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Tom Herbert
Kasper Rietkerk: The Happy Worrier
by Neil Duggan
The Happy Worrier is the second album from saxophonist Kasper Rietkerk. Originally from the Netherlands, Rietkerk has become a firmly established figure in the UK jazz scene since completing his master's degree at London's Royal Academy of Music in 2023. The album's creation was made possible through Rietkerk's receipt of the inaugural Brubeck Living Legacy Prize. This award honors the enduring influence of Dave Brubeck, whose legacy extends far beyond his remarkable musical catalogue to encompass his conviction ...
Continue ReadingPolar Bear: Dim Lit
by Andrew Hunter
When Polar Bear released Dim Lit in 2004, shortly after being nominated for Best Band at the BBC Jazz Awards, it was clear that the British quartet led by drummer Sebastian Rochford were going to make some waves. Mark Lockheart (sax) was already in the middle of a successful career, having played with Django Bates and been part of the seminal 1980s British big band Loose Tubes. Pete Wareham (sax) was playing with Rochford in Acoustic Ladyland. Tom Herbert added ...
Continue ReadingTom Skinner: Voices Of Bishara Live
by Chris May
Best known in the U.S.A. as a member of the late Sons Of Kemet and now The Smile with Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Tom Skinner has been a vital presence on London's underground jazz scene for twenty years. Yet remarkably, only in 2022 did the drummer and composer release his first album under his own name. Voices Of Bishara (International Anthem) featured Skinner alongside four friends and fellow radicals, tenor saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings, playing together ...
Continue ReadingShabaka Hutchings: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
by Chris May
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes ... Since signing with with Impulse! in 2018, Shabaka Hutchings has become best known for his incendiary work on tenor saxophone with Sons Of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & The Ancestors. Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace marks the start of a gentler, more instrospective phase in his music making. The trigger came during the pandemic, when Hutchings fell in love with the Japanese shakuhachi flute. The quietly spoken instrument first edged itself ...
Continue ReadingTom Skinner: Voices Of Bishara
by Chris May
Voices Of Bishara is one of the top three jazz albums of 2022 so far and it would take the second comings of John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Horace Silver and Lee Morgan to threaten to dislodge it. Before going into the particulars, the backstory.... An epically cross-genre drummer, Skinner has lit up avantist British jazz and related musics for around twenty years. He emerged among the cohort of musicians loosely grouped around the self-help collective F-IRE (Fellowship ...
Continue ReadingMark Lockheart: Dreamers
by Chris May
As a founder member of Loose Tubes and Polar Bear, saxophonist Mark Lockheart was at the forefront of two waves of reinvigoration of British jazz, one in the 1980s, the other in the 2000s. By age and experience, in 2022 he qualifies as close to an elder statesman of the music. But somehow one still thinks of Lockheart as a Young Turk. Mostly this is because he continues to search for new contexts in which to make his music.
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