ten Kleij, is being shown at the 2024 Music Film Festival in Tilburg, Holland, in September. I wonder why Darius believes music is such a powerful force in overcoming racial prejudice. “Playing the Changes is presently on the film festival circuit and our book of the same name, describe how jazz in Poland and South Africa contributed to the struggle for liberation,” he says. “The film and book are different but overlap in many respects. Jazz, a hybrid music, draws from many cultures, but there’s more to this than just history. There is an element of sharing and sense of community between musicians and audience and everyone who takes part in it feels uplifted. It’s not mysterious but it is spiritual in that differences of race, gender and age no longer matter. Even if this experience is nothing more than a change of focus, it’s so powerful that prejudice and hate are simply erased.”

Among the brilliant musicians they worked with in South Africa was Joseph Shabalala, who became globally famous for his work with choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Paul Simon. “Joseph seemed to breath humility and kindness into the air whenever he visited his office at the Centre,” says Darius. “All the members of his group were always fun to be with but very serious about their art and conscious they were creating a major legacy. It was a privilege to plan a ‘Roots and Branches’ concert programme with him that featured jazz and traditional music.”

The Brubeck-founded Centre for Jazz and Popular Music has continued to evolve and thrive in the 21st century, as Darius explains: “South Africans are running the Centre, which was always the long-term goal. The old following is still there but new musicians and listeners are now part of the scene and the music itself is very ‘glocalised’, to use Stuart Nicolson’s term. Artists such as Nduduzo Makhitini and Mash Mashiloane are on staff at the University. They are moving away from swing-based Township Jazz and bebop reharmonizations of ‘American Song Book’ standards and adapting these influences in modern ways. They use a lot of jazz vocabulary but are making music that belongs in terms of time as well as geography.

“If you think about the vulnerability of cultural institutions and businesses during periods of prolonged instability and transition, it’s quite impressive that the Centre is still there and very happening, thanks to the Centre’s Director, jazz pianist Neil Gonsalves, and the strong community around it. Catherine and I launched the South African edition of our book there last year.”

Both should be rightly proud of their trailblazing work in such a collaborative music centre. Do they think it was a model for what was possible in a segregated Apartheid society? “Yes,” says Darius. “A famous Afrikaans dissident poet and playwright, Breyten Breytenbach, who had spent time in jail for his political activities, came to the Jazz Centre one night when the ‘joint was jumping’ and we had a multi-racial band on stage and a very mixed audience. He said, ‘It is amazing to think of the immense effort my people put into preventing paradise.’

Catherine says that her most satisfying moment was when Lulu Gontsana stood up at a Jazzanians dinner and said : “And, now we are here!”. “We had achieved the goal of attending and playing at a 6,000-strong Jazz Educators Conference in Detroit, USA! She said he made the rest of his impromptu speech in Xhosa.

“I am so proud that so many ex-students remain in touch with us and that we get together when we visit South Africa,” she adds. “There is a bond that will last forever. We put the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music on the international map and world-famous musicians still perform and hold workshops there. We could personally experience and see the changes happen and feel part of a liberation movement as well as being close to so many remarkable people – and knowing that jazz music mattered, and that the art could be shared with so many.”

PP Features are part of marketing packages

‘The Jazzanians: We have Waited Too Long’ is out on Ubuntu Music (UBU0153) on CD, digital and vinyl.

Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and on the Road by Darius Brubeck and Catherine Brubeck is published by University of Illinois Press.

The post Darius and Catherine Brubeck: new book ‘Playing the Changes’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Roger Beaujolais, probably the most well-known and popular of the UK’s jazz vibraphone players, is self-taught and steeped in the history of some of the greatest players of that instrument over the past century.

In his new album Bags of Vibes, coming out on 13 May on StayTuned Records, he pays special tribute to jazz vibes maestro Milt Jackson, one of his earliest influences, and his record features a soaring cover version of ‘Moonray’, the song Jackson cut for Prestige Records back in 1955. “That’s from Milt Jackson Quartet, the first Milt album I heard,” Beaujolais tells UK Jazz News. “and I play that arrangement on the record.”

Beaujolais, who was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, on 22 November 1952, lived for a time in Devon and he is touring the West Country in May (including gigs in Plymouth, Newton Abbot and Totnes) to promote the album and celebrate his favourite instrument, in a show called ‘100 Years of Vibraphone’, which will also feature tunes by Lionel Hampton, Bobby Hutcherson and Gary Burton.

On the new album, he is accompanied with panache by pianist Robin Aspland, Simon Thorpe on double bass and drummer Winston Clifford, who together interpret Jackson’s work with dedication and soulfulness.

The tracks include ‘Some Kinda Waltz’, the swinging ‘Bags Groove’ a slick cover of ‘Heartstrings’ – a Jackson track from 1957 that featured jazz titans Cannonball Adderley on saxophone and Horace Silver on piano – along with the bossa nova tinged ‘Come to Me’. Among the highlights is ‘Blues for Bags’, which features a Wes Montgomery-style octave solo from guitarist Jim Mullen (who also guests on versions of ‘SKJ’ and ‘Jingles’).

What qualities does Mullen bring to the album? “In my opinion, Jim Mullen is one of the most soulful musicians in the UK, so it was an honour to have him on my album,” responds Beaujolais. “For me, one of the hallmarks of a great musician is that they’re instantly recognisable. And Jim is certainly that. Essentially, whenever he’s involved, the bar is raised!”

Beaujolais has been a professional musician for more than 40 years and admits he was a “late-starter”, in part down to what he admits was a lack of confidence that left him tongue-tied in some public situations and a “dysfunctional upbringing” that saw him spend a lot of time out of his family home and socialising with a wide range of people from different backgrounds. “Basically, I learnt how to fit into lots of different groups of people who wouldn’t necessarily get on with each other. And this is precisely how I’ve been able to make a living playing vibraphone. I’m not as opinionated as some and I’m not a musical snob so I can move from one musical circle to another without ever feeling like I’m compromising myself. If I hadn’t been able to do this I don’t think I could have survived.”

What got him to what he calls a “happy place” – one where he is capable of talking eloquently in front of audiences, was playing music. So was it hard to teach yourself the vibraphone in the era before YouTube videos? “I knew nothing about music and had to learn all the scales and how chords were constructed as well as how to technically play. I tried to get lessons but had no money so I learned from three books, including one about the tuned mallet technique,” he says.

He is now an expert and audiences on his tour will be treated to swinging music and a history of the vibraphone, an instrument that first went on sale in 1924. He will talk about its master players. “Very few people know what a vibraphone is, so I often end up explaining what makes it unique. It has a vibrato and on the original models that was run by a clockwork motor and there was only one speed – fast – which is why Lionel Hampton has the sound he does. At the time there was no choice, it was either off or on. Since the mid-1940’s the motor which runs the vibrato has been electric and the speed can be varied. If Milt Jackson had appeared on the scene 10 years earlier than he did, he wouldn’t have been able to use a slower speed for his vibrato, which became his signature sound.”

