The Guadeloupean drummer’s Adjusting Quartet (with pianist Leonardo Montana, acoustic bassist Samuel F’Hima and tenor saxophonist Francesco Geminiani) performed compositions taken from his ‘Adjusting (2022)’ and ‘Tonbe Leve’ (2017) albums.

Although definitely influenced by modern straightahead jazz, the sound of the quartet is strongly informed by the Gwo Ka rhythms and accompanying dances of Guadeloupe’s African slave descendants, comprising: Toumblak (love and fertility); Kaladja (mourning); Woule (waltz danced with a scarf); Graj (work dance with movements suggesting cassava production); Padjanbel (work dance with movements similar to plantation slaves); Mende (carnival dance suggesting collective escape) and Lewoz (martial dance calling to memory plantation rebellion).

Arnaud Dolmen took up Gwo Ka studies from the age of five with legendary Guadeloupean musician Georges Troupé before proceeding to the Dante Agostini drum school in Toulouse for further drum and percussion instruction.

He has since gone on to record and collaborate prolifically with many groups and leaders including So, Franck Nicholas and Dédé Saint-Prix.

He has also performed around the world alongside Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Bojan Z, Olivier Ker Ourio, Alfredo Rodriguez, Mario Canonge, Naïssam Jalal, Laurent de Wilde, David Linx, Samy Thiébault and Jonathan Jurion, to mention a few. He has won several coveted jazz prizes. What’s more, the 39-year-old has garnered a meaty role in the Netflix series, ‘The Eddy’.

From the off, Dolmen gave his Ladbroke Hall audience a grand Gwo Ka master class with the highly entertaining ‘Graj ou Toumblak’, revealing Samuel F’hima’s deep and dependable pulse. The bass and drums tandem set up a solid launch pad for Montana and Geminiani to take improvisatory flight.

Montana nimbly navigated the melodic and harmonic complexities of ‘SQN’ (from the Adjusting album which featured accordionist Vincent Peirani), composed by Dolmen during the coronavirus pandemic. It was also an opportunity for a blazing display of bravura from the Brazilian-born, Paris-based pianist.  

The Adjusting Quartet’s contemplative and heavily syncopated ‘Cavernet’ (a portmanteau of ‘cave’ and ‘internet’ inspired by Dolmen’s study of Plato’s allegory of the cave), was one of the evening’s more spellbinding pieces.

It certainly drew attention to the evident sympatico between Montana and Dolmen as they traded exquisitely wrought extemporised musical phrases with each other.

The ultra-funky, ‘The Gap’, upped the groove factor several notches, as Geminiani’s tenor rode on top of the off-beats and accents of Dolmen’s tasteful drumming. The rendition also encompassed the Ka drum situated to the left of his kit, which Dolmen played with his heel.

‘Les Oubliees’, (The Forgotten Ones) was Dolmen’s ode to the musical ancestors.

This is a delightful beguine piece, reminiscent of the songs performed by Guadeloupean jazz piano stalwart, Alain Jean-Marie.

Kudos to Zhenya Strigalev for curating the excellent Friday Jazz series at Ladbroke Hall, a former car showroom transformed into what is arguably one of West London’s more polished performance spaces. Notable too is Chef Pollini and his staff, who offer exceptional dishes and service at the Sunbeam Theatre.

SET LIST

Graj ou Toumblak
SQN
Ka Sa Té Ké Bay
Expérience One

Cavernet
Ti Moun Gaya
The Gap
Les oubliées

Future concerts at Ladbroke Hall include Chilean pianist Jorge Vera on 28 February, Zhenya Strigalev on 14 March and NY pianist Micah Thomas on 11 April

The post Arnaud Dolmen’s Adjusting Quartet first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Alternating between meditative, slow-building, and fast-paced pieces in their first set, (including Krzysztof Komeda’s ‘Sleep Safe and Warm’) the near telepathic communication between pianist Wasilewski, double bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz was clear for all to witness.

The Trio has perfected the art of blending the insistent with the contemplative; Kurkiewicz’s expressive acoustic bass soloing tastefully elaborated Wasilewski’s riffs, while Miskiewicz’s drumming decorously shaped the overall musical conversation.

