In Birmingham this Saturday saxophonist Martin Speake, sitarist Dharambir Singh and tabla player Sarvar Sabri are performing music based on Indian raags at the Midland Arts Centre. For more info go to www.macarts.co.uk
18.04.06

The BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Robert Ziegler plays a special concert on 10 May at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London with Lebanese oud maestro Rabih Abou-Khalil.
04.05.06

Voting for the audience award in the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music begins today following last night’s awards ceremony at Dingwalls in London when winners of 10 of the other categories were formally announced. The poll winners concert itself will take place later in the year as part of the BBC Proms season. 11.04.08

More details of this year's Glasgow Jazz Festival (22 June-1 July) have emerged with more names now added to its line-up. They include Annie Ross, Byron Wallen, Courtney Pine, Empirical, Cameron Pierre, Scottish National Jazz Orchestra Coltrane Legacy, Martin Taylor's Freternity, Incognito, Randy Weston's African Rhythms Trio, Neil Cowley Trio, Kenny Garrett Quartet, Julian Arguelles Trio, Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, Liane Carroll, Billy Jenkins, Tord Gustavsen Trio, Keith Tippett with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Ayanna Witter Johnston, Cleveland Watkiss and Stephen Duffy with more to be announced. 
04.04.07

An all star line-up has been assembled for a special musical tribute to the late John La Rose, a leading political and cultural activist who died last year. Linton Kwesi Johnson says of La Rose: "The depth and breadth of John's contribution to the struggle for cultural and social change, for racial equality and social justice, for the humanisation of socety is unparalleled in the history of black experience in Britain." 26.02.07

Stare at the cover of Jack Johnson, Miles Davis’ 1971 heavyweight bout of jazz rock improvising and experimentation for just a minute. Crank up the hi-fi, clean out your ears and just let it wash all over you. 19.03.08

Michael Garrick has in recent years, particularly since the screening of the 2005 BBC series Jazz Britannia, become a cult figure and one of the totemic figures from the world of British jazz in the 1960s and 1970s. Still actively gigging and releasing records, we get a reminder nonetheless this month of what Garrick was like back in the early part of his career before his lauded Black Marigolds was even released. His album Moonscape is a bona fide collector’s item selling for huge sums on vinyl and practically impossible to obtain, that is, until enterprising record label Trunk Records decided to bring it out on CD for the first time. 
26.04.07

There's a rare chance to catch hard bop group Nu-Troop, led by bassist Gary Crosby, in concert this month in the unlikely setting of rural Hertfordshire. 09.10.06

London’s Pizza On The Park jazz club took a welcome left turn in its booking policy this week as Rashied Ali and his band completed three rare dates which blasted the club into outer space. 24.08.06

Following his jaw-dropping performance last year at London’s Pizza On The Park drummer Rashied Ali returns with his quintet for three nights from 19-21 July. The drummer built a ferocious reputation with John Coltrane during the latter’s free period from 1965 until the saxophonist’s death in 1967, after which he went on to play with Alice Coltrane before leading his own bands. Prior to John Coltrane Ali had started out with Sonny Rollins before developing a name on the New York free scene with Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and Sunny Murray.

Wherever Rashied Ali plays things happen and his current quintet, including tenor saxophonist Lawrence Clark, trumpeter Josh Evans, pianist Greg Murphy and bassist Joris Teepe, is one of the most explosive he has ever put together. Readers be warned, if last year’s performance is anything to go by this is one show that you will definitely not want to miss.
18.06.07

Singer guitarist Raul Midón has made an extraordinary impact since releasing State of Mind, the last album to be produced by legendary producer Arif Mardin which featured Stevie Wonder and a host of top jazz players. 18.09.06

Ravi Shankar (88) and Anoushka Shankar (27) gave a recital entitled An Evening of Ragas at the Barbican in London last night as part of his Farewell to Europe tour. With his earlier concert scheduled for late-May cancelled because of poor health, his swansong to Britain was a poignant and moving occasion. 05.06.08

Three venues have teamed up to launch a major new music commissioning scheme. 06.02.06

John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain return with their Remember Shakti group (with V. Selvaganesh, U. Shrinivas and Shankar Mahadevan) for dates at the Barbican, London (28 March), The Sage, Gateshead (29 March), Lighthouse, Poole (30 March) and Colston Hall, Bristol (31 March). 02.02.06

You’ll have to wait until the summer but at last a UK date has been announced for the much anticipated reunion of Return To Forever, the seminal jazz rock group. The group, which has had several different line-ups, is reuniting in its version with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Al Di Meola and Lenny White. 14.03.08

