Ian Patterson

Since: 2006 | Position: Senior Editor | Reviews Albums | Location: Belfast | Page Views: 204,565

Contact Me Subscriber Pro

About Me

Ian is dedicated to the promotion of jazz and all creative music all over the world, and to catching just a little piece of it for himself.

My first piece of journalism resulted in the threat of legal action against the newspaper and of a paramilitary style punishment for myself. Surely too much fuss for an unflattering review of a Gary Moore concert? Two wrongs don't make a right I thought. Although some have interpreted my later move from the north of Ireland to London as an act of cowardice, it was really more to do with catching all the gigs of which we were starved in gloomy '80s Belfast.

The Nice jazz festival of 1986 was my first real exposure to jazz. Miles Davis' opening number blew me away and I was instantly converted. A year later I had slipped unnoticed out of Belfast and arrived in London, kneecaps intact. For the next four years I feasted on live music; from Bowie to Fairport Convention, from Fleetwood Mac to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, from Roy Harper to Frank Zappa. Jazz however, was my musical drug of choice and I criss-crossed the dirty ol' town, the country, and continental Europe to see the likes of Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Ray Charles, John McLaughlin, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Courtney Pine, John Scofield, Sun Ra, Etta James, Andy Sheppard, Wayne Shorter, James Blood Ulmer and of course Miles.

Ten years in Mediterranean Italy and Spain gave me a more European perspective on jazz as well as a love for flamenco, red wine and the much underrated siesta. I spent seven years in the Communist-Socialist- Capitalist-Buddhist-Animist state of Laos where a siesta works anywhere, anytime - a complicated yet somehow enlightened country. There, I kept an eye out for jazz gigs, though these were almost as rare as the Irrawaddy dolphin. Both were sometimes spotted, which was cause for hope, though the latter is sadly on the critically endangered list.

In 2013 I returned to Ireland where the siesta is generally viewed with primitive scorn. Thankfully, the music has never been more exciting. All About Jazz has allowed me the opportunity to cover jazz concerts/festivals in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Borneo, Singapore, Laos, Australia, China, the Palestinian Territories, Italy, England, France, Poland, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Lebanon, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Ireland. It all began rather by accident, when I stumbled across All About Jazz one fateful day over a bowl of noodles in Bangkok.