Indeed, the London outing was a key date in the Trio’s 30^th anniversary tour. In the time the band has been together they have not only substantially contributed to the ‘art of the trio’ (to borrow the title of a collection of Brad Mehldau albums), but have loaned their considerable collective strengths as a backing rhythm section to late trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and to tenor sax supremos Joe Lovano and Charles Lloyd.

Their second set was a tad more animated than the first with a cover of The Doors’ classic, ‘Riders On The Storm’ (from the En attendant album) and the Wasilewski originals, ‘Austin’ and ‘L’Amour Fou’ (from the Trio’s Arctic Riff collaboration with Joe Lovano).

The Marcin Wasilewski Trio’s live and recorded sound mirrors the classic ‘ECM sound’ characterised by impeccable sound engineering, warmth and aural spaciousness as essential production values. Their work follows in the footsteps of recordings such as the Keith Jarrett’s ‘Standards’ albums or John Taylor’s ‘Rosslyn’.

The encore piece, a warm interpretation of Prince’s hit song ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ brought the curtain down on a delightful evening.

The post Marcin Wasilewski Trio first appeared on UK Jazz News.

With an unfaltering left hand teasing out wondrous harmonies and a mercurial right hand painting pretty improvised melodies, the Baltimore-born maestro draws from a near bottomless well of genres and styles – Black Spirituals, Boogie-Woogie, the Blues, R&B, the occasional Bach fugue or Chopin prelude, and, of course, endless, toe-tapping Swing.

Patrons who took in Cyrus’ London Jazz Festival trio date on Tuesday evening at Soul Mama – London’s newest jazz venue in East Village, Stratford – did not come away disappointed. Furthermore, as first time visitors to Soul Mama, my son Sultan and I were impressed by the hospitable staff, and by all that Adetokumbo, aka, ‘T’ has created. The food is amazing. Their jerked chicken wings: yummy indeed!

Joined by resourceful acoustic bassist, Giorgos Antoniou, and the ingenious Catalonian drummer Esteve Pi, the trio started off their first set with the up-tempo Chestnut original, ‘Shizzle Shake’, peppered by Pi’s polyrhythmic approach – recalling the way Elvin Jones accompanied McCoy Tyner in the John Coltrane Quartet. 

Chestnut is a piano prodigy with deep roots. He grew up playing Sunday services at Baltimore’s Mount Calvary Baptist Church at an early age, progressing to study European classical repertoire at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory and the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated in 1985 with a degree in composition and arranging.

Indeed, his distinctive arranging and composing nous has seen him refine and fine-tune the piano-led jazz trio format, following in the footsteps of Nat ‘King’ Cole, Hampton Hawes, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson, among others.

Chestnut’s inspired reinterpretation of Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ struck an appreciative chord with his enraptured audience.

More than just a stab at pop music relevance, it demonstrated how a gossamer light touch and tender jazz voicing can make a way for a new entry into the jazz standard cannon.

Alongside compositions which showcased the influence of music encountered on his travels in India and Japan such as ‘Shantee’ and ‘Nippon Soul Connection’ respectively, his readings of Monk’s ‘Ask Me Now’ and Jimmy Van Heusen and Eddie De Lange’s ‘Darn That Dream’ were executed with masterly accomplishment.

Chestnut brought out the full power of the Steinway Grand piano as if it was a full orchestra comprising various strings and horns. He made the lower range of the instrument roar and tinkled the upper registers of the instrument with a feather touch.

As Chestnut mentioned while introducing tunes, typifying the essence of live jazz music:

“You are listening to an original performance, designed for your ears only. This music will never be played the same way for anyone else.”

Other memorable tunes receiving the ‘for-your-ears-only’ treatment were Duke Jordan’s Latin-flavoured ‘No Problem’, Charlie Parker’s ‘Yardbird Suite’, Johnny Green’s ‘Body and Soul’, Patty and Mildred Hill’s ‘Happy Birthday’ and Duke Ellington’s ‘In A Sentimental Mood’.

