Features

Courtney Pine - Bechet & Beyond

After putting together a new version of the Jazz Warriors last year Courtney Pine changes tack for his new project, an album made in homage to the early saxophone pioneer Sidney Bechet. Pine takes time in the album to also examine what traditions in jazz mean to him and makes the connection beyond Bechet to Joe Harriott in the 1960s. Selwyn Harris talks to Courtney, recently awarded with a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List, about the impact of Bechet’s playing on him and how we can all learn a...

Joshua Redman - New Bearings

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.

Pete Wareham - Saxophones

“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.”

Miles Davis - Forever Blue

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...

Julian Arguelles – Inside Out

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

Chris McGregor - Cry Freedom

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

London Jazz Festival - Full Line Up

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.

Abram Wilson - Trumpet

“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...

Sebastiaan De Krom - Drums

“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.”

Harry Brown - Trombone

“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.”

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