Theodore Walter Rollins – better known as Sonny – is quite simply one of the most seismic saxophone forces in jazz; a walking history of the music’s bebop and hard-bop golden era his tone and vast well of improvisational ideas an immeasurable influence for the last six decades.
Pianist Neil Cowley's instinct for a punchy pop-hook has never been in doubt – in fact his pounding piano on Adele’s 21 album made him the most listened to jazz pianist on the planet in 2011.
Tim Garland is that rarest of things in British jazz – a world renowned soloist, sideman and Grammy winning composer/arranger – and yet ironically this success has kept him playing everywhere but on these shores.
The Manchester jazz scene has always offered its own distinct flavours, fostering a group of musicians searching for alternative means of expressing some very personal visions of where jazz can reside.
Disbanding 24 years ago, Loose Tubes became the stuff of Brit-jazz legend – bowing out with a bang at Ronnie Scott’s in 1990 and leaving an indelible impression as vivid and chaotic as the carnival-like atmosphere that surrounded everything they did.
Fuelled by their delicately thunderous blend of hard-edged punk attitude and quicksilver improv Led Bib are now celebrating 10 years together with a riotous new studio album, The People In Your Neighbourhood, a vinyl-only live LP, The Good Egg, and a UK tour.
Few musicians today are described first and foremost for having a wonderful tone – yet this is often the case for Oakland-born trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, whose elegiac style sees him weave beatific solos with his golden trumpet sound.
São Paulo-born New York based saxophonist Ivo Perelman has, in his own words, been in something of an “intense creative frenzy” since his 1989 debut, Ivo, releasing over 40 albums as a leader.
Since their breakthrough 2010 album, Alive, Scandi-Brit jazz trio Phronesis have been building an unrelenting momentum thanks to the special energy that sparks between bassist/band director Jasper Høiby, pianist Ivo Neame and drummer Anton Eger.
Hard to pin down, yet compelling in equal measure, Polar Bear have always sidestepped such nebulous conceits as genre categorisation – although jazz, specifically improvisation and unpredictability, have always been key ingredients to their ever-changing sound.
