(Haggis) The third album from this classy Bristol quintet keeps things fresh with funky rhythms, moody moments, a bit of rap and one live duet This Bristol quintet are champions – or “defenders” – of the hard bop heritage of greats such as Horace Silver and Art Blakey, players who shaped the golden age of Blue Note records back in the 1950s and 60s. They are not, however, mere nostalgists – their material is original and varied. Their third album crackles with energy and glistens with skill. At its heart is much-travelled keyboard player George Cooper, who produces and composes most of their m ..read more

Beset by hurricanes and rising insurance prices, the city saw people leaving in droves – but a program is encouraging jazz artists to move to the ‘most exciting musical city in the world’ Hammered by hurricanes, rutted streets and rising insurance rates, the metro New Orleans area saw 45,000 people leave between 2020 and 2023 – a 4.3% outmigration worse than any other US urban area. Those departures seemed a surreal idea as vast crowds streamed into the annual two-week Jazz and Heritage festival sponsored by Shell, set to conclude Sunday. Thursday marked the main event at the sprawling array o ..read more

(Young) Input from George Clinton, André 3000 and Washington’s toddler daughter feature on his virtuosic, richly varied latest Kamasi Washington could never be accused of fearful stasis. As one of the premier jazz crossover stars of the past decade, the LA saxophonist’s fiercely exuberant output has spread far outside the genre’s confines. Virtuoso musicianship is, naturally, baked in; Washington’s modus operandi also embodies political anger and transcendent joy. For this third studio LP, clocking in at a brisk (for him) 86 minutes, he and his ensemble dial up the tempos and funk up the rhyth ..read more

Still only 23, the US saxophonist is channelling the free jazz pioneered by Albert Ayler in the 60s – and making hugely profound, wildly uplifting music Interviewed many years after the experience, Don Cherry said he would “never forget” the first time he heard the tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler. That was in Copenhagen in 1963. I’ll never forget the time I first heard Zoh Amba, last March, at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. A wealth of competing options at the festival makes it completely acceptable to drift in and out of performances mid-set, and many of the most exciting gigs ..read more

Aleema Gray used British Library’s collection to assemble Beyond the Bassline exhibition about Black British music Young cultural researchers need greater access to the UK’s rich archival resources so untold stories can be brought to light, according to the curator of an exhibition that documents five centuries of Black British music, from the Tudor court to grime. Dr Aleema Gray has assembled Beyond the Bassline, an expansive tour through the past 500 years of Black British musical history, which is being hosted by the British Library – the exhibition pulls from its collection – and seeks to ..read more

Sampha and Dayes get nods for best album and share in nomination for Sampha’s song Spirit 2.0 at awards for British songwriting and composition Neo-soul singer Sampha, jazz drummer Yussef Dayes and composer Daniel Pemberton have topped the nominations for the 2024 Ivor Novello awards, which recognise the best in British and Irish songwriting and composition for the screen. Sampha and Dayes are individually nominated for best album, while they share a joint nomination for co-writing Sampha’s track Spirit 2.0, which is up for best song musically and lyrically ..read more

(Impulse!) British jazz star Shabaka Hutchings drops the sax for reeds and flutes on an album exploring fear, courage and the power of breathwork Typical: you wait ages for a flute album from a musician famous for other things, and then two come along almost at once. Hot on the exhale of rapper André 3000’s New Blue Sun, released last November, comes another exploratory redefinition, this time from British sax phenomenon Shabaka Hutchings. André 3000 guests here. Hutchings stepped away from the saxophone at the end of 2023. Since the pandemic, this maven of the London jazz renaissance has been ..read more

Chronicler of San Francisco’s now-vanished Fillmore district who studied under Ansel Adams turned his lens on his people David Johnson saved a portrait he took as a teen of his younger brother and a relative while they were growing up in segregated Florida in the 1940s. Johnson, who was the only person who could read and write in his household, knew nothing about photography then, he recalled in 2017, but something told him that one day he would be a photographer ..read more

(ACT) Harmonica star Maret and pianist/composer Collin pay homage to Ennio Morricone with drifting church-echo and trancelike sounds Ornette Coleman once told the BBC’s Jazz on 3 that when his mother Rosa gave him his first saxophone, but couldn’t afford lessons, he thought it was a toy and played it without realising “you have to learn something to find out what the toy does”. Maybe it’s an extreme case, but not an unfamiliar jazz story. Collisions of improvisers’ whims and formal and informal learning drove ghetto prodigy trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s trailblazing timing, dynamics and rhythmic ..read more

From elephant blasts to spiritual jazz, Wynton Marsalis’s concerto is a history of the world in trumpet form. As she prepares to give the UK premiere, Balsom describes the thrill of playing it When I tell people I’m a trumpet soloist, there are three kinds of response I usually get: “Wow, what a great job!”, “Isn’t that unusual for a woman?” And “That’s jazz, right?” And it is a great job, the best in the world, if not always the easiest when you consider you have to master hundreds of the tiniest muscles around your mouth, perfectly align your breath control and musical goals, and hold your n ..read more