Liv Andrea Hauge Trio is a young band from Norway; Ville Blomster (wild flowers) is their second album, but their first recorded in a studio, its predecessor having been recorded in pianist Liv Andrea Hauge‘s living room. Ville Blomster belies [...]
Released towards the end of last year, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola‘s latest record features a quartet drawn from the cream of European jazz talent, with Jasper Høiby on bass, Kit Downes on piano, and Olavi Louhivuori on drums. Høiby and Downes will be familiar to most listeners; perhaps [...]
One of the themes of the Scottish Jazz Weekend seemed to be celebrating the younger generation, and after the Ewan Hastie Trio the night before came the Mackenzie, Ewins, Wright Trio to open the concert on Saturday lunchtime. They explained that they [...]
The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival’s Scottish Jazz Weekend has become a regular add-on to the summer festival, and a welcome relief to an otherwise bleak November. This celebration of Scottish jazz was opened by the Ewan Hastie Trio. A [...]
At first glance, it might seem that tenor saxophonist and composer Alex Hitchcock has pulled together a supergroup big band for this album, full of luminaries of the UK jazz scene. A closer inspection, however, shows that he’s done something more [...]
This gig closed in a way that summed up the whole event: with a joyous, witty, song, What I Like, sung with passion and glee by Kate Westbrook, backed by a new septet playing the music of Mike Westbrook, his [...]
Another “new” album by John Coltrane, this recording was rediscovered in the New York Public Library, where it had been deposited in the late 1960s or early 70s. The recordings were made over two nights during a summer season in 1961 [...]
The compositions are gently understated. The front line comprises Irini Arabatzi‘s ethereal, mostly wordless vocals and Matt Carmichael‘s powerful tenor saxophone. Beneath this, the mood is determined by strings – Bernadette Kellerman on violin, Juliette Lemoine on cello -in addition to Hendry on bass, Dan Brown on accordion [...]
The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival put on over 110 concerts across ten days, requiring careful planning to see as much as possible. Clashes were inevitable, with the occasional bag of chips grabbed while hurrying between venues to provide necessary [...]
Little over a month after the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra played host to Gwilym Simcock with a thrilling evening of original music, they returned with another collaboration. A revival, their work with Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers dates back to 2010. The [...]
