Dewa Budjana: Surya Namaskar

Dewa Budjana | Gary Husband | Jimmy Johnson | Kang Iya | Kang Pupung | Mang Ayi | Michael Landau | Vinnie Colaiuta

Budjana is by all accounts a pop hero in his native Indonesia. But having just turned 50 life's starting all...

Reviewed by Andy Robson in issue: June/2014

Kansas Smitty's: Things Happened Here

Alec Harper | Dave Archer | Ferg Ireland | Giacomo Smith | Joe Webb | Pete Horsfall | Will Cleasby

Kansas Smitty's is a Hackney bar as well as a band, a musical utopia whose name was conjured from speakeasy...

Reviewed by Nick Hasted in issue: August/2020

Benet McLean: The Bopped and The Bopless

Ashley Slater | Aydenne Simone | Benet Mclean | Benet McLean | Donald Gamble | Duncan Eagles | Gareth Lockrane | Isabella-Maria Asbjornsen | Jason Yarde | Jonathan Harvey

Can you be too talented? Long championed by the much-missed Jack Massarik, McLean has somehow slipped beneath the radar that...

Reviewed by Andy Robson in issue: July/2016

James Taylor Quartet: People Get Ready

Andrew McKinney | James Taylor | Mark Cox | Natalie Williams | Noel McKoy | Pat Illingworth

All credit to Taylor for his ongoing musical odyssey. He and the Quartet will long be associated with those funk...

Reviewed by Andy Robson in issue: May/2020

Kenny Barron/Dave Holland Trio: Without Deception

Dave Holland | Johnathan Blake | Kenny Barron

Effortless mainstream jazz eloquence has been pianist Kenny Barron’s calling card for 40 years. Without Deception renews the pianist’s dialogue...

Reviewed by John Fordham in issue: May/2020

Clifford Jordan: Four Classic Albums

Almost all the sleeve-note writers on the original albums here make something of Jordan's apparent Sonny Rollins influence. Listened to...

Reviewed by Simon Spillett in issue: February/2020

Milt Jackson: Four Classic Albums – Second Set

Art Taylor | Billy Mitchell | Connie Kay | Hank Jones | John Lewis | Lucky Thompson | Milt Hinton | Milt Jackson | Oscar Pettiford | Percy Heath

Here's another of Avid's compilations of classic vinyl albums, the second such Jackson collection, taking in his Ballads and Blues,...

Reviewed by Peter Vacher in issue: August/2019

Arturo Sandoval: Dear Dizzy (Everyday I Think Of You)

Andy Garcia | Andy Martin | Arturo Sandoval | Bob McChesney | Bob Mintzer | Bob Sheppard | Brian Nova | Brian Scanlon | Bruce Otto | Carlitos Del Puerto

Having outlived most of his trumpet-playing contemporaries, Dizzy chose to spend his sunset years embracing young bloods like Jon Faddis...

Reviewed by Roy Carr in issue: October/2012

Sam Crockatt Quartet: Mells Bells

James Maddren | Kit Downes | Oli Hayhurst | Sam Crockatt

Saxophonist Sam Crockatt has always been the LOOP Collective member’s most natural post- bop traditionalist. But there’s no lack of...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: April/2016

Digby Fairweather & Friends: To Frederick With Affection

Chris Gower | Digby Fairweather | Dominic Ashworth | Julian Marc Stringle | Len Skeat | Neil Bullock

The ever-enterprising Fairweather always seems to be on the lookout for fresh fields to conquer. And he usually succeeds. Here...

Reviewed by Peter Vacher in issue: August/2013