(Blue Note) The American guitarist’s sparse, largely acoustic companion piece to last year’s acclaimed View With a Room is another captivating creation A childhood prodigy who played the Grammys at age 12, Julian Lage has evolved into the most admired jazz guitarist of his generation (he’s now 35). This third album for Blue Note is drawn from the same sessions as last year’s feted View With a Room, again featuring his regular sidekicks, bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, with veteran guitarist Bill Frisell as special guest. Once again produced by Margaret Glaspy (a singer-songwriter w ..read more

Could the celebrated standup knock out an album of his own tunes? Yes, he says, with the aid of a dusty old drum kit, 40 musicians – and a novelty animal costume It started off, as many great creative undertakings do, as a joke. A few years ago, James Acaster’s parents gave him an ultimatum: collect your old dust-lagged drum kit from our house or we’ll throw it out. Not long before, Louis Theroux’s company had contacted the comedian to ask if he had any documentary ideas. Acaster, who spent his youth playing in bands before becoming a comedian, had a brainwave: how about, instead of a straight ..read more

My friend Victor Evans, who has died aged 88, was the singer with the Birmingham-based jazz band Andy Hamilton and the Blue Notes. Vic was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where he was a manual labourer, and came to the UK as a 30-year-old in 1964 to seek a better life. After a short spell in London he moved to Birmingham and eventually settled in the Ladywood district of the city, where he had met his wife, Joyce ..read more

Political cartoonist and jazz clarinettist who, using the pen name Trog, created the Flook strip The career of the cartoonist and jazz clarinettist Wally “Trog” Fawkes, who has died aged 98, was an extraordinary one, a mixture of luck and perseverance. His cartoon strip Flook appeared in the Daily Mail and then the Mirror for more than half a century, while his political cartoons were a staple of the British media for just as long. In 1948 Lord (Vere) Rothermere, proprietor of the Daily Mail, was much taken on a visit to the US by a children’s strip about a small boy and his magic uncle, and t ..read more

(Own Your Own)The Nottingham-based artist’s debut album delivers a seamless mix of jazz, soul and electronica Yazmin Lacey is east London-raised but began making music from her living room after a move to Nottingham. Since 2017 she has released three EPs, and the title track of the last one, 2020’s Morning Matters, is a standout, saxophone-heavy ode to a new day. Her debut album, Voice Notes, produced by Dave Okumu, is an escapist, feelgood project that overflows with great storytelling. It offers introspective soliloquies, with lyrics derived from voice notes, memos and reminders journalled o ..read more

(EQT Recordings/Capitol) The multitalented Micah Davis returns with a signature blend of trap, house and jazz that is nothing short of magical As a songwriter, you should disappear the effort of making your music until it sounds like it just poured out of you, so it feels eternal yet new every time we encounter it, like the morning sun. By this rubric, 29-year-old Jamaican-American Micah Davis – Masego – may be a magician. Early work such as The Pink Polo EP introduced his “TrapHouseJazz” concept, attempting to splice those three disparate black music strains into something stronger and strang ..read more

The Mill, BirminghamHang on to your internal organs as saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and friends whip up the loudest free jazz frenzy you’ll hear all year Over the past decade, saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has established himself as one of the most powerful voices in British improvised music. Powerful not just by virtue of his status playing with a number of the country’s best-known jazz groups, such as the Mercury prize-nominated Sons of Kemet, but because he blows a louder and more physical sound through his tenor sax than almost anyone else playing the instrument today. Using circular brea ..read more

My father, the trad jazz trumpeter Mike Peters, who has died aged 89, was renowned for telling gags on stage. One of his well-worn favourites when roll-calling the band was to refer to a band member as “the late [insert name here]” along with a story of their tardiness. Now he is himself “the late Mike Peters”, the memory of his funny one-liners, tall stories and entertaining musicianship will still raise a smile among family and friends. Born to Francis, an ironmonger, and Natalie (nee Lazarus), in Harrow, north-west London, Mike first fell in love with jazz and the trumpet at the age of 10 ..read more

Marley Munroe spent decades toiling away in hotel bars and on a Christian label. But now, as Lady Blackbird, her powerful soul vocals have caught the mood of the times – and the attention of Taylor Swift “I’m pretty damn persistent,” Marley Munroe laughs. “It’s been a long, often gruelling road, but I’m finally here.” Munroe, AKA Lady Blackbird, has just walked off stage at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, after belting out three note-perfect, jazz-referencing songs backed by a symphony orchestra for Radio 2’s Piano Room Sessions. Adorned in her signature peroxide afro and oversized gold collar ..read more

(Verve) The Pakistani American singer’s follow-up to breakthrough album Vulture Prince is a tender, softly triumphant reunion with her former collaborators Since her 2015 debut Bird Under Water, Pakistani American singer Arooj Aftab has honed the delicate cadence of her voice in increasingly minimal settings. On that album, she embellished yearning Urdu poetry with traditional instrumentation such as the sitar and bansuri, along with drums and cajon; 2018’s follow-up Siren Islands experimented with a layered synth backing. Her breakthrough album, 2021’s Grammy-winning Vulture Prince, reduced t ..read more