Hampton remains one of Beaujolais’s favourite players, along with Cal Tjader and Bobby Hutcherson. “Hampton, being the first jazz vibes player, has a special place in all vibes players’ hearts,” he explains. “He was a man of his era and was a great entertainer and always played with a lot of energy and with a smile on his face. He opened the door for the rest of us. I’m a fan of Latin music, so Cal Tjader has always been an important vibes player for me, as that’s his speciality. He’s a very tasteful player and less technical than a lot of other players. Not that he doesn’t have a great technique, he does, it’s more that he never sounds like he’s trying to impress. A very musical approach and I listen to him a lot.”

He also says he owes a lot to Blue Note star Hutcherson. “Hearing a couple of Hutcherson albums in 1977 is what inspired me to play vibraphone, so he is special to me,” says Beaujolais. “He came up at a time when jazz was becoming more experimental and more harmonically challenging and was influenced by the new music that was being played by John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and others in the late 1950’s & early 1960’s. Hutcherson mellowed a bit over the years but always had an edge to what he played. Again, a man of his time, he’s probably the most experimental of the top vibists in jazz history.”

Beaujolais has had an eclectic, interesting career, performing with stars as diverse as Slim Gailliard and Suggs. After his own eight-day tour, starting in Devon and Cornwall, and – with a trio featuring guitarist Neil Burns – he will be heading to Japan in June to perform with the re-formed folk-rock band Fairground Attraction, who are playing their first gigs in 35 years with featured singer Eddi Reader. “I have quite a bit of work coming up with them this year and recently spent three days in the studio with them recording a new album,” he says. “Fairground Attraction are an acoustic band and one of their strengths is creating atmospheres, so they like vibes for that reason. They’re fun to play with! Also, they’re nice people and very good musicians. In some ways, it’s like hanging out with old friends.”

For now, though, there is the excitement of his own new album and a tour that will aim to educate audiences about the vibraphone, a quest that is perfect for his goal in life: to communicate. So how does his personality fit in with playing the vibraphone? “I’m sociable and a good listener – so many people have told me – and that has been an asset. On a good night, I’m able to make people laugh and that’s satisfying,” he says. “A lot of people think the most important thing in jazz is to know all the modes of the melodic minor scales (or whatever), but if you can’t get on with people, or are aloof or arrogant, or very opinionated, less people will book you.”

Bags of Vibes sounds like bags of fun.

Roger Beaujolais: Bags of Vibes is out on StayTuned Records (ST013) on 13 May 2024.

Friday 3 May Roger Beaujolais/Neil Burns Trio
Patchwork Studios @ 7:00 pm
Barrack Block, Torpoint, PL10 1LA

Saturday 4 May Roger Beaujolais/Neil Burns Trio
The Dog & Donkey Inn @ 7:00 pm, 24 Knowle Rd, Budleigh Salterton. EX9 6AL

Sunday 5 May Roger Beaujolais/Neil Burns Trio
The Bay Horse Inn @ 7:30 pm 8 Cistern St Totnes TQ9 5SP

Further dates – and a Japan tour with Fairground Attraction – are linked to below

The post Roger Beaujolais – new album ‘Bags of Vibes’, released 13 May 2024 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Amanda King, who describes herself as a “classic chanteuse,” will be celebrating the music and life of Ella Fitzgerald and her early music with drummer Chick Webb and his Orchestra. In a zoom interview from her home in Las Vegas, King explains that she first “connected” with Fitzgerald when she started researching Mildred Bailey and other pre-war American singers. “What makes Ella special is that she sang the damn song. That’s it. Outside of scatting, at which she was untouchable, and honestly even then, there were no unnecessary vocal acrobatics added. She told you the story in her way. That is what I do as well. I like to share her early recordings, partly because many people don’t know this music and also to put them in perspective of her life at the time.”

Webb’s 1930s orchestra, a band that sent dancers into a frenzy at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, gave a platform to teenage star Fitzgerald, who could make something special out of almost any tune. King describes Webb , who was just 34 when he died in 1939, as “a truly indomitable spirit” for the way he battled tuberculosis of the spine, and she loves “the beauty” in the fact that, through his mentoring, he passed on his love of music and work ethic to Fitzgerald, who went on to become the Queen of Jazz, winning 14 Grammys and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, before her death in 1996, aged 79.

“It would have been amazing to see Ella perform with Chick Webb Orchestra,” adds King. “They say she was rarely still – always dancing on stage. You know that was her passion: dance. Singing was a very surprising ‘Plan B’ for her. I suppose when God points a finger at you, you better do as called, right? Ha! The pointing of his finger was her stage fright at the Apollo and changing her plan to dance that evening. Having had the childhood she did, Ella definitely had her own inner demons and singing became her lifeblood. She gave everything to it.”

King says that among her favourite Fitzgerald songs are ‘Moon Ray’ and ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’. “That is the sexiest I have ever heard her sing,” explains King. “It’s sizzling! People didn’t think of her as a hot, red-blooded woman because of the way she looked and she didn’t overly emote in her songs. They just saw her as the ‘Scatting Goddess’ – but Ella had boyfriends and was passionate and had her love struggles. She’s a Taurus (as am I); how could she not be passionate? If you truly listen, you will hear her passion and pain on some tunes. When I’m selecting a set list, I realise that all the songs pertain directly to what I’m going through in my life at the time. Ella didn’t have the luxury of choosing many of the songs on her albums, nor in her live performances much of the time, but when she did you can see that she’s truly connected to that tune.”

King, who has been hailed by The New York Times as one of the nightclub world’s “exceptional rising talents”, is coming to London with her pianist Jon Weber – who was the successor to Marian McPartland as the host of NPR’s Piano Jazz – in a concert that will also feature English bass player Joe Pettitt and Dutch drummer Sebastiaan de Krom.

Her previous cabaret shows, including celebrations of the music of Cole Porter and her own one-woman show ‘It’s About Damn Time!’, came after early experiences in the acting world, including becoming one of the youngest apprentices at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. I ask whether her stage experiences have helped with her music presentation. “Most definitely,” King replies. “It helps me find the story of the song easily and create a ‘flow’ to the order of the songs in my shows. I walk that line between jazz and cabaret, but when you go back to the beginning of American popular music/standards and jazz – it was all a big melting pot and every genre was borrowing or mixing. There was a beauty to American music in the 20s and 30s that will not ever happen again. It was truly born out of people making their place, not finding it. I find it my calling to carry on the tradition that was created. It shouldn’t be lost.”

King conveys genuine warmth and humour in the interview and says that she is “a naturally outgoing person with a big personality”. She has been “toying” with the idea of getting back into acting. “It comes very naturally to me. I lived in Los Angeles a while ago but didn’t stay. I got lost in self-doubt. I wasn’t strong enough for it. Now I am,” she adds.

The singer also has a body of recorded work under her belt. After her 2008 album ‘Chanteuse, recorded at the famous Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California, she released a holiday EP in 2018 called ‘It’s Christmas! with Amanda King’, co-produced by Barry Manilow’s musical director Joey Melotti. Her most recent studio work was on the chart success ‘Standards Deluxe’, an album by the Rob Dixon/Steve Allee Quintet featuring King on vocals and Derrick Gardner on trumpet, alongside saxophonist Dixon and pianist Allee. Her version of Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan’ is hugely impressive, particularly when you consider that she had not met the musicians for more than a day before the recordings. By mid-March, the album had reached No 22 on JazzWeek’s Top 50 chart. When I ask how gratifying that is, she replies in appropriately Mary Poppins style English: “It’s SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!”