Tomorrow’s Warriors is to launch the free admission In The Mix weekly sessions on 6 April, at new venue Rich Mix in Bethnal Green, east London, a cross-cultural arts and media centre in the East End that houses a three-screen cinema, event spaces and a 200-seater performance venue. 20.03.08

Pianist Andrew McCormack whose album Telescope made a considerable impression on its release and won him a BBC Rising Star award last month plays the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London on Saturday. 10.08.06

Garnering high praise for both his recent Blue Note album In My Element and his increasingly exciting live shows at last year’s London Jazz Festival, Brooklyn-based pianist Robert Glasper is set too make his first national tour. Taking fractured hip hop beats, looped chord sequences and fusing them with a Brad Mehldau-ish sense of melody and fine technique has seen Glasper win fans with both the serious jazz crowd and a new younger audience in the States. 05.03.08

The Jazz Café in London, recently taken over by the Mama group, follows on from the plum residency by Cassandra Wilson back in September with a range of high profile jazz acts over the next few months, kicking off with bass everyman Marcus Miller on 5-6 November, Brazilian superstar Joyce on 17 Nov, Senegalese world music stars Orchestra Baobab on 18-20 November, Jamaican guitar legend Ernest Ranglin on 21 Nov, Blue Note pianist Robert Glasper on 25 Nov, expat guitar hero Allan Holdsworth on 26 Nov, nu jazz dance act Koop on 29 and 30 Nov, acid jazz veterans JTQ on 8 Dec...
15.10.07

The JK Ensemble programme on Irish radio station RTE Lyric FM is an afternoon show presented by John Kelly, who formerly presented the evening show Mystery Train on RTE 1. The show plays jazz, classical, world music and rock, but you can hear the likes of Don Byron and Bill Frisell among others loud and clear in the middle of the day. 20.12.07

Tim Ries, the Rolling Stones' saxophonist, likes to combine his rock and jazz when on the road with the Stones, hooking up to play local jazz clubs and venues on the nights the Stones aren't playing. Last year he hit Ronnie Scott's for a memorable show and he's back in London this month doing it again.  16.08.07

On a wet Saturday the group Sâlt began a day of jazz at the Bath Music Festival with a children’s show, the group's cheerful theatricality belied a fraught journey from Amsterdam that saw the musicians hot tailing it to the bandstand before charming children and adults alike with their sousaphone-flavoured antics. 30.05.06

Jazzwise was voted Jazz Publication of the Year at last night's Ronnie Scott's awards. The awards, held for the first time, were hosted by club artistic director Leo Green, and the winners included Van Morrison, Courtney Pine, Jamie Cullum, Jeff Beck, Guy Barker, Mica Paris and Manu Dibango. Fraud and [em] aka the Michael Wollny Trio were voted best UK and international newcomers by Jazzwise readers. Among the performers were Jane Monheit, Van Morrison, Jeff Beck, Scott Hamilton, Manu Dibango, Peter Grant, Mica Paris and Guy Barker all accompanied by the Ronnie Scott's All Stars featuring James Pearson and Gerard Presencer. 08.05.07

It’s Ronnie Scott’s Jim, but not quite as you know it. Last night London’s legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club opened its doors for the first time since late March following a £2m plus refurbishment by new owner, impresario Sally Greene. 27.06.06

Ronnie Scott's club currently closed for refurbishment but soon to open for business again has revamped its website, www.ronniescotts.co.uk 08.06.06

Ronnie Scott's club in London is to re-open on 26 June after three months of refurbishment. 17.05.06

Ronnie Scott's club pays tribute next month, on 3 February, to a musician who performed at the club on its opening night in its original Chinatown premises on Gerrard St in 1959. Only a teenager then Peter King has since become famous for his distinctive bebop-rooted sound, bandleading and composing and was honoured by the BBC Jazz Awards as best instrumentalist as recently as three years ago. 15.01.08

Trumpeter Roy Hargrove has added an extra date to his planned appearance at the Wigan International Jazz Festival. He will now play on Monday July 17 as well as the already confirmed gig for Tuesday 18 July. Both performances take place at the JJB stadium. 20.06.06

The jazz journalists association awards were announced at a ceremony in New York on Monday. 21.06.06

South Indian-American alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa is touring Ireland this week with Indo-Dutch drummer Chander Sardjoe and Irish bassist Ronan Guilfoyle. Mahanthappa is best known for his duo work with pianist Vijay Iyer and is fast becoming known for his work with other groups. 27.11.07

Winners of the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music 2006 have just been announced.  27.02.06