The post Cyrus Chestnut Trio first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Congo Square and the bordellos of Storyville are frequently and superficially depicted as the places where jazz emerged; the Big Easy, writ large, is the city where a perceived ‘superior’ European classical music tradition (with its reliance on brass and stringed instrumentation and arrangements) becomes alloyed with the ‘native energy and rhythms’ of African musicians.

In less than 500 pages, however, Ben Barson compellingly retells the creation story of jazz, revealing a music which is inextricably bound up with the mass mobilisation of freed people during the Reconstruction era immediately following the end of the American Civil War.

Barson, a protégé of saxophonist Fred Ho, is a baritone saxophonist, recording artist and political activist, who received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, studying at the feet of the trailblazing jazz pianist and academic Geri Allen.

Currently an assistant professor at Bucknell University, Barson presents a thorough-going analysis of the ways in which the Haitian revolution became a powerful impetus for cultural and socio-political change in New Orleans, Louisiana, and an influence on the development of jazz.

Barson draws attention to the fact that Black musicians through their brass bands and musical performances were integral in resisting the oppressive forces of southern plantocracies, forming broad coalitions with local churches, trade unions and other civic groups and ultimately creating the basis of what he terms a ‘Brassroots Democracy’.

‘Maroon ecologies’ describe the communities and environments created by escaped enslaved Africans, known as Maroons, who fled plantations and settled in remote areas across the Americas. These communities were often located in generally inaccessible and inhospitable swamps, mountains and dense forests, providing natural defences against recapture, and where they could improvise a new, democratic political culture.

By the ‘Jazz Commons’ – and key to an understanding of the book – the author builds upon the important concept of the ‘Common Wind’ introduced by Julius Scott in his opus The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution, regarding an informal channel of information shared among African diasporic communities working in ships and on docks and ports in the US and Caribbean islands around the time of the Haitian Revolution. 

It should be remembered that Toussaint L’Ouverture, the former slave and astute military strategist, led a successful revolt in Saint-Domingue (now known as Haiti) in 1791. Haiti went on to win its independence from France in 1803, establishing the first ever republic in the New World created by former slaves.

However, the immediate ensuing years of that nation’s independence were marked by serious economic challenges; thousands of Haitians, including former slaves and other free people of colour were forced to flee the new republic with 90 percent of the refugees ending up in New Orleans. Historians suggest that by 1810, nearly 10,000 migrants arrived in the Crescent City, drawn by the city’s linguistic and cultural affinities to their own creole culture.

Barson foregrounds the work of the Martiniquan scholar, Edouard Glissant, in his examination of creolisation in the historical context of Haitian and African-American societies in Louisiana.

However, given his consideration of the broader cultural influence of the Caribbean islands, Barson may have missed an opportunity to include the work of creolisation theorists such as the Barbadian poet/historian, Edward ‘Kamau’ Braithwaite.

Importantly, though, Barson underscores the gendered nature of music-making in New Orleans with his chapter on Mamie Desdunes in the Neo Plantation: Legacies of Black Feminism among Storyville’s Blues People. He refers to the music of Mamie Desdunes, the sister of multi-instrumentalist Daniel Desdunes, who was herself an accomplished singer and pianist combining Haitian rhythms and storytelling traditions with the Blues in the late 1800s. Her work denounced the patriarchal sex industry she toiled in – the Storyville Red Light district.

The chapter concerning Dockworker activism and New Orleans Jazz provides a penetrating study of the ways in which musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Willie Parker, Pops Foster and others, who spent a ‘significant part of their early lives loading and unloading cotton , tobacco, coal, and other commodities onto ships in the port of New Orleans’, helping the Big Easy to become one of the leading centres of capitalism in the American South. The chapter yields important insights into the role of New Orleans musicians and the Black Longshoremen’s Protective Union Benevolent Association in the early 20^th Century.

Barson’s broad historical sweep encompasses the integration of ecological and artistic concerns and a critical analysis of the way enslavers, the enslaved and the recently freed used and abused land within the context of the plantation model – giving way to a limited commune movement in Louisiana. In the chapter titled, Sowing Freedom: Abolitionist Agroecology in Afro-Louisiana, Barson draws on the story of a music instructor who is paid in yams.

