Whenever celebrated South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim performs in London, he is received rapturously and accorded a reverence reserved for few jazz musicians. Leading the Abdullah Ibrahim Trio at the Barbican on 15 July (as part of the ongoing 2023 [...]
Branford Marsalis is a man of multiple talents – an award-winning saxophonist par excellence, composer and jazz educator. He is as comfortable performing the music of Debussy and Stravinsky as he is rendering a Duke Ellington composition with stunning similarity [...]
In a special edition of Classic Music Sundays for the Spitalfields Festival, MOBO award-winning jazz saxophonist, MC, broadcaster, composer and alumnus of Tomorrow’s Warriors, Soweto Kinch, discussed tracks from composers who have influenced his work with Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy. The [...]
“The heart and soul of the music comes from an experience of people rising out of oppression. Many cultures, including the culture of Armenia, share that experience. Hopefully our music can resonate in people’s hearts and bring them together,” says [...]
Black Lives: From Generation to Generation is a sprawling tapestry of Black music drawn from African, Caribbean and African-American musicians (full list below), the product of Stefany Calembert’s (partner of jazz bassist Reggie Washington) creative vision. The lyrical and improvisational [...]
On hearing the Norman Granz-produced Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book for the first time, Ira Gershwin quipped, “I didn’t know how good our songs were until I heard Ella sing them”. Though Cleveland Watkiss MBE [...]
Winifred who? This is the most likely response from the vast majority of people hearing the name Winifred Atwell for the first time. The Trinidadian-born piano prodigy (1914-1983), however, remains the most successful female instrumentalist in the UK. She had [...]
An absence of gigging opportunities during the first six months of the pandemic in 2020 provided just the right creative spur for Misha Tsiganov. The Brooklyn-based pianist converted the downtime into a period of serious productivity, birthing a suite of [...]
36-year-old drummer and composer Arnaud Dolmen is taking the rhythms and musical traditions of his native Guadeloupe, the French Caribbean island, in decidedly new directions. Five years on from his acclaimed 2017 debut Tonbé Lévé, his new album Adjusting, combines [...]
Known for several decades as an adventurous sideman in the equally daring ensembles of saxophonists James Carter, Tim Berne, and Chris Potter, multi-keyboardist Craig Taborn has come into his own as a significant solo piano improviser. Shadow Plays is Taborn’s [...]
