Jamie Cullum‘s Royal Festival Hall show was one of the very first concerts of this year’s LJF to sell out, and it also clearly brought back happy memories for Cullum himself. The crucial early turning-point in his career was in [...]
The star of this show wasn’t actually on stage: Max Roach (1924-2007), one of the great drummers who reinvented jazz drumming for the bebop era (and hence all that followed) and, as Kevin LeGendre pointed out in his introduction to [...]
Outside, the evening was distinctly chilly but, inside Kings Place, the audience was immediately thawed by the warmth embrace of South African sounds and winning smile of pianist and educator Nduduzo Makhathini, magnificently accompanied by bassist Zwelakhe Bell le Pere [...]
An analysis of the many great recordings by Joe Henderson of “Isotope” is a subject deserving of another article someday. It is one of his most iconic compositions, which is probably the reason Blue Note issued a previously unheard version [...]
The world premiere of a collaboration between alto saxophonist and composer Cassie Kinoshi with her boundary-pushing group seed. (formerly SEED Ensemble, formed in 2016) and the full might of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under Ben Gernon, met with great [...]
