Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and vocalists the Hilliard Ensemble first performed together in the remote, alpine monastery of St Gerold in 1993.
You’d be hard pushed to find a more eccentric or imaginative live music event than the Jazz Nursery, a monthly platform for young talent once held under a draughty Southwark railway arch but now stowed away on the lower deck of the Golden Hinde II, a replica of the vessel in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in the late 16th century, moored on London’s Southbank.
In the city of Mozart and the von Trapp family (and you certainly can’t miss either anywhere you look) the surprise and delight of a jazz festival that ranks with the best in Europe is only surpassed by the fact that the gigs – dozens of them – are all free admission.
Legacy, certainly in an Olympics-conscious world, has become something of an overstated principle.
Perhaps it was the singer's setlist, which ranged from 'O Pato', a light-footed samba about a dancing duck, to Charlie Chaplin's 'Smile', or her left-field introductions to tunes like 'Love for Sale' and 'I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter', but there was something charmingly quirky about this late night appearance from Lauren Bush and her quartet.
The soaring Gothic rotunda and hushed reverence amongst the creaking pews of Islington’s working church, The Union Chapel, make an inspiring pulpit for jazz-electro proselytizers, Hidden Orchestra, and their disciples: solo pianist, Poppy Ackroyd, and borrowed sounds trio, Origamibiro, at tonight’s thunder and light show.
Even with a slightly reduced festival (four days instead of the usual five) Skopje 2014 was a resounding success providing an excellently varied programme ranging from free improv to mainstream latin jazz.
Taking his texts from the diary of Anne Frank, interviews with Nelson Mandela and Charles Darwin, speeches from Aung San Suu Kyi and Malala Yousafzai, and suchlike sources, and then turning them into coherent vocal music was going to be a challenge for trumpeter Percy Pursglove, but these texts were the inspiration and the heart of this jazz suite.
Were it not for a smattering of concert-goers on the front row and a handful more who slunk in midway through the first number, ducking their heads beneath the bank of high-spec video cameras at the back of the room, the Forge in Camden would have felt like the meeting place of an exclusive club.
Fresh back from guesting with the BBC Big Band at the Lockerbie Jazz Festival on 26 September, Wigan-born jazz singer and trumpet player, Georgina Jackson, exuded a warm, down-to-earth stage presence as she spoke of her obsession with the Great American Songbook, from whence she’d selected the majority of the numbers for this Sunday lunchtime set.