London icons are very much on King’s mind as she looks forward to journeying over the pond. “I’m coming over with my son and it’s our first time there and we can’t wait.” She makes a neat joke about visiting “the requisite ‘Ted Lasso’ filming spots,” (in reference to the hit Apple TV+ football show set in the capital) and says she and her son want to see Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard, the Museum of Brands and Camden Market.

Further ahead in 2024, King says she is fund-raising for her sophomore CD and focussing on her health. “Sadly, like Ella, I have T2 diabetes,” she says. “It pains me that so many African-American singers have had it as well. What is the crazy connection between food and music? I guess both pacify the lonely soul? So many singers haven’t had great lasting love so instead we have great food? I don’t know.”

She ends with a joke about making sure that instead of music being the food of love, it’s best to have “food be the love of music”. For music lovers, especially of the wonderful sounds of the young Ella Fitzgerald, there will be good fare and great music at The Pheasantry, one of Pizza Express Live’s supper venues.

As well as the Ella classic ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket,’ King promises she will sing her versions of ‘You Showed Me the Way’ and her son’s favourite Ella track, ‘Bei Mir Bist du Schoen’, a song, as Ella herself knew, which has the power to make anyone’s heart grow light.

Amanda King’s ‘Ella The Early Years’ is at The Pheasantry, Kings Road, Chelsea, London on Friday 22 March and Saturday 23 March.

Standards Deluxe by Rob Dixon / Steve Allee ft. Amanda King And Derrick Gardner is out on Owl Records and available to hear on all top streaming sites.

The post ‘Ella The Early Years’, The Pheasantry first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Stacey Kent’s own repertoire is eclectic and her influences are rich and varied. She and her sister love the jazz of Horace Silver and she remembers vividly that, when growing up in New York, the nearby Tower Records store was somewhere “I almost lived in”. Her love of Brazilian music is palpable and she describes hearing the 1964 Verve classic Getz/Gilberto (Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto) as “a pivotal moment in my life”.

As we chat via Zoom from her home in Virginia, Kent, who was born in New Jersey in 1965, says she can still remember the excitement that almost exploded when Ishiguro, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day, chose her interpretation of George Gershwin’s They Can’t Take That Away From Me as one of his selections for his 2002 appearance on Desert Island Discs. “That was an immense moment and I was completely blown away because I loved his work,” she says.

The pair subsequently corresponded and gradually became firm friends. Around six years later, when she and her composer husband Jim Tomlinson were out to lunch with Ishiguro and his wife Lorna, discussion arose about whether the novelist should write a song for Kent. “It was a life-changing and musically life changing moment,” she says.

Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki and moved with his family to Surrey at the age of six, had been writing songs since he was 15. He went speedily to work. “The first two sets of lyrics arrived in the post two weeks after that lunch,” recalls Kent. “He sent us The Ice Hotel and Breakfast on the Morning Tram. I read them aloud to Jim and there was a ‘Eureka!’ moment. Jim immediately said I can hear how these wonderful words can be set to music; and the way they were written, with no repeats, gave him a clean slate for the arrangements.”

The latter song was recorded for Kent’s 2007, Grammy-nominated Blue Note album Breakfast On The Morning Tram and the lyrics for it are among the 16 compositions that feature in Ishiguro’s new book, The Summer We Crossed Europe In The Rain: Lyrics for Stacey Kent, which will be published by Faber on 7 March. This printed celebration of one of the most interesting music-literary collaborations in 21^st-century jazz features gorgeous illustrations from Italian cartoonist Bianca Bagnarelli.

The serendipitous nature of the Ishiguro-Kent-Tomlinson collaboration reflects something about Kent’s own optimistic view of the way things can suddenly spin in your favour in life. “You never know who you are going to meet around the corner who can change your entire life and entire path,” she says.

Kent, who is multilingual and who had studied literature and languages for her degree, had lived in Germany for a time before a trip to England in her early twenties changed the course of her life. “I had a really flukey moment after I came to England,” she recalls. “I saw an advertisement hanging on a wall in Oxford during a visit there. It was to do a one-year postgraduate course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was still kind of addicted to going to school and I thought I would love to study music. In truth, I thought it would be a playful interlude and then I could go back to my studies and do a masters. I ended up meeting Jim at the Guildhall, getting gig offers around Soho and having the time of my life living a musician’s life as a young, just-out-of-college student. My music life suddenly got serious and I stayed with it.”

Kent, who went on to release more than 15 albums and who was the recipient of the Prix Ella Fitzgerald award at the 2023 Montreal Jazz Festival, reworked an old live version of Ishiguro’s beguiling Postcard Lovers for her new album Summer Me, Winter Me (Naïve Records), a collection of covers of popular standards from over the decades, including Under Paris Skies and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Happy Talk. “There was something about the original interpretation of Postcard Lovers that irked me and Jim because it did not feel finished. Jim revisited it and we started to do it in three-four time with a changed melody and new arrangements and, boom ,it was great,” she says proudly. It is a highlight of an impressive album.

Kent says she remains “fuelled” by a desire to communicate with her fans and says she “loves storytelling and connection”. Her rare ability to really get inside a story song and transmit something potent to audiences – whether interpreting the Great American Songbook or singing from her catalogue with Ishiguro and Tomlinson – makes her concerts feel like a special shared experience. Ishiguro, for his part, believes Kent has a remarkable gift for making her song’s protagonists “come to life”. “She has much in common with today’s finest screen actors who, assured of the camera’s ability to pick out detail, portray complex shades of personality, motive and feeling through subtle adjustments of face and posture,” he wrote. “She is a great jazz diva of our age.”

Kent says she and the author (whom she refers to throughout as “Ish”) talk a lot about movies and that she enjoys his dry wit and sense of fun. They genuinely sound like kindred spirits. “I have learned a lot of music from Ish. There is such a shared commonality, a shared sensibility and that is what he probably heard in me. He is incredibly perceptive; talk about being open-eared and open-eyed and open-hearted.” It was Ishiguro who suggested that Kent recorded a version of Paul Simon’s American Tune. “It had never occurred to me,” she remarked. “Ish is also a good singer. Sometimes when we meet, he’ll be playing the guitar and sing for us, sometimes some folk music. He could have been a musician but thank God he is a novelist, because he is a giant of literature,” she adds.

When Kent, saxophonist Tomlinson and pianist Art Hirahara appear at Southbank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Saturday 30 March in ‘An Evening with Kazuo Ishiguro & Stacey Kent’, the evening will include interviews and performances of songs, including the book’s title song The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain. It promises to be a wonderful night. “With Ish and Jim, I have two people who know me and love me and understand me,” Kent says. “They work so well together as a team and to sing their tailor-made songs, full of pain and heartache and also a window of hope, is an indescribable joy.”

