Jazz Articles about Phil Lee

About Phil Lee

Album Review

Trevor Tomkins' Sextant: For Future Reference

Read "For Future Reference" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 12, 2023

A 2-CD collection of four sessions recorded for BBC Radio between 1980 and 1983, For Future Reference is a snapshot, just one of many snapshots that might be taken, of British jazz in the period immediately before the so-called “jazz boom" of the mid to late 1980s. That boom was marked by an acknowledgement of the dancefloor, the greater visibility of musicians with roots in the African diaspora, and a willingness, even eagerness, by those musicians to publicly affirm the ...

Album Review

Henry Lowther's Quarternity: Never Never Land

Read "Never Never Land" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
September 2, 2022

The British trumpeter and composer Henry Lowther, who first made an impact in the 1960s and released the well received album Can't Believe, Won't Believe (Village Life) in 2018, came to jazz via a circuitous route. After playing cornet in a provincial Salvation Army band, he moved to London around 1960 to study violin at the Royal Academy of Music. While a student, he encountered improvised Indian music and albums by Sonny Rollins, discoveries which encouraged him to commit to ...