Jazz Articles about Issie Barratt

About Issie Barratt

Album Review

Issie Barratt's Interchange: Donna's Secret

Read "Donna's Secret" reviewed by Duncan Heining

by Duncan Heining
January 24, 2020

Put simply, this is a truly beautiful record. It features eight very different compositions by eight different women composers, including three from outside the band. In other hands, the diversity of styles might have left more an impression of a compilation than of a coherent, integrated programme of music. But that is certainly not the case here. What strikes immediately is the quality of the arrangements and ensembles. The textures are just sumptuous, almost tactile--and you know something's good when ...

Profile

Issie Barratt: Every Solo Is A New Invitation

by Duncan Heining
January 21, 2020

Issie Barratt is one of the most significant jazz educators in Britain today. From 1999-2004, Barratt was head of Jazz at Trinity College of Music but her role as Artistic Director of the National Youth Jazz Collective has been of even greater importance in developing young jazz talent. Now in its, thirteenth year, NYJC goes from strength to strength with a faculty of over seventy tutors, including many of the finest musicians in the country. Crucial in our very male ...

What is Jazz?

BAN BAM: Talking Music

by Ian Patterson
December 7, 2017

Regular goers to jazz/improvised music gigs and festivals might have clocked the fact that those on stage tend to be predominantly male--a mirror, more often than not, of the make-up of the audience. Women instrumentalists are the exception rather than the norm. Though what exactly, we should perhaps ask ourselves when it comes to music and gender, is normal? This, and many other questions related to the gender imbalance in jazz/improvised music, are put under the microscope at ...

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Album Review

Issie Barratt: Astral Pleasures

Read "Astral Pleasures" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
November 8, 2008

Composer/baritone saxophonist Issie Barratt's music is nothing if not distinctive. The balance it strikes between ensemble and soloists usually comes down on the side of the former. Soloists such as guitarist Mike Outram--whose work sometimes recalls Chris Spedding's in the early line-ups of trumpeter Ian Carr's band Nucleus--and saxophonist Mark Lockheart, however, ensure that there's enough stimulation for listeners whose interests fall into one camp or the other. Lockheart is a one-time member of the British band Loose Tubes, and ...