Stacey Kent, Summer Me, Winter Me is out on Naïve Records. The Summer We Crossed Europe In The Rain: Lyrics for Stacey Kent by Kazuo Ishiguro is published by Faber on 7 March, £17.99

The post New album ‘Summer Me, Winter Me’ + Kazuo Ishiguro book of lyrics + QEH, 30 Mar + Ronnie’s, 7-12 May first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Soul on Ice, a four-day festival curated by arts development organisation Certain Blacks, will feature music, cabaret and live art. It takes its name from the 1968 memoir by Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver (written while he was in Folsom Prison in California).

The music highlight is the visit of free jazz pioneers Vincent Davis, Ari Brown and Ed Wilkerson, who bring their acclaimed group The Katalyst Conversation to the venue on Thursday 14 March. Brown, who turned 80 on 1st February, is a Chicago-based saxophonist and flautist who excels in playing everything from hard bop to avant-garde jazz. In a long career, Brown has played alongside luminaries such as Archie Shepp and Sonny Stitt.

In an email interview from America, Brown talked about his grounding in jazz, and his relationship with Stitt. “Some of my earliest influences were John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner. I liked all the old cats, like Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, and Stan Getz – especially the smoothness of his delivery and tone. On piano, Ahmad Jamal was one of my favourites. I used to do a set before Sonny with John Watson, and then we’d do a set together. Sonny used to tell stories about him and Gene Ammons. I would go by his hotel room and get lessons from him. He had knee problems, and I recommended Doctor Sidney, a naprapath. After that, he gave me free lessons!”

Brown and acclaimed Chicago-born percussionist Davis were former members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) – a progressive body that flourished in Chicago in the late 1960s – and they reunited for a series of concerts called ‘Mondays in October’ in 2021, performing at The Katalyst Coffee Lounge and Music Gallery, a record store that had just opened in Chicago. The shop, which was part of impresario Kevin Beauchamp’s independent record label Katalyst Entertainment, is intent on preserving the AACM tradition of ‘Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future’.

The pairing was so successful that it was soon followed by a second series called ‘Mondays in May’. That concept evolved further, with more musicians, into a musician performance called ‘The Conversation’, when the pair were joined by Preyas Roy, an up-and-coming vibraphonist and marimba virtuoso. Roy, who originally came to the Chicago to study maths at the city’s University, had left his studies to focus on being a full-time musician, honing his skills with regular busking on Michigan Avenue.

A month later, Vincent reached out to Wilkerson, an acclaimed saxophone player, clarinettist, composer and music educator, to further expand the scope of their musical collaboration, and the result was last June’s ‘The Conversation Continues’ concerts.

Now, Londoners will get the chance to hear their innovative sound when the seasoned trio, along with Roy, bring this captivating musical exploration to Soul on Ice. “I’ve been to London a few times with Elvin Jones,” recalled Brown. “First time was at Ronnie Scott’s Club, and I did another concert at a ‘theatre in the round’. With Elvin, we had a chance to work in the UK, and I liked some of the other cities too. I’m excited to go to London, it’s been a long time.”

Brown says that the members of The Katalyst Conversation “have a lot in common musically”, adding “we feed off of each other. We understand and appreciate the differences and qualities that each member brings to the group. Spiritually, it’s connected to the history of Chicago jazz and blues but it’s something separate from the tradition.”

The evening with The Katalyst Conversation includes an extra treat – a collaboration with UK musicians from the Miles Danso Ensemble, which will showcase the playing of Miles Danso (double bass), Keith Waithe (flute), Maurice Brown (guitar), Gary Washington (cello) and Siemy Di (drums and percussion).

Part of the aim of this Certain Blacks initiative is to explore diversity, identity and improvisation through music, cabaret and live art. Among the other attractions performing at Rich Mix are The Cocoa Butter Club (15 March), a cabaret troupe who celebrate burlesque, circus, spoken word and comedy as they explore the narrative of bodies of colour.

On 16 March, the festival hosts Contortion Girl Hannah Finn and a day later there will be live drawing commissions and a panel discussion about diversity and inclusion in art, along with a dance performance from The Psyber Giantess (Ugandan Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah).

In his controversial polemic Cleaver insisted that the “cultural achievements” of multicultural races should be celebrated. With the music of The Katalyst Conversation and the pioneering dance, art and comedy on show from such a fascinating range of performers, there will be plenty to enjoy in this creative celebration of the human condition and of all its joyful diversity.

The post Soul on Ice Festival at Rich Mix and The Place, 1-17 March first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Tuba player Adrian Miotti says that he and trumpeter Toby Street picked Neoteric Ensemble as the name for their band because it captured the freshness and innovation at the core of their new collaboration. “We wanted something that means new, exciting and bold and the word stuck out because it is edgy and exciting,” says Miotti.

The six-piece group – which also features saxophonist Rob Buckland, Sarah Field on saxophone and trumpet, James Fountain on trumpet and Richard Watkin on trombone, launch their debut album, Neoteric Ensemble Volume 1 (Ulysses Arts) in London, at a concert at PizzaExpress Live’s The Pheasantry venue in Chelsea on Wednesday 8 November.

As youngsters Miotti and Street both received a musical education at the Bromley Youth Music Trust – and they bring a variety of influences and enthusiasms to their new project. Miotti, who was born in Bromley in 1978, jokes that he was the sort of “weird teenager” who fell in love with classical music at a young age. He possessed an eclectic taste that encompassed everything from electronic dance band The Prodigy to Tchaikovsky. He discovered jazz at a later age, firstly through Frank Sinatra and later through discovering a love of big band music that was nurtured by trombonist Bobby Lamb, under whom he studied at Trinity College of Music in London.

Street, who was born in Beckenham in 1990, adores classical music, too, but his inspirations are more centred on the jazz world. He idolised trumpeter Wynton Marsalis – partly because of the American’s ability to play classical and jazz at such a high level – as well as old Blue Note and Verve trumpet stars such as Lee Morgan and Clifford Brown. “I love Brown’s albums where he has ensembles and a lot of brass,” Street says in an interview with London Jazz on zoom.

Their captivating new album fuses jazz and classical music, with added Latin American grooves and African rhythms, all the record showcases bold new contemporary compositions from Charlotte Harding, Dan Jenkins, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Andy Panayi and Mark Nightingale.

“The music at our first gig will be a real mix,” says Miotti. “We want to attract people from the classical and the jazz world. We are not a group who wants to be pigeonholed. We want to reach out to all audiences, classical and jazz, and that is our mantra. We want to draw in audiences who are interested in new, exciting music and then build up a loyal following.”

The sweeping music on their album, including Harding’s ‘Neo’, are technically challenging, with lots of notes flying around for the brass players, and Miotti admits to being particularly taken with Abbado’s African infused ‘The Effra Parade’, which he says the ensemble are excited to be able to play for a live audience. “It is a jewel in the crown, a work of genius from a great composer,” he adds. Panayi’s ‘Pandemic’ deals with the recent global Covid crisis.