Barson’s La Frontera Sonica chapter and its account of the Tio family who relocate from Louisiana to Veracruz, Mexico, is helpful in understanding the story behind what Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the ‘Spanish Tinge’ in his music – the influence of the habanera and tresillo rhythms of the Cuban Contradanza.

Well illustrated with a generous amount of archival photos and sheet music, ‘Brassroots Democracy’ provides a deeply engaging and fine-grained analysis of the early beginnings of jazz, revealing a music birthed in the crucible of resistance, which in the end offers a triumphant contribution to global culture.

The post Ben Barson – ‘Brassroots Democracy – Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Playing in the intimate setting of the recently built World Heart Beat venue in Nine Elms, Lawrence began his set playing flute and singing Donny Hathaway’s Tryin’ Times.

It was a fitting piece in light of the socio-political turmoil and strife unfolding presently in several parts of the world. Lawrence’s bluesy interpretation did justice to a song made popular by Roberta Flack in the early 1970s during the civil rights and Vietnam War era in the United States.

Special mention should be made of Jones’ accompanists in the musical engine room: pianist Terry Seabrook, bassist Paul Whitten and drummer Joe Edwards, providing sterling support.

Lawrence’s vocal influences also reveal an admiration for Abbey Lincoln, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Eddie Jefferson. His renditions of Throw it Away and Theme for the Eulipions were well received. Bennie’s from Heaven (the now classic humorous spoof on the jazz standard Pennies from Heaven made famous by Jefferson) went down a storm with everyone in the house laughing uproariously.

This reviewer’s favourite selection of the evening though, was Grover Washington Jr’s Lullaby for Shana Bly, a pretty jazz waltz with a gorgeous melody (from Washington Jr’s ‘Then and Now’ album of 1988), whose interpretation confirmed Lawrence’s effortless mastery of the flute.

Born in the City of Brotherly Love – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Lawrence Jones began playing the flute at the age of eight. It was at West Philadelphia High School that he developed an interest in jazz and got the opportunity to perform with Grover Washington Jr and to be mentored by jazz violin luminary John Blake.

Having bagged a scholarship to Berklee College of Music to study flute, saxophone, clarinet and composition, young Lawrence also took advantage of moments while in Boston to perform and record with a who’s who of jazz legends, including Buddy Rich and Marian McPartland. Further openings came after Berklee, when he moved to Los Angeles and New York, in 1981 and 1984 respectively, to play with several established pop and jazz acts such as Chaka Khan, Sid Simmons and Branford Marsalis. Prior to settling in Brighton in the early 1990s, Jones taught music in the school system of the Bahamas and toured as a member of Abdullah Ibrahim’s (Dollar Brand) Ekaya band. He led the jazz night at Brighton’s Lion and Lobster bar for 20 years and in 2000, founded the the Brighton Jazz All Stars (BJAS).

Kudos to Ossie Huggins and Kathy Kalarus of Music Motivation Management Ltd for making Lawrence’s performance possible.

The post Lawrence Jones Quartet at World Heartbeat first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Kobe’s considerable compositional nous harks back to the halcyon hard bop days of the 1960s.

Sturdily constructed tunes such as ‘Mona Lisa’, ‘Familiar Faces’ and ‘XOXO’ will readily prick up the ears of discerning jazz fans.

They mirror the guile and complexity of albums such as Joe Henderson’s Page One and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at The Café Bohemia (Vols 1 and 2).

‘Recipe for the Unknown’ features the sinewy unison horn lines of trumpeter Carlo Nardozza and tenor saxophonist Claudio Jr de Rosa. The pair thread shade and sheen into the telling tapestry of the composition. Ignacio Santoro holds everything together with firm bass lines and pianist Vivienne Chu Liao accompanies the musicians with a dexterous touch.

Vivienne’s nimble-fingered approach on the somewhat dissonant ‘Familiar Faces’ is also cogent and compelling and you can hear traces of Elmo Hope and Herbie Nichols in her solos.

