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.
With a jazz-edged mix of her native Sweden’s folk songs and classic singer-songwriter sensibilities, Emilia Mårtensson has become one of the most distinctive singers on the UK scene in recent years.
Vijay Iyer’s change of record label to ECM this year sees the opening of a new chapter in what has been one of the most prolific and singularly forward-focused careers of any pianist and composer working in jazz today.
Still in his early thirties, German pianist Michael Wollny‘s career to date has been a vortex of creativity pointing in a relentlessly upwards trajectory.
Christine Tobin has been bewitching listeners for the last two decades with her beguilingly and imaginative mix of folkish-lyricism and subtle, sometimes soaring, take on jazz; but wider recognition hasn’t always followed her acclaim.
Tord Gustavsen’s quietly intense style has made him one of the most successful pianists in jazz today, selling some 350,000 albums to date, creating a mesmeric, often slow moving hymnal style.
Pat Metheny has been at the very top of global jazz guitar summit ever since his epochal 1976 debut, Bright Size Life, which he recorded aged just 21.
Zara McFarlane has emerged as a quietly assured soul-jazz singer, tempering her immaculate technique with an earthy appeal.
If jazz artists covering Radiohead songs has become something of a cliché today, then so has pianists being compared to Brad Mehldau, such is the influence he’s had on reshaping the art of the trio.