Music has come from within the ensemble, too. Buckland’s ‘Soundscapes’, which was originally part of a set of 10 duets for two saxophones, took the movements ‘Mojito’, ‘Fjord’ and ‘Bosh’ and re-orchestrated them for Neoteric. Starting up his own band has also given Street the impetus to compose, and his delightful ‘Karatina Market’ is an Afro-Jazz harmony that fuses slick melodies with a busy bass line and choral counter melodies. It is another highlight of a fine album. “I wanted to write some African-inspired jazz and I had a Brecker Brothers track in mind when I wrote it,” Street explains. “Karatina is a bustling market in Kenya and I looked at photographs of the scenes and was inspired to write a piece around it, even though it is a place I have not visited. I have always done a little bit of writing and setting up the group provides a really good platform for getting my material out there, and gives me confidence to do it. I have really enjoyed the writing aspect.”

Both are them are in-demand session and recording musicians and teachers and they spend a fair amount of time in studios – Miotti has just finished a session at Abbey Road working with world-renowned Finnish group Nightwish – but they are both looking forward to having more creative control and freedom through their work with Neoteric Ensemble.

“One of the main reasons for us setting up a group was to do something we have not seen before. We moved on from the original idea of a brass quintet and decided to add saxophone to create a blend of sound that people might not necessarily have heard before,” says Street. “We hope what we are bringing is a brand-new repertoire, none of which has been performed before.”

Street also says that forming a new ensemble has been “a massive learning curve”, as the pair have been forced to get to grips with dealing with the commercial, marketing and modern social media promotional side of the music business. It is a challenge both musicians have relished, however, especially because it has meant reaping the creative rewards that have gone with the hard graft. As Miotti puts it: “Neoteric Ensemble gives us the chance to be creative on our own terms. As a freelancer, it is great to be able to create new work for yourself and to get more control over our artistic endeavours. That is what drove me and Toby. Our first gig will be really exciting after a couple of years of putting in all the groundwork. We know it will be a slow burner but we want to get our music out there, get peoples’ attention and see whether they like it.”

The band’s name is an amalgamation of words and the ‘ensemble’ part was carefully chosen. The concept gives them scope, as Miotti says, “to augment or diminish the group” and he explains that future projects could see different collaborations, with additions such as soloists or vocalists. They have already worked with respected composer Colin Towns, and his “ballet-oriented” piece might even get an airing at The Pheasantry.

Crowds can expect something new and vibrant, with lots of chat and interaction with the audience. “It is our first gig and when people come to hear us we realise they might not know what to expect,” says Miotti. “But we believe our music has proper artistic value and that people will be thrilled to hear music they have not heard before.” Street agrees. “This is a really good opportunity to hear something brand new,” he says.

Neoteric Ensemble Vol 1 is released on Ulysses Arts in collaboration with ECN Music.

The post Neoteric Ensemble – debut album ‘Vol. 1’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Londoner George Shearing was a genuine trailblazer. When he moved to America after World War Two, he became the first British jazz pianist to make an international impact. His compositions, including ‘Midnight Mood’, ‘Conception’ and ‘Lullaby of Birdland’, became revered standards.

“It is hard to overstate what a huge move going to the United States was because there was no real precedent for it,” explains Gorham in an interview for London Jazz. “George Shearing was the first to relocate in that way and then the first to succeed on that scale as well. An incredibly brave move, and difficult at the time. My Grandad Bert, who worked at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, helped arrange things but even then, George wasn’t officially allowed to work the first time he went over, he could only sit-in by invitation. Then, when he was allowed to work, he initially struggled. He had to face down prejudice from night club owners about blind performers and the fact that he was a Brit who was coming to the US, the home of jazz.”

Shearing, born on 13 August 1919 in Battersea, won over the club owners and made his own seismic impact on the world of music. “His success was revolutionary, when it did come,” says Gorham. “The ‘Shearing sound’ went completely against the prevailing tide of Be Bop and was one of the very first examples of Cool Jazz. Then there were the Latin influenced years in the 1950s, when he was doing some things that others, such as Stan Getz, only did later. The collaborations with Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee also broke new ground in bringing together a mass audience and that kind of intimate jazz feeling. Overall, the significance of his breakthrough and his success in the US has definitely been undervalued, partly because the jazz world has always been suspicious of commercial success.”

Shearing remained proud of his London roots. It was where he met his first wife, Trixie Bayes, and where he formed lifelong friendships, including with French violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Gorham is a fan of their pre-war collaborations. “There’s something incredibly uplifting and at the same time very moving about their music together. Plus, they can really swing! I love their later versions of ‘It Don’t Mean a thing’ or ‘Too Marvellous for Words’. I remember going to George’s ‘This is Your Life’ TV show with the family in 1992 and one of my strongest memories of the day is Stéphane’s appearance and the warmth and mutual admiration that was apparent between them.”

Shearing would talk about his love of the pianists Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and Fats Waller to Gorham’s mother (Shearing envied Waller’s reach on the keyboard) and piano duties on Shear Brass are shared between James Pearson and Simon Wallace, both of whom, Gorham jokes, were already ‘Shearing aware’. “He’s just part of the canon. It is impossible to avoid his influence,” he adds. “What’s satisfying about the recordings we did for the album is that both pianists were able to combine that awareness of the Shearing legacy while retaining their own distinct styles.”

The album, produced by Derek Nash, also features Jason McDermid (trumpet and arrangements), Chris Storr (trumpet), Pete Long (clarinet, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone), Alistair White (trombone), Anthony Kerr (vibes), Alec Dankworth (bass), Arnie Somogyi (bass), Satin Singh (percussion), and Sarah Moule, Louise Marshall, Natalie Williams and Romy Sipek on vocals. It will be promoted in September gigs at the Auden Theatre, Holt, Norfolk (5th), The Stables, Milton Keynes (7th), with the album launch at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London (10th).

Gorham says he is “hugely proud” that his daughter Romy Sipek is the vocalist on a smashing version of ‘Lullaby of Birdland’. How much did she know much about her great, great uncle before the project? “She’s known about him since she was young,” adds Gorham. “She has always loved the song ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ and sang it as her audition piece for performing arts school. She also sang it with James Pearson on piano and Andy Davies on trumpet at Ronnie Scott’s Upstairs early last year. It went down a storm then, so to get her to sing it on the album seemed a natural progression.”

As well as presenting other such fine Shearing works as ‘From Rags to Richards’, ‘The Fourth Deuce’ and ‘Children’s Waltz’, the live concerts promoting the album will also tell the story of Shearing’s astonishing life. “It is such a fascinating journey, a kind of fairytale even,” says Gorham. “He went from being a pub pianist in Lambeth to playing for three different American Presidents at the White House; from doing requests for tips in a saloon bar to writing a jazz standard recorded by Mariah Carey, Amy Winehouse and Ella Fitzgerald; from his dad delivering sacks of coal to Buckingham Palace via the servant’s entrance, to George going through the front door to receive his knighthood.”

Shearing’s life story seems ripe for a documentary and Gorham is working on this project. “I’ve wanted to do it for years – but I know from my ‘other’ career working in TV that it does take a long time and you have to be patient,” he says. “We have some great new footage that we’ve shot ourselves and we’re gathering more all the time. The aim is to make the documentary personal and impressionistic as well as factual; to bring in the family element; to make it a combination of ‘Who do you think you are?’ and a straighter bio that pays homage to George’s extraordinary rags-to-riches story. What’s exciting is that the three elements of the documentary, the album release and the live shows are all inter-linked and continue to give fresh impetus to each other.”

