Good morn or evening friends Here’s your friendly announcer I have serious news to pass on to every-body What I’m about to say Could mean the world’s disaster Could change your joy and laughter to tears and pain It’s that Love’s in need of love today Don’t delay Send yours in right away Hate’s goin’…
The 10-day London Jazz Festival was supposed to feature Allen Toussaint on a double bill with Theo Croker at the Barbican this Sunday, but as you all know by now, the great Mr. Toussaint died on Monday night after appearing at a concert in Madrid. He had a heart attack. He was 77. I’m glad that…
The iconic jazz, soul, and funk pioneer Lonnie Liston Smith, who will celebrate his 75th birthday in late December, is coming to London. With his signature keyboard sound and tons of classic albums in tow, this is surely one of the hottest tickets this month. Lonnie has worked with and written for Pharoah Sanders, Gato…
Pianist and composer Achim Kaufmann is the recipient of this year’s Albert Mangelsdorff Award which was given to him during a little ceremony at this year’s Jazzfest Berlin on Friday afternoon. The pianist, who has studied at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, visited Gina’s place a couple of months ago for a little interview….
It is going to be the first edition for Richard Williams, the new artistic director for the prestigious festival for the next three years. Like he says in the welcome notes, he wanted to present performers “…who have one thing in common: the desire to move forward.” So we’re moving again to the Haus der…
He opened with a blues (“Ray Blues”) and from the very first notes, you could tell that 83 year old Michel Legrand still has the guts and the ability to play the piano and lead a classic jazz trio with just bass and drums. On stage at Berlin’s Konzerthaus last night, the maestro also added…
Esperanza Spalding presented her alter ego Emily last night at Berlin’s UdK main hall. Her new show, called “Emily’s D+Evolution”, is part theater, part musical, and autobiographical. Emily is Esperanza’s middle name and D+Evolution refers to, according to an interview she did earlier this year with the Village Voice, “the nonsense notion that organized education is…
Singer Lizz Wright waited until the third song last night at Neukölln’s Heimathafen before she started to feature a song from her recently-released new album, “Freedom & Surrender”. As if she wanted to make sure that the audience recalled her signature, thick and dark and powerful vocals. So after her “Old Man” interpretation, one of the…
Even on his first sides, recorded for Decca in 1956 with the Ralph Burns Orchestra, you can hear traces of the typical Mark Murphy characteristics that would define his long career: On “Fascinating Rhythm”, done at fast tempo, you can clearly hear and understand every single word; Mark has the ability to delve so deep…
FAVO is a project that was founded in 2009 by soprano saxophonist Volker Schlott as a chamber music “group” with bass clarinetist Falk Breitkreuz. They interpret music by Astor Piazzolla, the Beatles, or Puccini and easily morph from classical to jazz and back. For their latest endeavor, the two get together with one of the…