Diana Krall’s smouldering voice has been a constant presence across the last two decades of jazz her seductive, deceptively sophisticated sound winning her numerous Grammy Awards and selling over 20 million albums.
As one of the finest jazz singers on the planet, Claire Martin has used a vast array of musical settings to frame her commanding voice, including her regular quintet and most notably her rarified duo with pianist and composer Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, who sadly died in December 2012.
Partisans can rightfully be cited as the godfathers of the new wave of Brit-jazz, who, since their formation in 1996 have always embraced Coltrane, electric Miles and Hendrix in equal measure, and countless points in between.
Visionary free jazz drummer, conceptualist and educator John Stevens was a larger than life character.
The name Dennis Rollins has become synonymous with not just one of the finest British trombonists of the last quarter century, but with an attitude and presence not often associated with such an unwieldy instrument.
Saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s path to becoming one of the jazz greats was seemingly preordained.
Drummer Dylan Howe has always walked a fine line between his love of hard-bop and rock, as both the son of guitarist Steve Howe and a long-standing member of The Blockheads and the Wilko Johnson band.
Pianist Andrew McCormack has come a long way since he received the ‘Rising Star’ BBC Jazz Award in 2006 thanks to his debut album Telescope.
With a combined musical history that connects free flowing improvisation, Jamaican dub and avant garde electronica, multi-instrumentalist conceptualists Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas are a wholly contemporary duo.
Right from her student days at Boston’s Berklee College of Music some 10 years ago, when she also recorded her debut album Brain, Hiromi Uehara always stood out from the crowd with her molten mix of classical technique, compositional daring and rock-edged-fusion, all delivered with sky-high energy levels.