The arrangements by McDermid, a member of the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra since the 1990s, do so much more than just recreating the past: they bring a modernity to Shearing’s classic tunes that, says Gorham, make them “sound fresh and exciting”. The album is also sparked by a cast of stellar musicians, whose CV’s collectively involve serious sidemen chops, including work with Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Hutcherson and Art Farmer. “They are wonderful musicians and great to collaborate with, because everyone seemed genuinely invested in the project and really keen to be involved,” says Gorham.

Given his uniquely personal perspective, I wonder what happy family memories he has of this statesman of music? “When I was very young, we’re talking the early ‘70s, the family went to see George in concert at the Victoria Palace Theatre outside Victoria Station. I think it was the first time I saw him live,” recalls Gorham. “We queued to see him beforehand in his dressing room. Behind us were John Dankworth and Cleo Laine (their son Alec is playing on our album and on our live dates too – a nice connection) and I remember George gently placing his hands on my mum’s face and recognising her and I remember thinking how amazing that was; then later I remember another special moment as he was led on stage, sat down at the piano, then raised his hands and without ‘checking’ in any way, brought them down in exactly the right place on the keys. Astonishing.”

Shear Brass is a timely reminder of one of Britain’s greatest musical exports. And, as Gorham rightly points out, “The name Shearing remains a great draw”.  

Shear Brass: Celebrating Sir George Shearing is released on Ubuntu Music on Friday 1 September 2023.

The live Shear Brass concerts:
Tuesday 5 September – Auden Theatre, Holt, Norfolk
Thursday 7 September – The Stables, Milton Keynes
Sunday 10 September – Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London (album launch)

The post Carl Gorham – ‘Shear Brass first appeared on UK Jazz News.

“I started on the bongos at a church in Claremont Road in Rusholme, Manchester, and then went on to drums, before gravitating to the keyboards,” he recalled, in a Zoom interview. “One of my school teachers told me in order for me to grow as a musician, I must learn jazz. I then went to Longsight Library which was my local to rent out some records.

“The first record I got was Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, at the time my ears hadn’t developed yet, so it was too intense and I didn’t understand the music. I brought it back to the library. My teacher mentioned maybe try traditional Jazz so I went back and picked up an Oscar Peterson live at the Montreux Jazz Festival album, which was also too advanced for me. I went back a 3rd time and picked up a David Sanborn album and a Grover Washington Jr album which made musical sense to me, reminding me a little of the gospel music I grew up listening to as the melodies where very strong. This would become the backdrop of my career and help my writing to be melody focused.”

Smith was born in Manchester, his mother Ophelia is a gospel singer and his Jamaican-born father Vassell, a Windrush arrival, played guitar. The young Luke also grew to love George Duke, Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock – whom he describes as “some of my favourite musicians on the planet” – and gradually developed a wider palette, as he worked on his own sound, a melody-based one heavily influenced by Gospel music, Reggae, R&B, Pop, Rock as well as Jazz.

His forthcoming track ‘Lockdown 2.0’ is an enthrallingly funky song, with a honed melody. When I suggest that there are echoes in it of the hugely talented 1970s group The Crusaders, Smith laughs and replies, “Wilton Felder [saxophone and bass] and Joe Sample [keyboard player] are two of my heroes and you will hear them in my music. There are definitely traces of The Crusaders in ‘Lockdown 2.0’. I called on Andrew Ross, one of the top saxophone players in the country, who works with Incognito, to play on that track. We go back as teenagers in Manchester, when he studied in Salford University, and we were both really into Wilton Felder. Having Andrew on the track made my job easy, as he understood  what I was looking for and  he absolutely nailed it.”

‘Lockdown 2.0’ is a tribute to the late great bass player Joey Grant, who died late 2022, aged just 36. You can hear Grant’s rich interweaving bass lines on the track, which was co-written by Smith, Grant, drummer Josh ‘McNasty’ McKenzie and guitarist Charlie Allen. “Joey is probably one of the most important bass players of his generation and a lot of people don’t realise it,” says Luke. “Joey suggested ‘Lockdown 2.0’ for the title, and we all said, ‘that’s a great name’. The release date is on what would have been Joey’s 39th birthday.”

Smith remains a hugely in-demand session musician, with a sparkling CV. Among the musicians he has performed and recorded with are Roy Ayers, Hugh Masekela, Hot Chocolate, Jimmy Cliff, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Bonnie Tyler, Chaka Khan, The Sugarbabes, Emeli Sandé, Miss Dynamite and Stormzy.

One of his most high-profile longstanding collaborations was as keyboardist in George Michael’s band. Luke was also a part of history playing in that band as he was the first artist to play the new Wembley Stadium to a staggering 80,000 sold out crowd for two nights in 2007. “We had conversations about music,” Luke says, “but we also talked about politics and other things. George was a very rounded guy and would talk about a lot of different things at the dinner table. Musically, I learned a lot from him and saw that greatness at that level is not necessarily about fluking it. It is all about intention. Everything I saw George Michael do had a thought process and plan behind it. He knew what he wanted to do and was a pioneer to the end, always pushing the boundaries. The great musicians do that. I’ve played a lot with Cat Stevens recently and I see a similarity, in that they are both forward-thinkers who have a vision and they see that vision through.”

One of Smith’s most pivotal musical moments was playing with blues legend B.B. King and Eric Clapton, on a version of “The Thrill Is Gone” for King’s 2005 album B.B. King & Friends: 80. How did that come about? “Billy Preston was meant to do the session, but he was really sick,” Smith explains. “B.B. King’s team asked for suggestions for a Hammond player and three different people gave my name. When I got there, a guy came up and said, ‘Hi, I’m Eric’… and it was Eric Clapton. Then B.B. came in with an entourage. He was a larger-than-life truly charismatic character. It was such an honour. I had B.B. King on my right and Eric Clapton on my left, it was a very memorable session.”

Luke, who describes his own dyslexia as “a gift”, is a multi-talented, creative man. He also teaches masterclasses in music and is an accomplished songwriter and arranger. As a composer, producer and musician he worked with the late Amy Winehouse on her 2003 debut album Frank, on the songs ‘Take The Box’, ‘What it is About Men’ and ‘You Sent Me Flying’. “The record label said Amy had a couple of songs that needed some work. I added my musical creativity, changed things around in the chorus and added to the lyrics  she had already written, and the label loved it. My background of gospel music meant that on ‘Take the Box’ as I heard harmonies I was able to utilise what I learnt from studying the greats in gospel music Edwin Hawkins, Andrae Crouch and The Clark Sisters to name a few.”

Since working with George Michael and Amy Winehouse, Smith has transitioned into a highly respected solo artist, something he has achieved during the intensely challenging pandemic years. “Covid nearly took me out,” he says, in a matter-of-fact tone. After getting ill in January 2021, whilst he was in America, he returned to London on 1 February. “By the time Boris Johnson closed the country down, I was feeling ill. The following week, it got so bad I called the ambulance. It took three hours for the ambulance to come, because there was a shortage of PPE [personal protective equipment], and I was in a lot of pain. As soon as I left the house, I couldn’t breathe and began panicking. I was then on an oxygen machine for six days.”

