Big Band Scene (July 2019)
We are now well and truly into the season for outdoor big band performances. With its advantages and its disadvantages. Among the advantages, apart from boosting the band’s vitamin D levels, if lucky, is that of bringing our music to a wider audience and demonstrating the healthy state of the local big band […]
Pete Recommends…Fats Navarro – The Fats Navarro Story
Fats Navarro The Fats Navarro Story (Properbox 11) Over recent months my recommendations seem to arrive by auto-suggestion, as in psychoanalysis. My articles about Peter Ind inspired me to reread part of his book, Jazz Visions. There he describes the excitement of his first visits to New York. One of the musicians who impressed […]
Live Review: Dave Storey Trio at New Generation Jazz
New Generation Jazz: Dave Storey Trio The Verdict Brighton Friday 31st May, 2019 Top line drummer Dave Storey, who appeared at The Verdict in March with Duncan Eagles’ Citizen, returned to the venue with his trio on the last Friday of May. Since his previous appearance the bands debut album Bosco had been launched at […]
Album Review: Nerija – Blume
Nérija Blume (Domino) Nérija were at the forefront of the new musical wave bursting out of the South London/Tomorrow’s Warriors nexus back in pre-Brexit Britain – we booked them for New Generation Jazz’s second ever show in 2016, and featured them again on the Love Supreme bandstand the next year. Four years is a long […]
Album Review: Dave Drake at Sussex University
Dave Drake Live at Sussex University (self-release) This recording captures a solo concert delivered at the Sussex University Meeting House by the prodigious pianist and local Brighton favourite Dave Drake on one of his visits home from his studies at the New School in Manhattan. Kozen-Rufu Waltz shows his lyrical, romantic side, almost reminiscent of […]
Mark Cherrie Interview
Musician Mark Cherrie was born in London and moved to Brighton about 8 years ago. He spoke to Charlie Anderson about steel pan playing and his new album, Joining the Dots. How did you get into music? My dad was a musician and he was originally from Trinidad. He came over about 1957 and […]
Christian Brewer Interview
Saxophonist Christian Brewer spoke to Charlie Anderson about his musical development, his extensive teaching and his upcoming appearance at The Verdict in Brighton. Tell us about your background in music. I went to Leeds to do the degree course around 1985 and I dropped out so I really only had one year of college, and […]
The Column: Eddie Myer – The Quiet American
By comparison with the many rumbustious characters who populate the teeming history of the Golden Era of jazz, Bill Evans appears as very much the quiet man of jazz. Bassist Chuck Israels, who has documented their relationship in interviews in some detail, sums up their relationship thus: “My relationship with Bill was largely non- verbal. […]
Words…Julian Nicholas
My mum was pretty much on the run from my dad from the outset! This meant living in Totnes, Hastings and Battle (in a caravan, and then on a farm) before he eventually gained custody of me and brought me up as a single dad from 1970 onwards. We moved to Battersea, Chelsea, Kensington, […]
Live Review: Ife Ogunjobi Quartet at The Verdict
New Generation Jazz: Ife Ogunjobi Quartet The Verdict Brighton Friday 26th April, 2019 New trumpet sensation Ife Ogunjobi from South London cut his jazz teeth with Gary Crosby’s Tomorrows Warriors and is now studying at The Royal Academy Of Music. Playing in a Freddie Hubbard/Clifford Brown style, he was originally influenced by the work of […]