All of that said, the gem hiding in plain sight on the recording is 25-year-old Dutch/Congolese spoken word artist Danielle Zawadi.

Snatches of Danielle’s arresting declamations (she’s from the artistic lineage of Gang Starr, the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron) can be discerned on ‘Mona Lisa’, but are more fully realised on ‘Laud’ and ‘Leefplicht’.

Danielle’s work revolves around her bi-cultural identity, living as a Black woman in the Netherlands with all of the challenges that this brings for a person of colour in Europe.

Born in 1995, Gregoir completed his musical education four years ago at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. Following several Asian and European tours he was commissioned to take part in a large project called ‘Wij Den Haag’ (We The Hague), which provided the main catalyst for Co-Motion and his intriguing collaboration with Zawadi.

This is indeed quite a unique recording, bringing together young instrumentalists influenced by American jazz from the turbulent 1960s with a powerful spoken-word artist representing Africa and Europe all at once.

It makes for pretty compelling listening.

The post Kobe Gregoir Group – ‘Co-Motion’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

From 1pm to 9pm, patrons will be entertained by Brit Funk royalty, the Brit Funk Association, legends Atmosfear, and the amazing City Funk Orchestra.

The Saturday Love All-Dayer, staged in collaboration with the Friends of Broomfield Park, will also feature food stalls, a bar, vintage vinyl purveyors RetroSistaz, and much more.

Partly organised by veteran funk and jazz DJ and My Time (Green Lanes) café proprietor, Brian Lewis, the event will take enthusiasts attending the event back in time to the superb groups and grooves of the 1970s to the mid-1980s.

The constellation of star DJs manning the decks on the day include Richie Tee (Diverse Radio), Keith Robles (Crackers Radio), Richard Marzetti (Solar Radio), Peter Maynard (Soulbeat Radio), and Mr Jones (Café 432/Mi-Soul Radio).

The artistically creative music scene of the early 80s proved to be a strong influence on young North Londoner Lewis:

“As an aspiring DJ, I loved spending hours in record shops getting the latest imported records. Alongside leaders in Brit Funk such as Light of the World, Beggar & Co, Central Line, Freez, Atmosfear, Loose Ends, Lynx, High Tension and Imagination, I also listened to a lot of the American bands which influenced us. Among them were people like Roy Ayers, Grover Washington Jr, Ramsey Lewis, Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, George Genson, Bobby Womack, Maze, Rick James, SOS Band and Wilbert Longmire”.

“Of course, who could possibly forget the whole ‘Philly Sound’ – MFSB, Dexter Wansel and McFadden & Whitehead.”

According to Brian, North London venues were central to ‘spreading the good vibes’ of jazz, soul and funk in the early 1980s.

He says clubs like the Royalty in Southgate “were the catalyst for us being able to engage with this music. The likes of DJ Froggy, Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent, Greg Edwards and even Pete Tong were very active at the Royalty. This gave birth to very entertaining All-Dayers and Soul Weekenders (Caiste) which we absolutely loved and made it possible to get together with liked-minded funksters.”

Brian hopes the 22 June event will reach across several generations, bringing along not only those who experienced the music four decades ago, but giving younger music lovers the chance to take in and enjoy the sounds of funk-jazz, as well as American and Brit Funk.

The post Saturday Love All-Dayer in Palmers Green, 22 June first appeared on UK Jazz News.

His warmly received two-hour concert at the Barbican on 23 May showcased his redoubtable prowess on his instrument and the ease with which he ranged across hard-bop, pop, funk, European classical and R&B.

Getting the evening off to a rousing start with an impassioned rendition of Danny Boy, Botti strutted across the stage in a shimmering, tight-fitting jacket. The tension and cinematic delivery of this familiar melody was balanced by the tender accompaniment of pianist Andy Ezrin.

This was followed by Someday My Prince Will Come and When I Fall in Love – two staples of the Great American Songbook, which also appear on his new Blue Note release, Chris Botti Vol. 1

Indeed, the London concert was part of Botti’s European tour to support the new recording, featuring traditional jazz standards with a few nods to pop relevance such as Coldplay’s Fix You.

