Jazz Articles about Trevor Tomkins

About Trevor Tomkins

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

The Don Rendell / Ian Carr Quintet: Warm Up

by Chris May
February 3, 2023

British modern jazz was gaining new confidence in itself in 1965, when Warm Up, subtitled The Complete Live At The Highwayman 1965, was recorded. It needed to be. As Simon Spillett writes in his liner notes, at the time “British jazzmen bravely fought a battle on two fronts, one against the stranglehold of American influence, the other against the Beatles." British jazzwomen, of course, were fighting on three fronts; but we can discuss that another time. A fourth front, fought ...

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 ...

Album Review

Don Rendell / Ian Carr Quintet: Blue Beginnings

Read "Blue Beginnings" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 12, 2021

Summer 2021 is proving to be the summer British jazz delved into its mid 1960s through mid 1970s album back catalogue and previously unreleased tape archive, with both major and specialist labels such as Jazz In Britain joining in the party. The spur to action is, of course, the new and unprecedented popularity of British jazz at home and abroad. The key to placing Blue Beginnings in its historical context is a quote from a contemporary review ...

Album Review

Don Rendell Quintet: Space Walk

by Chris May
July 7, 2021

As British jazz reaches new and unprecedented peaks of popularity, major labels are revisiting their vaults and rereleasing artistically enduring but long unavailable albums. Universal/Decca's British Jazz Explosion: Originals Re-Cut is the most ambitious of such reissue programs to be announced so far in 2021. It concentrates on the years 1965 -1972, a pivotal period in the coming of age of British jazz and one which continues to inspire the generation of young radicals who are making their mark in ...

Album Review

Neil Ardley: Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows Live '75

Read "Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows Live '75" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 15, 2021

One of the more obscure but loftiest masterpieces of British jazz, composer Neil Ardley's long-form suite Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows was released on the tiny Gull Records label in 1976. Its beauty and vitality have remained absolutely unsullied by the passing years and the album has been reissued a couple of times, most recently on Dusk Fire in 2005. In March 2021, the album has been joined by a previously unreleased live recording made at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall a year ...