Reviews

Joshua Jaswon Octet: Polar Waters

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★★

It’s refreshing to hear this band, led by British-born, Berlin-based Jaswon, that has both created a very distinct and individual...

Reviewed in issue June/2023

Fraser Smith Quartet: Tip Top!

Simon Read | Rob Barron | Steve Brown | Fraser Smith

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★

Birmingham-born but a Londoner now, young Smith has found a tenor style that suits him, taking his inspiration from the...

Reviewed in issue June/2023

Enzo Zirilli's Zirobop: Ten Past Never

Rob Luft | Misha Mullov-Abbado | Alessandro Chiappetta | Enzo Zirilli

Editor's Choice

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★★

I’ve only seen Zirilli play live once, and he was quite a fireball. Here he's all delicacy and laid-back restraint,...

Reviewed in issue April/2023

Five-Way Split: All The Way

Vasilis Xenopoulos | Rob Barron | Quentin Collins | Matt Home | Matyas Hofecker

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★★

Drummer Home hosted the rest of the group at his house for a lockdown play. They liked how they got...

Reviewed in issue April/2023

Tristan Banks: View From Above

John Crawford | Paul Booth | Tristan Banks | Davide Mantovani

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★

For three decades, the British session drummer Tristan Banks has been a first-call sideman for a ‘glitterati’ across jazz, pop...

Reviewed in issue April/2023

Corrie Dick: Sun Swells

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★

Corrie Dick wears his prodigious rhythmic education lightly, having studied with Ghanaian master Sadiq Addy alongside mind-blowing times in Morocco,...

Reviewed in issue Dec/Jan/2022/2023

O'Higgins & Luft: Pluto

Rod Youngs | Rob Luft | Misha Mullov-Abbado | Ross Stanley | Dave O'Higgins

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★★

Three years ago the O'Higgins/Luft alliance mined a rich vein covering the songs of Coltrane and Monk on the appropriately...

Reviewed in issue Dec/Jan/2022/2023

Andrew McCormack Trio: Terra Firma

Rod Youngs | Andrew McCormack | Joe Downard

Ubuntu

Rating: ★★★★

Since his award-winning 2006 debut Telescope, Andrew McCormack's piano trio recordings have curiously been thin on the ground. The pianist–composer...

Reviewed in issue October/2022