Live Reviews

Brilliant Corners: The East London venue making jazz sound better

• Friday, November 28, 2014

Thomas Rees swings by Dalston’s Brilliant Corners for the second event in their innovative Played Twice series, a new live music night where atmosphere and sound quality are everything and jazz cliché is left at the door Last week during the EFG London Jazz Festival – as Tomasz Stańko took the stage at the Barbican, Chucho Valdés played to a sell out crowd at Kings Place and John McLaughlin rocked the Royal Festival Hall – a bar on Kingsland High Road held a gig that was every bit as momentous.

Black Top burn up with Jamaaladeen Tacuma at EFG London Jazz Festival

• Friday, November 21, 2014

I would have been lying if I’d said I was in the mood for this.

Bill Frisell takes Guitar In The Space Age to D’Jazz Nevers Festival

• Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Nevers, in the very heart of France on the banks of the wide, fast flowing Loire, has a long history (28 years to be precise) as the location of one of the country’s most respected jazz organisations.

Randy Weston and Billy Harper – Deeper than blue at QEH, EFG London Jazz Festival

• Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Just a few days prior to this concert, the Branford Marsalis Quartet set the same stage alight with as incendiary an opening salvo for the EFG London Jazz Festival as could have been hoped for.

Nigel Price Organ Quartet live and loud at Lauderdale House

• Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Three-quarters of the way through a 40-date UK tour that has already taken on legendary status, the Nigel Price Trio augmented by tenor-saxophonist Vasilis Xenopoulos made their way to Lauderdale House in Highgate for gig No.

EFG London Jazz Festival: Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble bid farewell to London in style

• Monday, November 17, 2014

Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and vocalists the Hilliard Ensemble first performed together in the remote, alpine monastery of St Gerold in 1993.

Lauren Kinsella and the Gorodi/Ingamells duo explore far away lands aboard the good ship Jazz Nursery

• Wednesday, November 5, 2014

You’d be hard pushed to find a more eccentric or imaginative live music event than the Jazz Nursery, a monthly platform for young talent once held under a draughty Southwark railway arch but now stowed away on the lower deck of the Golden Hinde II, a replica of the vessel in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in the late 16th century, moored on London’s Southbank.

Salzburg swings with Jazz and the City festival

• Tuesday, November 4, 2014

In the city of Mozart and the von Trapp family (and you certainly can’t miss either anywhere you look) the surprise and delight of a jazz festival that ranks with the best in Europe is only surpassed by the fact that the gigs – dozens of them – are all free admission.

Mingus Big Band roaring again at Ronnie’s

• Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Legacy, certainly in an Olympics-conscious world, has become something of an overstated principle.

Lauren Bush Quartet bring sunshine, charm and Frim Fram Sauce to the Elgar Room

• Monday, October 27, 2014

Perhaps it was the singer's setlist, which ranged from 'O Pato', a light-footed samba about a dancing duck, to Charlie Chaplin's 'Smile', or her left-field introductions to tunes like 'Love for Sale' and 'I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter', but there was something charmingly quirky about this late night appearance from Lauren Bush and her quartet.