On their arrival at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris for the penultimate afternoon of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Jazz Festival 2015, every attendee sported a wide smile: In the courtyard of this unique venue playing host to ‘Grand Bal Swing’ for the third year running, palpable excitement was mounting for the swing jazz extravaganza that was to come.
A happy accident of international flight scheduling has brought Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock to the Verdict on a Wednesday night; the walls are lined with the pictures of Blue Note greats, but Smith is the first living Blue Note artist to have played here.
Elbjazz is defined by a deep sense of place, enticing 15,000 jazz fans by barge across the Elb river to Hamburg’s otherwise off-limits shipyards.
A lemur with a life ring, a mock political campaign poster and a picture of the band dressed as pastry chefs – cast your eye over VEIN’s album covers and you might think the Swiss trio were playing it for laughs.
Now firmly established on the jazz festival calendar the Amser Jazz Weekend mixes top flight acts with the music student’s end of year assessments.
The cellar of Pizza Express Jazz Club, Dean Street was filled with an expectant audience as several members of the British jazz vanguard walked modestly through the door, one by one.
The faded victoriana of Brighton’s Theatre Royal provides a suitable background for a Sarah Vaughan tribute, evoking the kind of setting she might have performed in in her heyday.
Some jazz musicians achieve a place in the limelight; some have it thrust upon them; there are many others who deserve that place but for any number of reasons prefer to work outside its garish illumination.
The excellent Hideaway in Streatham may be South London’s best-known and most prestigious jazz venue, but in next-door Balham a rootsy, informal scene has also been brewing, based at and around venues such as The Bedford and Bodean’s.
This year the Borneo Jazz Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary in one of the most beautiful tropical paradises.