Born in the state of Oregon in 1962, Chris Botti was raised in Corvallis and started playing the piano at an early age, influenced by his mother, a classically trained pianist and part-time piano teacher. He switched to trumpet at nine after listening to Miles Davis play ‘My Funny Valentine’ and studied music at Indiana University, in Bloomington under the tutelage of David Baker, Bill Adam as well as Woody Shaw and George Coleman.

In 1999, he composed the score to the film Caught. Over the course of 30 years, Chris Botti has recorded and performed with the world’s best and most popular musicians including Sting, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Bublé, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, John Mayer, Andrea Bocelli, Joshua Bell, Aerosmith, and Frank Sinatra and has sold more than 4 million records.

With a core rhythm section comprising flamboyant drummer Lee Pearson, Daniel Chmielinski on basses and synths and Ezrin on piano and synths, Botti held the Barbican audience in the palm of his hand.

Extra firepower came in the form of several outstanding guests – violinist Anastasiia Mazurok, guitarist Daniel De Moraes (performing with the band for the first time), saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (aka Chad LB), and vocalists Sy Smith and John Splithoff.

Mazurok and Botti wowed the crowds on a joint rendition of Botti’s tune Emmanuel, performed up close and personal with audience members while standing in the aisles – a special and much appreciated touch.

Smith, a seasoned singer and solo artist in her own right, was captivating on a funky rendition of Feeling Good, made famous by Nina Simone (from the 1965 album I Put a Spell on You).

Impressive young horn player Chad LB has imbibed the styles of Coleman Hawkins and Hank Mobley, among others, and was the perfect foil for Botti, especially on Milestones.

Splithoff was persuasive with a haunting take on Sting’s Moon Over Bourbon Street and Elvis Presley’s Are You Lonesome Tonight?, which is Botti’s most-streamed song.

Bringing the curtain down on the evening with the Louis Armstrong popularised gem, What a Wonderful World (with help from a few randomly selected audience members in the front row), was a fitting finale and a powerful demonstration of music’s power to bring diverse genres and people together.

The Chris Botti show was produced by Serious

The post Chris Botti at the Barbican first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Accustomed to the offbeat of Parisian avenues with their lingering multicultural melodies  – from the Left Bank of the River Seine all the way to Chateau Rouge on the eastern slopes of Montmartre in the 18^th Arrondissement – Richardeau is all too familiar with varied grooves and meters.

He is now based in Gosier in the French West Indian island of Guadeloupe.

His most recent recording, ‘A Caribbean Thing’, documents his improvisational adventures in a variety of Afro-Caribbean musical idioms.

Quebecois tenor saxophonist Jocelyn Menard, acts as the tenor saxophone foil to Richardeau’s honeyed voice on the soprano horn, providing captivating support on the unison melody lines on all compositions. The drum and bass pairing of Yoann De Danier and Régis Thérèse, respectively, is an inspired musical choice. Pianist Leonardo Montana’s charming comping and Anthony Jambon’s prowess on electric guitar help to round out an album that is pleasing to the ear – and most of all makes you want to move your feet and hips.

What comes across most compellingly to anyone listening to the album is the seamless manner in which Richardeau’s ensemble moves between the biguine, reggae, mazurka, calypso, montuno, and samba sub-genres.

The sunny alternating montuno and reggae passages in the band’s interpretation of ‘Sous le ciel de Paris’ (popularised by Juliette Greco and Edith Piaf), the Brazil-inspired vibe of ‘Broussa Samba’, and Yoann’s impressive brush work and drum solo on ‘Waves and Wind’ stand out among the album’s strong compositions.

Xavier Richardeau began formal clarinet studies at the age of eight at the Rochefort Conservatoire (Charente-Maritime). He later played bass guitar in a dance orchestra before studying the saxophone with Didier Levallet from 1983. In the late 1980s he focused his attention on the baritone saxophone and has been clearly influenced by Gerry Mulligan and Serge Chaloff in his phrasing and repertoire.

