The leaves began to fade
Like promises we made
How could a love that seemed so right go wrong?
– Sammy Cahn from ‘The Things We Did Last Summer’
“I’ll remember all winter long”: Newcomer Alice Milburn (25) is an English jazz singer from Portsmouth, doyenne of the Vaults regular jazz night in Southsea. Much more than a demo or statement of intent First Expressions was recorded in the Hampshire summer at a Gosport studio.
If you like Stacey Kent and Naama you will be in your element dipping into these things she did last summer. Very girl next door it’s the show song type Broadway and bebop “classic” approach to the genre driving things along. So it’s retro and very much a period piece. Milburn has a persuasive voice. She’s an old soul. It’s an enjoyably mercifully uncheesy profile raising start to getting to know her sound.
Covers include the 1930s James F. Hanley Thumbs Up song that Renée Zellweger performed on the soundtrack for brilliant 2019 Judy Garland biopic Judy, ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart.’
First Expressions is not dark as night or torch song fodder which I prefer. But nevertheless I liked her ingénue take on the Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn 1940s classic that Frank Sinatra interpreted ‘The Things We Did Last Summer’ that has a vibrant bass contribution from bassist George Balmont. There’s a throw your head back gleefulness to the Milburn vocal too on the singer’s winning treatment of ‘It’s Almost Like Being in Love’ later on the song when the verse is carefully negotiated and the formidable scatting kicks in so when the words return it’s like she has shed a skin and found a new carefree spirit inside.
With the singer are also keyboardist Saul Hughes and drummer Josh Turn plus musical director trombonist Lloyd Pearce who solos on Milburn original ‘Brief Company’. The lyrics despair at the flakiness of a man desirous perhaps of a one night stand. The voice has confidence and personality.
‘Brief Company’ and ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart’ are among tracks streaming so far. The full album is out on 24 October. Scat is this steeped in the romance of the songs jazz thoroughbred’s strongest suit.
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Lisa O’Neill makes her Fermanagh debut in Blake’s
It was a bit of a coup for Blake’s to be a vessel to host the for-the-ages voice of Lisa O’Neill last night. The Cavan singer told us that this was her Fermanagh debut – a remarkable fact really given how far she has travelled and performed down the years. I myself saw her at the Festival Hall in London at the 1916 centenary concert attended by the then President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins.
The initial idea was to host the gig in the old Victorian Church Street side bar which is an absolute pearl of a space. But it is tiny. And the Franciscan styled Atrium is bigger. And demand necessitated the move.
Laytha opened – the folk duo who are in residency in the old bar on Wednesday nights at the long running Folk Club. They sang Aslan’s ‘Crazy World’, The Corrs’ ‘Runaway’ and more in close harmony.
Lisa who played banjo and guitar in addition to her spectacularly wise and deep toned seer-like vocals was backed by Mic Geraghty from Dublin on harmonium and guitar, Joe Doyle from Co. Kildare on double bass and Brian Leach from Co. Cork banging a drum but even more interestingly on the unusual hammered dulcimer, a gift from a Chinese friend who left it behind.
The main music opened with ‘Well Below the Valley’ a song Lisa told us she learned from Christy Moore – his version is above – who had learned it from John Reilly. She described it as “biblical – some say the story is wrapped around Mary Magdalene.”
Socially conscious in her talks to the audience between songs she mentioned how society is dealing with a lot of domestic violence against women and her song ‘Silver Seed’ seemed to me like an amulet against such cruelty.
I was only able to dip into the set for the first half dozen songs and couldn’t stay to the end but was blown away by Lisa’s voice, tickled immensely by the dainty dance steps she took at times accompanied by daring thrusts and face contortions transforming herself as if she had somehow became a good fortune bringing (or maybe not) púca. I liked ‘Pothole in the Sky’ – and the moving ‘Violet Gibson’ about a woman who tried to kill Mussolini. A new song dedicated to Frederick Douglass a visionary African American abolitionist, orator, author and statesman who was fêted in Ireland when he visited in the Daniel O’Connell era also worked well. And the version of Randy Newman’s ‘I Think It’s Going To Rain Today’ was also very satisfying.
