Jesse Davis Quintet: Live at Smalls

Frank Lacy | Josh Evans | Kush Abadey | Rashaan Carter | Stacy Dillard | Theo Hill

More from the Live at Smalls series, as a veteran Bird-acolyte plays it like it was in a straightahead quartet...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: July/2014

Alexander Hawkins Mirror Canon: Break A Vase

Alexander Hawkins | Neil Charles | Otto Fischer | Richard Olátundé Baker | Shabaka Hutchings | Stephen Davis

Two enormously productive UK musicians, Hawkins and Hutchings, join together (alongside bass hotshot Neil Charles, aka Ben Marc) for this...

Reviewed by Kevin Whitlock in issue: June/2022

Lil Armstrong & Her Swing Band 1936-1940: Hot Miss Lil – Born to Swing!

Buster Bailey | Chu Berry | James Sherman | JC Higginbotham | Joe Thomas | Jonah Jones | Lil Armstrong | Manzie Johnson | Prince Robinson | Teddy Cole

Pianist and vocalist Lil Armstrong [1898-1971] encouraged her husband Louis Armstrong to break away from his fellow New Orleanians in...

Reviewed by Peter Vacher in issue: November/2021

Alvin Curran: Endangered Species

Alvin Curran

Too many musicians treat ‘Great American Songbook’ standards with a deadening reverence that is noticeably at odds with the mischief,...

Reviewed by Philip Clark in issue: March/2019

Chat Noir: Hyperuranion

Daniel Calvi | Luca Fogagnolo | Michele Cavallari | Nils Petter Molvær | Nils Petter Molvaer

The title refers to Plato's heavenly realm of ideal forms, which provides the loose concept behind Chat Noir's seventh album...

Reviewed by Nick Hasted in issue: May/2019

GoGo Penguin: A Humdrum Star

Chris Illingworth | Nick Blacka | Rob Turner

Interviewing GoGo Penguin has sometimes left me disappointed that their ideas' boundless ambition, the sense that they'd like to take...

Reviewed by Nick Hasted in issue: April/2018

Billie Holiday: Centennial Collection

A good cross-section of Holiday's work from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, this is a fine primer for her...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: August/2015

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio

Francois Moutin | Rudresh Mahanthappa | Rudy Royston

Mahanthappa's 2015 CD Bird Caiis was one of the most intelligent investigations of Charlie Parker's music in recent memory, using...

Reviewed by Kevin Le Gendre in issue: August/2020

Airto: Promises of the Sun

Airto Moreira | Hugo Fatturoso | Milton Nascimento | Novelli | Raul De Souza | Raul de Souza | The Singing Snakes | Toninho Horta

History pulses from this 3CD set, a 1970s talent-fest mind-boggling in scope and as fresh and relevant as it ever...

Reviewed by Jane Cornwell in issue: June/2019

Yuri Honing Acoustic Quartet: True

Joost Lijbaart | Wolfert Brederode | Yuri Honing

This leading Dutch saxophonist still has the look and aura of a rock star who prefers to walk on the...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: November/2012