There was a dazzling period in the mid-1990s when Cassandra Wilson could do no wrong. Her bluesiness, innate feel and definitive touch with both her own original songs and blues or rock material, made her that rare jazz singer who could achieve critical and popular acclaim with jazz fans but who also was able to reach out to rock audiences.
29.05.08

Charles Lloyd, one of the key 1960s jazz musicians who reached out to a new young generation immersed in rock and turned them on to jazz, has teamed up with master tabla player Zakir Hussain for a new album which managed to tap the essence of the blues while drawing on the great improvisational resources of Indian music. Lloyd and Hussain talk to Duncan Heining about their collaboration. 06.04.06

Charles Mingus, had he lived, would have been 85 this year. Despite the fact that he is no longer around, his music has an uncanny longevity and his music is more influential today than it has ever been. In a special feature, Jazzwise this month looks at the life and music of Charles Mingus as the repertory band named after him, the Mingus Big Band, prepares to come to the UK for a major tour and a raft of reissues are released. 17.04.07

More than 35 years have passed since Chick Corea and Gary Burton came together to record the classic album Crystal Silence. The two have now recorded once again, this time for Concord to produce a two-CD set with a big difference as the first disc of The New Crystal Silence finds Corea and Burton performing with a symphony orchestra using new arrangements by saxophonist Tim Garland. 28.02.08

Daring to be different, singer Christine Tobin is set to delve still deeper into the consciousness of her fans and newcomers alike if the arrival of her brand new album Secret Life of a Girl is anything to go by. An emotional and personal stirring, one step beyond her previous album, the dark Romance and Revolution, Tobin on Secret Life inhabits the world of the young characters in the songs, representing different stages of an untold story, an incipient self awareness and maturity. The album is released at a time when her partner and regular musical colleague, guitarist Phil Robson, releases Six Strings and The Beat, a Bartók-infused strings album flavoured by post-modern jazz and African music alike. Stuart Nicholson talks to the pair about the story behind their albums and their quest to follow the road less travelled while long time fan, Lionel Shriver, author of We Need To Talk About Kevin, describes her reactions to that voice.
01.05.08

There’s a certain style, swagger and above all sassiness about Claire Martin that has endeared her to jazz fans for many years now. Her ability to interpret lyrics while swinging hard has secured her position at the top of the tree among jazz singers in the UK. For her latest album, He Never Mentioned Love, she pays tribute to one of her singing idols, Shirley Horn, for a sincere tribute that features Martin at her very best. Jane Cornwell talks to Claire as she prepares to fly to New York for a major residency. 29.05.07

Dame Cleo Laine and Sir John Dankworth both turned 80 recently, a milestone for the couple who for many years have personified British jazz internationally, receiving acclaim and honours frequently along the way. Still active on the scene they look back on a remarkable career with Stuart Nicholson, to the days when bebop was a new music heard at first hand by Dankworth in New York and to the days when he shared a stage with Charlie Parker and toured with Duke Ellington. 04.10.07

Keyboard player and composer Colin Towns is on the way back after his record company Provocateur skirted with disaster in the wake of the collapse of its distributors. Once the most adventurous and ideas-driven indie jazz record label in the UK, with a motto to match, “improvise not compromise”, a hostile record business climate brought the label close to the point of collapse. Best known for releases by Andy Sheppard and Guy Barker, whose album Soundtrack was Mercury nominated, Towns and his label, with a slimmed down staff and a more cautious approach, are set for a busy autumn, especially with his Frank Zappa-themed big band album and a major tour on the horizon. Duncan Heining talks to Towns about the once dark days at Provocateur, the green shoots of recovery and why there’s nothing sacred with Zappa. And in the following feature he talks to Norma Winstone about her new album on Towns’ label. 17.01.07

Courtney Pine, the key jazz musician of his generation in the UK has formed a new version of the seminal 1980s big band, the Jazz Warriors. Instead of merely revisiting the past, the saxophonist has created the JazzWarriors Afropeans with the intention of reflecting through his music and ideas the 200 years since the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the former British Empire. He achieved this aim by recording a live album last October recorded at the Barbican which will
be released later this year. 25.01.08