Multi-Grammy Award winning trumpeter and film composer Terence Blanchard is set to pay an extended visit to the north of England when he sets out on a series of dates this September with The Inner City Ensemble, which will feature young musicians drawn from across the region.
The news of recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s passing at the age of 91 on the morning of 25 August will be felt by the whole jazz community.
Experimental London-based duo Bitch ’n’ Monk – aka Heidi Heidelberg (lead vocals, guitars, percussion) and Mauricio Velasierra (Quena, Sikus, Mozeño, vocals) – are set to release their highly-charged debut album We Are Peering Over on 30 September, with an official album launch gig on 22 September at Rich Mix.
A fascinating ‘off-piste’ event at this densely packed six-day programme is a visit to Rainbow studio in an unprepossessing suburb of the Norwegian capital.
Saxophonist Duncan Eagles is set to present a new weekly night at the Ram Jam Club at the Grey Horse pub in Kingston Upon Thames under the banner of Inventions & Dimensions.
In music, the award for the “most famous Belgian” probably goes to Jacques Brel, unless you count the birthplace of Django Reinhardt who was a member of the traveller community.
Genre-splitting UK heavy-hitters Sloth Racket stash their backpacks and hit the highroad for an Autumn tour following the release of their mightily impressive self-released debut, Triptych.
The latest volume of the Columbia/Legacy’s Grammy award winning Miles Davis Bootleg Series, Miles Davis Quintet Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series Vol 5, has just been announced for release on 21 October, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the October 1966 recording of Miles Smiles.
Hot on the heels of his recent collaborative album with saxophonist Branford Marsalis, Upward Spiral, released on OKeh/Sony Music masterworks, the multi Grammy award-winning jazz singer and composer Kurt Elling has signed to OKeh.
Displayed in shop windows all over the Icelandic capital Reykjavik are large format pictures of the footballers who made the nation proud at this year’s European Championship, as England, victims of these hardy giant killers, know only too well.
