Home » Jazz News

Jazz News

Timely announcements covering new album releases, tours, concert series, special events, job postings, crowdfunding campaigns and more. You can find more news by searching our website, viewing our news stream, seeing what's trending or reading our blog posts. Subscribe to our news RSS feed and/or embed AAJ news content on your website or blog. Learn about our news service here. Submit news here.

Crowdfunding Campaign

Jason Yarde Struck Down Onstage: Urgent Crowdfunding Plea

Source: Chris May
October 17, 2022

On October 7, 2022, while performing at Pavilon République in Toulouse, France, the saxophonist, composer, arranger and producer Jason Yarde, a leading light of British progressive jazz for twenty years, suffered a massive stroke on stage. Fortunately, paramedics were at the gig. They administered first aid and got Jason to hospital without delay. A bleed was found on his brain and he was operated on. It is hoped that this prompt action will enable Jason to return ...

Continue Reading...

Music Industry

Jazz re:freshed Announces "Extended Hiatus"

Source: Chris May
February 19, 2020

London promoter and record label Jazz re:freshed has lost its home base, the Mau Mau Bar in Notting Hill Gate’s Portobello Road, following its sale to new owners. The organisation's weekly residency at the venue was a popular part of West London’s live jazz scene and the fulcrum of Jazz re:freshed's other activities. In a surprise announcement, Jazz re:freshed said that while it had “expected to be part of the new set up” at the site, “certain important factors prevented ...

Continue Reading...

Event

FELA! comes to Chicago

Source: Chris May
February 9, 2013

The award-winning Broadway musical FELA! – which is bringing the life and music of Nigerian icon and Afrobeat originator Fela Anikulapo-Kuti to the world stage - will play Chicago’s Arie Crown Theater February 19 – 23. An all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza in the best Broadway tradition, in other respects FELA! transcends musical theater convention. Escapism is replaced by gritty realism, compromise by authenticity. Kuti’s revolutionary politics are sympathetically presented, and his heroic story – marked by decades of brutal repression by ...

Continue Reading...

Event

Fela NYC: Fresh From Africa at British Film Institute

Source: Chris May
August 15, 2012

New Nigerian Cinema and African Odsseys are screening Fela NYC: Fresh From Africa at the British Film Institute on London's Southbank at 2pm on Saturday 18 August. The 90-minute Fela Kuti documentary, directed by Edward Jaheed Ashley, is a mixture of interview, reportage and performance footage, shot in New York in 1986. All About Jazz's Chris May, the first overseas journalist to interview Kuti following the destruction of his Kalakuta Republic HQ by the Nigerian army in February 1977, will ...

Continue Reading...

Performance / Tour

Norma Winstone and Kenny Wheeler among stars at London's Art Of Song Festival

Source: Chris May
April 14, 2011

The Art Of Song Festival continues at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Upcoming concerts include: April 15 Norma Winstone, Tina May, David McAlmont, Kenny Wheeler; April 16 Cleo Laine and, in a second concert, Yots K's The Songs Of John Barry; April 18 Stacey Kent; April 19 Fran Landesman. Details on 0844 873 3433. NORMA WINSTONE, TINA MAY, DAVID MCALMONT & KENNY WHEELER perform THE SONGS OF DUNCAN LAMONT 15th April at 7.30pm, tickets from £20 To ...

Continue Reading...

Event

AAJ's Chris May to speak at Royal National Theatre, London

Source: Chris May
January 1, 2011

All About Jazz senior editor Chris May will speak at the Royal National Theatre, London on January 14 under the title Fela Kuti: The Man Behind The Music. The RNT is currently staging the Broadway hit musical Fela!. May will be joined onstage by Dele Sosimi, keyboard player with Kuti's band Egypt 80 and a music advisor to the London production of Fela!. The two will talk, and take questions from the audience, facilitated by BBC Radio 4's Edward Stourton. ...

Continue Reading...

Event

All About Jazz's Chris May to speak at Fela Kuti events across UK

Source: Chris May
October 19, 2010

AAJ senior editor Chris May will give the first in a series of talks about Nigerian Afrobeat originator Fela Anikulapo Kuti at the British Library, London on Saturday 23 October, as part of the Nigeria 50+ festival. The event is the first of several to be held in British cities this fall. May, the author of AAJ's Afrobeat Diaries column and a friend of Kuti's since the 1970s, will be speaking alongside Rikki Stein, Kuti's longtime manager, Gilles Peterson, the ...

Continue Reading...