There are a few surprises in store for long term fans of Joshua Redman. A looser, freer feel, a “double trio” and the sense that, as the title Compasssuggests, Redman has found a new direction. Andy Robson catches up with Redman in the wake of Barack Obama’s election victory and a period of change in Redman’s own life with the birth of his son.
“I’ve got a group of German artists to blame for my being a professional musician,” says Wareham. “I was going to go Art school, but they persuaded me that music was more my thing.”
2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the recording of an album frequently cited as the greatest jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue. To mark the anniversary a special anniversary box set has been released and in keeping with the importance of the album in this special feature Stuart Nicholson tells the story of the album, detailing a tale of surprising confusion along the way which affected the titling of two of the songs on the album ‘All Blues’ and ‘Flamenco Sketches’ and curiously involving...
The youngest member of the influential Loose Tubes big band back in the 1980s, saxophonist Julian Arguelles went on to record a series of critically-acclaimed albums before, unaccountably, falling out of the limelight. But that’s set to change with a new multitracked solo album, Inner Voices, about to come out and plenty of hard touring in 2009. Interview: Selwyn Harris
As a new boxed set tracing the work of the pioneering South African jazz group the Blue Notes is released, Duncan Heining charts the genesis of the distinctive group and the charismatic figure of Chris McGregor from early days in apartheid-era South Africa to exile in Europe and the subsequent development of Brotherhood of Breath and other offshoot groups
With the London Jazz Festival 2008 kicking off on Friday 14th November the organisers, Serious, have announced a special Esbjörn Svensson tribute event together with the full jazz club programme and a series of special free concerts and events to run alongside the major concert programme announced in Jazzwise last month.
“Good teachers are so important to your natural development,” says Wilson, as he recalls a memorable moment of musical inspiration. “My first teacher, Lester Wright, was a crazy kind of individual, but he had really creative ways of teaching. I remember he pulled out this boiled egg, set it down and said ‘now this is a whole note – it has four beats’. Then he attached a pencil to it and called that a half note and then coloured the egg and called it a quarter note. That visual representation of...
“I started on one of those extraordinary Trixon kits,” says de Krom, “and I’ve still got it. They have real hide heads, so they are great to play in winter, but in summer…!” De Krom’s early years were spent mid-way between Utrecht and Arnheim. “My father was a very good amateur drummer, today he’d probably be termed a ‘semi-pro’, and I guess I learned about 90 per cent of what I know from him.”
“My musical background stems from the church”, says Brown. “Mum was the choir director and church organist for many years and taught me general music theory, the Hammond organ, piano and encouraged me to learn the guitar too – which I also played at church. I am currently the church organist.”
“I started out listening to my sister’s Elvis Presley records,” says O’Higgins. “Then at school, when I had the opportunity to learn an instrument, I decided that I wanted to play the loudest instrument there was, so I borrowed the school trumpet and had a go on that. I remember it used to smell horrible when I got it out of the case.”