How did such an awful experience affect him? “At the point when I was most ill, in a near-death situation, you ask yourself, ‘what is your legacy and what have you done with your life? Have you been a good steward of your life?’ I had been working on an album and finished it in 2018 and had not been sure how to release it. When I lay on the bed breathing oxygen I thought about my album, no one had even heard it! I vowed to myself that if I made it out of the hospital, I was going to put my own music out,” Smith says.

His debut single, ‘Travelling’, was a No.1 hit on the iTunes Charts and he has since released six singles, including ‘The Resurrection’ and ‘It’s Time’ featuring the legendary Roy Ayers. Smith is working on a new album, provisionally called Going Home, which he will support with a longer tour. He’s well placed to offer a verdict on the difference between playing in front of a huge stadium crowd and performing at classic small venues such as Manchester’s Band on the Wall (where he plays again on 22 September) and London’s Ronnie Scott’s and Pizza Express clubs. 

“Sometimes the bigger the venue, the more people, the more you are detached,” he says. “At the Pizza Express, for example, you are only a few feet from the audience. You are really exposed and there is no time for gimmicks. The audience captures the magic in real time. You look at the faces of the audience and you feed off their excitement, and that pushes you to push again. For me, big venues are great and prestigious and good for the ego, but I really like the smaller venues, because they make you play.”

Smith says that, as the frontman, he enjoys interacting with the crowd. “I try to get a feel of where they are at. I like to educate them and celebrate the musicians that play with me as they are all world class. I like them to hear my thought processes, which is part of the story.”

For the Pizza Express gigs, his band will include Jerry Brown (drums), David Mrakpor (bass), Charlie Allen (guitar), Andrew Ross (sax) and Sid Gauld (trumpet).

Along with special guests vocalist Joy Rose from the group Incognito (“she is a power house and will have you mesmerised”); vocalist Gavin Holligan, a new artist but who has made big waves recently on Jazz Fm with his music (“he definitely will be around for a long time”); Kwame Yeboah, a multi-instrumentalist genius; and not forgetting the amazing guitarist Joon Switon.

The London audience will be treated to a version of ‘Lockdown 2.0’, a tune that carries such strong meaning for Smith. “I’m so grateful I recorded this track, otherwise we would not have documented the genius of Joey playing the bass. Sometime in the future the young kids Joey left behind can watch his beautiful playing and see that their dad was a special guy and he influenced many people with his gift of music,” says Smith, who offers, with a rueful smile, the heart-warming advice that, “we have just got to celebrate life while we are here, make every day count.”

Luke Smith plays PizzaExpress Live (Holborn) on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 August.

The post Luke Smith – tour first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Neal Richardson, who was born in Croydon in 1966, jokes that his vibrant second album The Maximalist, has come a lot faster than his first CD, 2014’s Better Than the Blues, which he quips “was 48 years in the making”. The Maximalist features a nicely eclectic mixture of re-worked standards and his own thought-provoking compositions.

Among the covers is a version of “You are My Sunshine”, a 1940 classic that is guaranteed to lift your spirits. “It is a brilliant song,” Richardson tells LondonJazz News in a zoom call. “It is often the simplest songs that are the most effective. I discovered that one thanks to Jo Fooks, who plays saxophone on the album. She discovered the Scott Hamilton version with Gene Harris, who is one of my favourite piano players, and as soon as I heard it, I thought, ‘Oh man, yeah’.” The version of “Come Rain or Come Shine” is a tribute to the genius Ray Charles, a man Richardson calls “one of my three or four all-time heroes”.

The album explores a range of emotions about the testing journey that life is for all of us. The strapline extols “an album about false riches, belief, folly, greed, love, connection and hope”. “I wanted the album to tell the story of what I felt I had been through. I also wanted it to be a reasonable kind of document for me about where I am at musically,” he says. “The album is a story that starts with a statement of the problem, examining how life can drag you down, but also saying that hopefully the redemption is in finding people you love and who love you.”

One of the most affecting tracks is a cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make it Through the Night”. “I thought I might get pilloried for putting this on what Is supposed to be vaguely a jazz album but a good song is a good song,” Richardson explains. “In the end I wear two hats, because I have run a record label for 20 years, but I am first and foremost a musician, and that means two things: that I will always be learning and studying my craft – and also that I have learned to go completely with my heart. I say of that song that ‘sometimes despair needs company’. I have known a lot of sadness in my life as well as happiness and sometimes we all need something to get us through the night – and that could be a metaphor for life.”

Richardson, who took some vocal lessons from his friend Claire Martin during the pandemic, blends deftly with a talented band featuring Fooks, his wife Sue Richardson on trumpet, Mark Bassey on trombone, Luke Rattenbury on guitar, Alex Eberhard on drums and Richardson’s regular duo partner Miles Danso on double bass.

He believes that all the musicians bring “different flavours” to The Maximalist. Danso, for example, is a big fan of Duke Ellington and brings his own infectious playing to an album that features the swing track Comes Love. Meanwhile, guitarist Rattenbury plays a lot of Afrobeat and salsa in his other work and Richardson says that is part of why he excels at a “rhythmic approach”.

Richardson and his wife Sue have been married since 1995 and have been playing together professionally since starting out full time as cruise ship musicians. “We were sharing a cabin so early on we had to quickly establish a way of separating our relationship from our working relationship and we have always been quite strict about that. I have always been the pianist in her band, poor thing, and her playing is perfect for my material because she is a very melodic trumpet player and that is what I always wanted.”

I ask about the time Sue played a gig in Vancouver for VIP guest Margaret Thatcher. “It was with a big band, on tour in Canada, and there is a fantastic picture where Margaret Thatcher is greeting someone and Sue is in the background looking absolute daggers at her,” says Richardson with a laugh. “She is very proud of that photograph.”

I suggest that one of his own gigs, playing for George Clooney on his private yacht at the Cannes Film Festival, sounds more fun. Did Clooney get the chance to join in, following the footsteps of his famous 1950s singing aunt, Rosemary Clooney? “I was kind of hoping he might want to come up and sing but he was very busy with his duties as it was a charity fundraiser,” recalls Richardson. “It was a very small private party and the tickets cost £30,000. Brad Pitt and some of the other Ocean’s 11 cast were there. I took a break at the bar at one point and my elbow touched Brad’s elbow. I joked that immediately all my skin ailments disappeared. George Clooney came up at the end and told us it was a lovely show.”

Richardson’s raconteur skills are part of what draws audiences to his shows and although his lighter side comes across in tracks such as the happy “Jim Jam Blues” and the Ramsey Lewis influenced instrumental “No Better Blues”, his questioning nature is evident in compositions such as “Opium” and “The Cage (When Will It End?)”. He says he started writing the chorus for Opium, a song he says is “all about religion and its tenacious tentacles”, when he was 25. “I had a very religious upbringing, which I sort of chucked out, and it took me a long time to build up the courage to write the verses and finish the song. There is a slightly melancholy feel and it’s a very personal thing to me, about the journey I had.”

