Duncan Eagles: Citizen

Dave Hamblett | David Preston | Duncan Eagles | Matt Robinson | Max Luthert

For close to a decade, saxophonist-composer Duncan Eagles has been a guiding influence on the structure-stretching cooperative trio Partikel, a...

Reviewed by John Fordham in issue: April/2019

Teddy Edwards: Sunset Eyes

This is much more than a reissue of Pacific's Sunset Eyes, including 26 tracks that came out under Edwards’ and...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: October/2011

Ma: Live

Gerald Watkins | Jasen Weaver | Jason Marsalis | Oscar Rossignoli

I saw Ma playing live three or four years ago, during the period from which these three tracks date –...

Reviewed by Marcus O'Dair in issue: August/2020

Beats & Pieces Big Band: Good Days

Anthony Brown | Anton Hunter | Ben Cottrell | Emily Burkhardt | Finlay Panter | Graham South | Nick Walters | Oliver Dover | Owen Bryce | Phil O’Malley

As with all other aspects of social-cultural life, the pandemic put the brakes on Ben Cottrell's much-admired Manchester-based Beats &...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: March/2023

Lifestories

Recorded in the south of Italy, this is an Italian quartet bar the veteran UK guitarist Jim Mullen. There's a...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: Dec/Jan/2014/2015

Clarence “Jelly” Johnson: Low Down Papa

This is a reissue of piano rolls by the legendary Chicagoan, played on a modern instrument and well-recorded, so a...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: June/2011

Ches Smith and These Arches: Hammered

Andrea Parkins | Ches Smith | Mary Halvorson | Tim Berne | Tony Malaby

There’s been considerable crossover already between these superb musicians. Tim Berne, usually heard introducing hints of Stax soul into his...

Reviewed by Marcus O’Dair in issue: October/2013

Stuart McCallum: Distilled

Scott McLemore | Sunna Gunnlaugs | Þorgrímur Jónsson

Mancunian guitarist Stuart McCallum’s third solo album finds him building on and expanding the aesthetic he’s helped to develop as...

Reviewed by Daniel Spicer in issue: Dec/Jan/2013/2014

Billie Holiday and Lester Young: Complete Studio Recordings

Going much further than the 16-track A Musical Romance set on Columbia, this gathers (almost) all the studio appearances by...

Reviewed by Ayn Shipton in issue: Dec/Jan/2017/2018

Duke Ellington: Piano in the Foreground

The sister album to Piano in the Background, also recently reissued, focuses on Ellington's excellent trio playing from 1961, with...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: May/2012