Now firmly established on Europe’s jazz festival circuit, this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival will run from November 14th to 23rd. Once again, global stars and emerging talent can be heard in various locations throughout the city. And that’s part of the fun of this festival: you get to see so many different parts of…
Coming up this fall, one of the most important jazz festivals which is now firmly established in the festival circuit, Enjoy Jazz will be back for its 27th edition. With over 20.000 visitors and journalists from around the world, exclusive venues will be in Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Ludwigshafen again. The festival will run from October…
Making a stop at Amsterdam’s Paradiso on his European tour, José James more or less had a homerun here. His live album which he released last year, was recorded right here at this wonderful venue. The packed crowd cheered the band up, sang along, and simply just had a good time. With band members BIGYUKI…
For the final day of this year’s festival, I was in for a few surprises. After a beer with my friend and colleague Serge, I went to see South London based singer Odeal who was born in Germany and raised in Spain, the UK, and Nigeria. And this nomadic life probably has more than an…
One of the highlights of this year’s festival so far was the performance of South African pianist Nduduzu Makhathini and his trio who played at the Madeira hall on Saturday afternoon. Together with bassist Dalisu Ndlazi and Cuban drummer Lukmil Pérez Herrera, this 75-minute set was deeply spiritual, soulful, and full of sweet surprises. Mostly…
So here we are again at this monster festival. This is the 49th edition of North Sea Jazz, with more than 150 acts on 13 stages and around 70.000 annual visitors. I started out with Jamila Woods, a singer, songwriter and poet from Chicago whose album “Water Made Us” (2023) made some noise when it…
This year’s Jazzfest Bonn, which started out in early May, is at the beginning of its third block with two acts playing at the inner city Kreuzkirche last night. The venue participated for the first time. And even though it is always difficult to stage concerts in churches, both shows came across pretty well. Starting…
One of our early 80s heroes, the one and only Howard Johnson, just announced two shows in the UK this October, with more shows possibly in the can. Howard was the co-founder of the group Niteflyte, which recorded two albums in 1979 and 1981 before he went solo with his still totally impeccable “Keepin’ Love…
Sam Wills, the UK-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose debut album “Breathe” garnered a five-paw review back in 2021, is back with a new single and the announcement of his first headlining tour throughout Europe. His “We Both Know”, released last week, is in heavy rotation here. The smooth and subtle track with its poignant…
Lots of great new music out there from our favorites: Durand Jones & The Indications will release their new LP “Flowers” on June 27th. Two singles are already out in the spheres and both sound promising and refine their highly original sound: the easily flowing midtempo soul swayer “Flower Moon” and the equally soothing “Been…