The launch of singer Fumi Okiji’s album Old Fashion (the first based around her Old Time Jazz Band ensemble) supported by fellow singer Brigitte Beraha, presented two contrasting experiences of the interpretation of existing repertoire.
It’s just over two years since a 21-year-old Laura Jurd released Landing Ground, her unnervingly assured debut album.
Undoubtedly a great reservoir of rhythm Brazil is also a limitless source of melody.
Family, friends, work associates, and fellow photographers all took turns on Ronnie Scott’s stage on Tuesday afternoon to tell us what many of us already knew.
A wet Monday in early January didn’t auger well, but an agreeable sized audience greeted UK trumpeter/composer Damon Brown at Pizza Express Jazz Club, boosted by the presence of American cousins, saxophonist Jesse Davis and drummer Billy Hart.
At the pulsating core of Ronnie Scott’s stood a slick Curtis Stigers, intoning his moving tribute to American jazz pianist, Gene Harris, entitled ‘Swingin’ Down at Tenth & Main’: the packed crowd behind rows of beacon-like red lamps were his wings, tipped with the photographed presence of others of jazz’s glitterati who have graced this stage.
Jazzfest Berlin (formerly Berlin Jazz Festival) celebrated two events this year: its 50th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.
They say that fortune favours the brave, and right now in jazz circles they don’t come much braver than flautist Roland Sutherland.
Even at Passing Clouds, a funky, vibrant venue that embodies the best of cosmopolitan Dalston, it’s not often you find a Saturday night crowd dancing enthusiastically to the funeral music of a Ghanaian tribe.
The contention that jazz has lost its political edge was clearly upended by some well-chosen words at the start of this absorbing performance.
