Features

Soweto Kinch - B Is For Birmingham

Multi-award wining alto saxophonist and MC Soweto Kinch burst on to the jazz scene in 2003 when his album Conversations With The Unseen was released. It marked an updated twenty first century consciousness for a new generation of young black British jazz musicians who were in the process of identifying their own musical identity. The Birmingham-based player openly name checked and drew upon the pre-Windrush generation and beyond of jazz musicians who played in British clubs and dance halls in...

EST - Polyphonic spree

EST return this month with their tenth album, their first since the live version of Viaticum was issued as a special package last year along with the original studio album. Such a remarkable record company response was indicative of the initial album’s popularity, with strong demand in the UK and many other parts of Europe. So much for the album’s title tease that the group was performing its last rites. The group over more than a decade has achieved extraordinary levels of success for a jazz...

Bennie Maupin - Dark side of the sun

Penumbra is the long awaited new album by Bennie Maupin, best known for his work on Head Hunters and Bitches Brew. The saxophonist and bass clarinettist talks to Tom Barlow about why his new album has taken so long, his Nichiren Daishonin Buddhist beliefs, recollections of Eric Dolphy and mentor Yusef Lateef

Jack DeJohnette - Once in a lifetime

The latest project for drummer Jack DeJohnette is a live album Trio Beyond: Saudades based on a tribute project to fellow drummer Tony Williams’ Lifetime, a group that was at the forefront of the jazz-rock revolution in the late 1960s. DeJohnette teams up with organist Larry Goldings and guitarist John Scofield for the album. Stuart Nicholson talks to Jack about Tony Williams and recalls Jack’s tenure with Miles Davis especially the sessions in Washington DC recorded at the Cellar Door club and...

John McLaughlin - To the power of zen

John McLaughlin draws on the energy of the music he created with the Mahavishnu Orchestra to weld it on to everything that has gone since for his eagerly awaited “zen” project. With its hard driving, abrasive edge at times, it is hardly a fluffy product of some dreamy new age. While there are respectful nods to esteemed colleagues such as Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker, the spiritual strength of the Dali Lama informs McLaughlin’s concept as the guitarist hits new improvisational peaks and...

Kenny Garrett - Chinese Whispers

Kenny Garrett is forever etched on the jazz imagination for his touring and recording with Miles Davis in the last period of the trumpeter’s life. Garrett and Miles made the most unlikely songs work. Long since a leader of distinction with many albums under his belt, Garrett made a creative leap of considerable audacity some years ago when he started to incorporate Chinese music into his vision of jazz, moving away from Coltrane tributes and a funkier direction. Andy Robson talks to the alto...

Tomasz Stanko - Far Off

Blues-drenched, free jazz legend Tomasz Stanko knows Ornette’s Coleman’s tune ‘Lonely Woman’ like some people know Lennon and McCartney’s’ ‘Let It Be’. For him it’s the kind of music that is key to his interior musical soundtrack. Over the years he has led his own bands in Poland, influenced initially heavily by the man from Fort Worth. But Stanko importantly became a member of pianist/composer Krzysztof Komeda’s group and later in his career worked extensively with the distinguished...

Martin Speake

With the ECM release of his new album, Change of Heart, altoist Martin Speake jumps categories from “man most likely” to “ascending star”. It’s one of those records that has the capacity to define a career. With a dream band of Paul Motian on drums, Bobo Stenson on piano and Mick Hutton on bass, it’s also the fruition of a long-term dream that began 14 years ago. Interview: Duncan Heining

Dennis Rollins

Trombonist Dennis Rollins likes to party. With his trademark funky licks, his charismatic stage presence and energetic populist manner he has become a major draw on the UK jazz circuit. But there’s more to Rollins than that, as he tirelessly devotes a lot of time to education in the process promoting the merits of his beloved trombone. On the eve of the release of his latest album Big Night Out Kevin Le Gendre talks to Dennis about his motivation, inspirations and why he thinks “jazz is the...

Miles Davis

Interest in Miles Davis has never been greater and seems to increase as the years go by. This month, had he lived, would have seen his 80th year. Miles biographer George Cole investigates the possible directions Miles’ music would have taken him by talking to Jo Gelbard, Miles’ companion in the last years of his life, as well as a wide range of musicians who played with him over his final years including George Duke, Adam Holzman, Darryl Jones, Easy Mo Bee and Foley.

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