Another song he describes as contentious and provocative is “The Cage”, a song about “existential and climate angst”, to which audiences have responded well. A song that strikes a happy chord with audiences is “The Cold Sea”. Richardson has lived in Seaford for 23 years and he has been swimming through winters for eight years. “The ocean is nature’s natural highway and I love the thought that in theory you could float a little paper boat off the British sea and it could end up anywhere in the world. When I am immersed I feel connected to my own childhood and swimming puts things into context all the worries that you have. Sue has been doing it for the past couple of years, too, so she clearly caught the lunacy.”

We discuss the disaster that Brexit has been for the music industry, and touring in particular, and Richardson has clearly put an enormous amount of graft into recovering from the pandemic. “I was running six jazz clubs under my Splash Point jazz brand and when Boris Johnson announced the first lockdown, I lost 107 gigs in two hours” he explains. “It has taken two years since lockdown to build it back up. Last year was horrendous because people were still scared to come out and sit in a room with one another. It’s understandable but completely counter to the societal creatures we are – and thwarts the power of music to be a great healer.”

Richardson, who has performed in more than 50 countries, including with his acclaimed show “Not King Cole”, has been on tour in Germany promoting The Maximalist and says the best thing about playing live is the communication on stage and with the audience. “I love what comes back from the crowd,” he says. “If I haven’t connected with an audience by the end of the night then I feel I have failed,” he says. “I also hope that my new album will bring pleasure to people and, dare I say pompously, make them think a bit.”

The Maximalist is released on Splash Point Records on 16 June 2023.

Neal Richardson is on Twitter and Instagram at @splashpointjazz

The post Neal Richardson – new album ‘The Maximalist’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Louise Dodds and Elchin Shirinov were socialising in London when the Scottish singer broke into a version of Robert Burns’s song “Ae Fond Kiss”. Shirinov was entranced. He remembers jumping up to the keyboard and playing an impromptu accompaniment. “I soon said, ‘hey, we have to record an album of Scottish folk songs’, and Louise said she was totally up for it,” he recalls. The happy result is the beguiling album Two Hours After Midnight, featuring four Burns songs in all, including “Ae Fond Kiss”.

Dodds, a 2022 Scottish Jazz Awards best vocalist nominee, had originally reached out to Shirinov, a former member of bassist Avishai Cohen’s trio, during lockdown, when they collaborated on one of her own songs. After subsequently deciding to concentrate on interpreting different Scottish folk songs, Dodds researched the stories and old tunes that eventually made up the eight tracks. “The title came about by chance when I was researching dozens of songs and the stories behind them,” Dodds tells London Jazz, in a joint zoom call with Shirinov. “I wanted to get deeper into Scottish history and I found a book in the library called Scotland: Her Story: The Nation’s History by the Women Who Lived It [edited by Rosemary Goring], and the first one was this letter from Mary, Queen of Scots, the last letter she ever wrote, and it was signed off, ‘This Wednesday, two hours after midnight’. In those few words, there is just so much in them that it almost carries this whole sad story in six words. I marvelled at her strength to be so poetic just before she was executed.”

By the time the musicians began working closely on preparing the tunes, in January, Shirinov admits he had fallen in love with Scottish music; with jigs, storytelling and folklore that is “just so beautiful and honest and full of love”. They whittled down 25 or so songs to the eight on the album, compositions that include Burns’s “Coming Thro’ The Rye”, “Ye Banks and Braes” and “Auld Lang Syne”, along with the traditional “Night Visiting Song”, Charles Gray’s “Oh True Love is a Bonnie Flower” and Harold Boulton’s “Loch Tay Boat Song”.

One of the standout tracks is “Lass o’ Gowrie”, composed by Lady Nairne [1766-1845], a contemporary of Burns who was known as Carolina Oliphant. “Carolina never let anyone know what she was up to in her lifetime,” explains Dodds. “It is hard to know if she wanted to keep her work secret because it was something for herself or whether she thought she would not be taken seriously. Some of her songs are mistaken for Burns, but it feels right that she should be acclaimed too. Also, as artists, it is important for us to contribute to any positive movement in society and there is so much momentum now towards equality in society. We wanted to add our voice and support.”

What makes the album even more interesting is that both singer and pianist bring a jazz sensitivity to their reimagining of such historic tunes. Dodds, who says her parents used to play Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra records when she was growing up, says her eclectic influences range from Betty Carter and Anita O’Day to Joni Mitchell. She is also a huge fan of Norma Winstone and had the thrill of opening for her at the 2020 Edinburgh Jazz Festival.

Shirinov, born in Baku, cites a host of keyboard inspirations, including Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. The man who first sparked his interest in jazz, however, was the peerless pianist Bill Evans. “My first influence, the one who really decided for me unconsciously that I wanted to be a jazz musician, was Bill Evans,” says Shirinov. “When I heard his beautiful composition “We Will Meet Again (For Harry), from his amazing album You Must Believe in Spring, I just froze. I didn’t know who was playing, or what it was, but I remember thinking, ‘my god, what is that? I want to get into it.”

Shirinov, who originally learned folk music because his older brothers were also folk musicians, believes there are lots of similarities between the music of his homeland and traditional Scottish folk. “Even the time signature, 6/8, is similar, and I just loved it,” he adds.

Both collaborators insist that location was an important factor in deciding where the album was created. “We wanted to record it in Scotland, and we made it in Edinburgh because of Castlesounds Studio,” explains Dodds. “We brought in a Steinway and that was somewhere good that could accommodate the piano. It was so important to be on Scottish soil. There is just something in me when I am back. I feel I am home here. To be able to relate properly to those sounds and lyrics I needed to be in Scotland.”

Edinburgh’s St Vincent’s Chapel is a venue in which Shirinov has enjoyed practising in the build-up to their opening gig. “It’s a beautiful church with a beautiful piano and then we have the contrast of a gig in London at the PizzaExpress in Soho, a venue we both love,” he says. The pair are also working on plans for a tour of the UK and Europe and have booked in playing two nights at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival. “It is important for us to play in Scotland,” says Shirinov.

Dodds firmly believes that, in a post-lockdown world, people are “really looking for an authentic connection in music” when they go to gigs. She is sure that folk music, “especially old folk music” can provide that sense of connection because “there is so much honesty and truth to these memorable stories that have been passed down”.

Both are rightly proud of Two Hours After Midnight, which is full of potent songs about love, heartbreak and friendship, and they are looking forward to receiving an emotional response from audiences and listeners. “Basically, when musicians feel a deep connection with music, they just want to share that beauty with people,” remarks Shirinov. “It is so rewarding after concerts when people come with tears in their eyes and say, ‘you changed my day. I was feeling so bad and after this concert I am feeling amazing, thank you.’ That is special, the feeling that we are serving people in a nice way by bringing them beautiful music.”

Two Hours After Midnight by Louise Dodds and Elchin Shirinov is released (CD & digital) on 26 May 2023 (Loch Tay Records – LT001).

The duo appear at St Vincent’s Chapel, Edinburgh (19 May- BOOKINGS) and PizzaExpress Jazz Club, Dean Street, London (23 May – BOOKINGS).

The post Louise Dodds/Elchin Shirinov – new album ‘Two Hours After Midnight’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.