Trumpeter Dave Douglas’ latest work Blue Latitudes is based on a book about Captain Cook’s pioneering expeditionary voyages in the eighteenth century. He is joined by bassist Mark Dresser, percussionist Susie Ibarra and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group with the classical musicians charged by Douglas to partly improvise. Alyn Shipton catches up with Douglas, now releasing music under his own label, as he rehearses for the performances due this month 06.04.06

Trumpeter Dave Douglas has taken the film legacy of silent movie star Fatty Arbuckle whose career was ruined when he was accused, then later acquitted, of the rape of an aspiring actress at a party he threw at a San Francisco hotel in 1921, as the inspiration for his new live album Moonshine. The native New Yorker talks to Stuart Nicholson about the search for Fatty, the process of gaining inspiration to write for film and how he’s pushing recording industry boundaries by recording at a club and then releasing the music for download the next day. 26.06.08

Fêted at home and abroad, Dave Holland, is one of the most celebrated UK jazz musicians working on the upper reaches of the international touring circuit today. Having just turned 60 recently the bassist who famously joined Miles Davis after the trumpeter heard him playing in Ronnie Scott’s club, he went on to make a name for himself in an avant garde settings with cult group Circle and then on to a substantial recording presence on ECM. Duncan Heining looks back with Dave on his career, back to the fondly remembered London days at the Little Theatre Club, through the early days and recording highlights with his long running quintet and up to the present day with his new label highlighting the talents of his own big band. Colleagues John Surman, Jack DeJohnette and John Surman also give their views on just why Dave Holland is such as important presence on the scene today. 17.01.07

29.08.07

Trombonist Dennis Rollins likes to party. With his trademark funky licks, his charismatic stage presence and energetic populist manner he has become a major draw on the UK jazz circuit. But there’s more to Rollins than that, as he tirelessly devotes a lot of time to education in the process promoting the merits of his beloved trombone. On the eve of the release of his latest album Big Night Out Kevin Le Gendre talks to Dennis about his motivation, inspirations and why he thinks “jazz is the original urban music.” 20.04.06

Diana Krall hates labels as she detests the feeling of being boxed in. Embarrassed at being thought of as a new Ella Fitzgerald, she tells Jane Cornwell how she has moved on from the last, deeply felt album of songs many of which were co-written with husband Elvis Costello. It’s time instead to embrace again her roots, to explore richly satisfying jazz standards such as ‘Day in, Day Out’, ‘Exactly Like You’ and ‘From This Moment On’, the title track of the new album out this month, co-produced with Tommy LiPuma.
31.08.06

There’s no one quite like Django Bates. Once the enfant terrible of the 1980s jazz scene, the focal point of Loose Tubes, the ramshackle and influential big band that became a launching pad for a host of significant jazz musicians, Django’s solo career as a keyboardist and composer has developed in fits and starts since. He has gained devotion, bafflement and international recognition in equal measure, as his inexorable retreat from the surburbia of his youth towards a global hybrid of jazz, influenced by Frank Zappa, Monty Python, Joe Zawinul and English pastoralism, rockets into its own, slightly elliptical, orbit. 26.06.08