The Love Supreme Festival now reaches its fifth year with big name jazz legends Herbie Hancock and George Benson topping a bill which also sees soul group The Jacksons and singer Corinne Bailey Rae performing on the Main Stage. Jazz legend Herbie Hancock became famous in the 1960s performing with Miles Davis, as […]
Saxophonist and composer Jon Shenoy first formed Draw By Four around six years ago as “a Hammond organ band with a difference” but last year faced the possibility of the project falling by the wayside. “The original members were Will Bartlett, who still plays in it now, Kris Borring who is a Danish guitarist […]
Saxophonist and jazz educator Geoff Simkins has just recorded his latest album. He met with Charlie Anderson at The Verdict in Brighton where he performs on Sunday 18th June. Geoff Simkins releases his latest album in June, a trio album with pianist Nikki Illes and bassist Dave Green. “Nikki and I have done some […]
What did you learn from performing with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and then with Ray Brown? One of the key things I learned was how to pace a musical set. Both Art and Ray were in tune with the energy and needs of each audience we played for. They could sense if we needed to […]
Are there any favourite albums that you listened to over and over when you were younger? How much younger are we talking? As a kid I listened to David Bowie all the time. When I was getting into Jazz I loved ‘Blue Trane’, ‘Speak No Evil’, ‘Portrait in Jazz’ and ‘Four and More’. When I […]
Patrick Billingham reviews recent big band gigs and looks at/for missing parts. It is flaming June at last. Time to say goodbye to May. I have been to a couple of gigs recently. One of which was a Saturday Afternoon of Jazz in the packed out foyer of The Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham. With […]
Each month Peter Batten recommends a recording that jazz fans may wish to add to their personal library. Clark Terry with Horace Parlan and Red Mitchell Out of Nowhere This is a rare item from my vinyl collection. It was recorded in 1978 at Jacques Loussier’s famous studio at Miraval in Provence. I […]
ENEMY The Verdict, Brighton Monday 22nd May 2017 ENEMY, a superb trio of Kit Downes, Petter Eldh and James Maddren, was formed as a reaction to how Kit thinks about “complexity, and how liberating it can be”. And although this was an evening of complex music, it was also an evening of […]