Sara Oschlag & Terry Seabrook’s Trio The Snowdrop, Lewes Monday 20th March 2017 Much-loved vocalist Sara Oschlag performed a mixture of some of her signature tunes such as the blues It’s Alright, Okay, You Win and Bye Bye Blackbird together with a selection of other well-known standards, including Sarah Vaughan’s version of Misty (from […]
Alina Bzhezhinska Quartet The Verdict Friday 17th March 2017 The harp has a very marginal history as a jazz instrument, barely even appearing in the ‘miscellaneous instruments’ category in the self-appointed arbiters that are magazine polls. However, it does possess at least one major voice, and one that’s closely linked into the very […]
Teacher, don’t teach me no nonsense A one-day Jazz Education Conference at Brighton’s Verdict club confronted a world where music is a commodity and education a business investment. At this Brighton Jazz School event, Tony Durham discovered how South Coast educators are trying to keep the jazz flame alive. Let’s not […]
Remi Harris In On The 2 Remi Harris is in an enviable position, having both youth on his side and talent in abundance, and the goodwill of both the jazz scene and the more commercial crossover market that opens up as a consequence of support from Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music. He […]
Geoff Simkins with Terry Seabrook The Snowdrop, Lewes Monday 23rd January, 2017 Whilst alto saxophonist Geoff Simkins is well known for his West Coast cool and bebop playing, performing uptempo versions of Anthropology, Invitation and I Remember April, the highlight was a beautiful rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s ballad Chelsea Bridge which exhibited Simkins’ […]
South Coast Jazz Festival 16th – 29th January 2017 The Verdict, Brighton and Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham-by-sea Now in its third year, with the first festival being a weekender and the second festival a long weekend, the South Coast Jazz Festival is now a more all-encompassing festival, in keeping with the original aims […]
Eddie Myer 5tet Finders Keepers Bassist and SJM columnist Eddie Myer has already made a name for himself on the local jazz scene with his previous album, Why Worry, released back in 2015 and featuring Frank Harrison and the late Ian Price. Rather than just an album solely of Eddie’s originals, this […]
Court and Spark: Reinterpreting Joni Mitchell 29th October 2016 The Verdict, Brighton The title of Brighton musician Lucy Pickering’s project: Court and Spark is from the 1974 album of the same name by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. As a long-standing Joni admirer (one is supposed to refer to artists by their surname […]
Annie Lightly Lightly Does It/Now and Again With an array of local talent, this double CD comprises two albums of nine tracks each. Musicians include Geoff Simkins, Mark Bassey, Jack Kendon, James McMillan and Greg Heath with a fabulous rhythm section of pianist Tom Phelan with bassist Terry Pack and drummer Milo Fell. […]
The Impossible Gentlemen 19th October 2016 The Old Market, Hove Starting with the title track from their latest album, Let’s Get Deluxe, this was a group that started with a real, tight-knit groove to start the beginning of something that Brighton (and Hove) hasn’t heard in a long time. With legendary drummer […]