With the ECM release of his new album, Change of Heart, altoist Martin Speake jumps categories from “man most likely” to “ascending star”. It’s one of those records that has the capacity to define a career. With a dream band of Paul Motian on drums, Bobo Stenson on piano and Mick Hutton on bass, it’s also the fruition of a long-term dream that began 14 years ago. Interview: Duncan Heining 20.04.06

Guitarist Martin Taylor, one of the greatest ever UK jazz guitarists, talks to Jack Massarik about coming to terms with the death of his son Stewart, calling on the help of some of his oldest musical associates to form a new band Freternity which has managed to draw out some of Martin’s most evocative playing in years. 20.03.07

Pianist Matthew Bourne last year released a remarkable live album recorded in the Norwegian city of Molde. It provided a fascinating glimpse into the world view of the Leeds improv and jazz scene kingpin. The Molde album was the latest milestone in a career trajectory that saw an early peak five years ago with the prodigious flow of his debut record The Electric Dr M for the Sound label. It’s year zero, however, for Bourne as he now unveils the debut of his trio Bourne/Davis/Kane.
27.03.08

A walking spirit, a talking spirit, to adapt the title of the opening track on new album Quartet, McCoy Tyner, the only surviving member of the great John Coltrane Quartet, a legend in jazz since the 1960s, who has contributed to the art and practice of jazz music in an incalculable way. Blessed with one of the most distinctive, original, widely copied and most rhythmical piano sounds in jazz, a veritable thunderstorm of rhythm, fire and passion, he’s back with a live album and UK concert dates. 29.05.08

Medeski Martin and Wood, the trio that virtually invented the whole notion of the jam band, have teamed up once again with John Scofield for a joyous open ended Meters-inspired jam Out Louder. Is it a reworking of past glories or a fresh new outing together? Andy Robson finds out. 20.03.07

The jazz world was stunned to learn of the death of Michael Brecker in January. Although he had been ill for some time there were tentative signs of recovery over the past months and Brecker had even been in the studio working on a new album. Brecker was easily the most influential saxophonist in jazz since John Coltrane. His legacy will live on in the records he has left behind. Stuart Nicholson looks back at the life and music of Michael Brecker.
19.02.07

Interest in Miles Davis has never been greater and seems to increase as the years go by. This month, had he lived, would have seen his 80th year. Miles biographer George Cole investigates the possible directions Miles’ music would have taken him by talking to Jo Gelbard, Miles’ companion in the last years of his life, as well as a wide range of musicians who played with him over his final years including George Duke, Adam Holzman, Darryl Jones, Easy Mo Bee and Foley. 20.04.06

It was music like you had never heard before. A dense, churning rhythm that was like an ice-breaker tearing through a glacial sheet. It was a bubbling, molten mix of wah-wah trumpet, droning sitar, multi-layered keyboards, screaming guitar, scurrying soprano sax, dark bass clarinet and the incessant beat of tabla drums. Was it rock? Was it jazz? Was it funk? Was it music from another time and place? It was all these and more: it was the new sound of Miles Davis. 25.10.07