Indeed, between 1990 and 1995 he performed songs from the Mulligan songbook with the Xavier Richardeau Cool Jazz Quartet, echoing the smart American West Coast sound of his musical hero. He has had a history of extensive work with the likes of Dee Dee Bridgewater, René  Urtreger, David Sanborn, Stéphane Belmondo, Charlie Watts, Tony Chasseur, Anita O’Day and Veronique Hermann Sambin, among others. Notable albums include ‘Back to the Present’, ‘Boo Boo’s Birthday – Xavier Richardeau Plays Monk’ and ‘Aube Brune’.

The post Xavier Richardeau – ‘A Caribbean Thing’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Dressed in a lime green shirt and sporting his trademark glowing smile, veteran pianist and composer Sergio Mendes comes across as the essence of cool on a Zoom call from his home in Southern California.

He is one of the headliners of the EFG London Jazz Festival on 15 November and patrons to the show can expect to be treated to a mini Rio de Janeiro carnival, replete with lively rhythms, vibrant musical colours, and above all, joy, the quality most associated with the 82-year-old Brazilian leader.

Sergio is no stranger to London having performed several times over the years in the capital, most notably opening for Frank Sinatra at the Royal Albert Hall in 1980.

Born into a music loving family in Niteroi, he took piano lessons as a child, nourished by jazz, bossa nova, samba and myriad music genres swirling around him while he was growing up. He has also been strongly influenced by the jazz musicians he encountered in his youth, such as Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderley to mention a few.

He was fortunate to have landed his first gig in the United States in 1962 with a performance at New York City’s Carnegie Hall with the Bossa Rio Sextet.

America’s pull proved irresistible in the end; soon after the Brazilian military coup of 1964, Sergio returned Stateside, eventually settling in Los Angeles.

He first formed the group Brasil ‘65 which met with limited commercial success. His fortunes soon changed dramatically with the album Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 which went platinum on account of the Jorge Ben song, ‘Mas que Nada’.

Numbered among his hit songs and covers through the years are ‘Never Gonna Let You Go’, ‘Cinnamon and Clove’, ‘O Pato’, ’Agua de Beber’, ‘Bim Bom’ and ‘Fool on the Hill’.

Sergio has a knack for reinventing himself and being part of the zeitgeist. In 2006, he released Timeless, produced by will.i.am and featuring the contemporary musical influences of hip hop, reggaeton and neo soul alongside samba and bossa nova. Guest artists on this foray into pop culture included Q-Tip, Justin Timberlake and John Legend.

Coinciding with John Scheinfeld documentary of the same name, 2020 saw the release of In the Key of Joy, a wonderful resume of Sergio’s collective 60-year oeuvre.

Nominated for several Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards over the years, Sergio won the 1993 Best World Music Album award with Brasileiro. He was the recipient of the 2005 Latin Grammy (Lifetime Achievement Award) and the 2010 Latin Grammy for Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album for Bom Tempo.

In 2012, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song as co-writer of the song “Real in Rio” from the animated film Rio.

Sergio says he takes his inspiration from beautiful songs and melodies:

“For me, the song is the most important thing. I love many songs from across the eras including those written by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Stevie Wonder and many more. I have also loved and been inspired by jazz instrumentalists such as Bud Powell, Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk”.

The music industry has undergone phenomenal change over the past 30 years.

With the decline of all-powerful record labels and the digitisation of music, what advice does a 70-year veteran of the music industry offer young musicians eager to make their mark in an ever-crowded 21^st century music arena?

“Play the music that lies within your heart,. Be open-minded, spontaneous and courageous”.

Performing alongside Sergio at the Barbican will be a stellar cast of singers and musicians. They are (Sergio’s wife) Gracinha Leporace and Katie Hampton on vocals; saxophonist and flautist Scott Mayo; drummer Leo Costa; percussionist Gibi Dos Santos; guitarist Kleber Jorge Pimenta, and bass guitarist Andre De Santanna

It will be surefire way to beat London’s November chill with potent Brazilian cheer.

The post Sergio Mendes – Barbican, 15 Nov first appeared on UK Jazz News.