Big bands aren’t exactly in vogue right now, and can be difficult to maintain in uncertain economic times such as ours. So why did up-and-coming saxophonist Tom Smith choose an 18-piece ensemble for his new album? Tom Spargo finds out…
Big bands aren’t exactly in vogue right now, and can be difficult to maintain in uncertain economic times such as ours. So why did up-and-coming saxophonist Tom Smith choose an 18-piece ensemble for his new album? Tom Spargo finds out…
Outstanding releases from Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons, Snowpoet, Pat Thomas, David Murray Quartet and more
Award-winning saxophonist and composer Josephine Davies tells David Gallant about her journey into music and her favourite instruments over the years
Having just celebrated her fiftieth birthday, the renowned clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen is showing no signs of slowing down. Added to a frantic gigging and recording schedule, there’s the latest album Interaction, released earlier in the...
Branford Marsalis has pulled a surprise move with his first album for the Blue Note label, with a fulsome salute to Keith Jarrett’s much-loved European Quartet with Jan Garbarek, and that group’s 1974 album, Belonging
Oxford-based pianist Pat Thomas has built an international reputation for his ability to deep dive into free improvisation. As he releases an extraordinary new album, The Bliss of Bliss, Daniel Spicer speaks to the keyboardist about his ceaseless...
In the first of a series of columns on how to navigate a career in jazz today, Mike Flynn speaks to music career coach Jennie Cashman about how she’s helping overwhelmed jazz musicians achieve a better work-life balance and refocus their priorities
Jazz guitar heroine Mary Halvorson nominates an album by the former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt as her musical turning point. Interview by Brian Glasser
Jamaican trumpeter Dizzy Reece fought racism and rejection in postwar England to become a star on the Blue Note label. Val Wilmer describes those early days