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Kevin Hays, Live at the Stone, AHT Records **** recommended
This new live album captures intimate duet performances from pianist-composer Kevin Hays’ residency at John Zorn’s avant-garde New York venue. Serving as the first vinyl release for AHT Records nyc, an independent record label founded by musician and producer Adrien H. Tillmann, the project features tunes and improvisational dialogues involving multi-keyboardist Craig Taborn, last heard by this blog playing with The Bad Plus at the Barbican during their farewell tour, guitarist Gilad Hekselman whose Downhill From Here was a thrill last year, saxophonist Ben Wendel whose work I like with Tom Ollendorff, and drummer Kenny Wollesen known for his collaborations with ‘Don’t Know Why’ songwriter Jesse Harris.
Hays, 58, was born in New York City and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He began performing in New York clubs while still at high school and enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music in 1986 but stayed only a short while. He then began his recording career as a leader in 1990 with the nowadays very hard to hold in your hands El Matador for real. That was with Joe Henderson, Steve Wilson and Scott Colley. Later on Blue Note he released 7th Sense and Go Round.
That scratches the surface as it is indicative of only some of his prodigious output down the years and Hays has also maintained a trio partnership with bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Bill Stewart.
His duo work to look at that and pertinent in the current context includes Hope with Benin icon the Herbie Hancock guitarist Lionel Loueke. While Loueke is Franco and George Benson inspired, however, Hekselman on Live at the Stone and elsewhere ploughs a different furrow and is far more of a fiery bebopper in the Peter Bernstein mould stylistically. In 2015, KH began incorporating his own singing more prominently into his work with New Day, an album that brought together his piano playing, compositions and voice.
Turning to the new release tunes are fourfold. Firstly, it is Hays’ ‘Bob Dylan’ spookily arrived at after what comes over like a siren – the melody eventually revealed in a nasally vocalised sounding synth setting followed by some wonderfully grandiose power chords towards the 7 minute mark after the rustling Kenny Wollesen early scene setting thickets of the sonic undertow.
Secondly, there’s Hays’ and Craig Taborn’s ‘Presence’ which seems like an improvisation in character (I doubt that it is spontaneously 100 per cent composed on the spot, is there really a need to attempt this feat?) – it is jointly credited.
Taborn is a very different, far more oblique and essentially more avant-garde pianist to Hays (who seems more interested in melodicism, Brahmsian Mehldau-iana and minimalism at a certain level) but they mesh well together. The work of Taborn’s I love most is when he was in Dave Douglas’ band and I also liked him with Chris Potter & Nasheet Waits at the Pizza Express in Soho in 2021. The piece I think is like futuristic and is highly complex. It sits well if you are an electronica listener or – let’s go out on a limb and offer up a hunch – like Steve Lehman’s spectral experimentations.
Then, thirdly, the Stone set sequences Gilad Hekselman’s ‘The Dove Will Fly High’ that has a synth that sounds like a tubular bell at the beginning. No I am not going to be “literal” and go down a Mike Oldfield rabbit hole today. Tubular bells often make me come over Christmassy or think about buying a cape & magic carpet and being preposterous again. But you’ll hear some, or the effect at least, a bit differently on a fine new Mari Wilson album quite enjoyably in the pop idiom by the way on current marlbank track of the week ‘Good News’ that isn’t ludicrous at all. What Hays does here mercifully isn’t prog or pop.
Watch the brief video above as it’s useful in discovering Hays’ personality when he presents what it is he trying to do in terms of the preparation and process behind jazz solo performances. Footage is from Porto’s Casa Da Musica concert hall in Portugal where Hays has performed
The Trio Grande version of ‘The Dove Will Fly High’ (no bells, Esmeralda, this time) begins with a trundling guitar figure and then the Metheny-esque motif reveals itself quickily. Trio Grande: What’s Left was released at the end of May. Trio Grande are the guitar-sax-drums combination of Hekselman from Israel, the Englishman Will Vinson and American Nate Wood. They play The Yard, Manchester on 2 November, Ronnie’s on the 3rd, Magy’s Farm, Northern Ireland on 4 Nov and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff on the 5th.
The piece is very differently arranged to the Trio Grande version from an earlier release this year largely because the main theme does not emerge until about 3 and a half minutes in. That’s after the fascinating increasingly church bell-like tolling build-up whereas the main theme appears early on in the TG treatment.
Fourthly, it’s the very beautiful Hays ballad, ‘Remember Me’. Referring to the last of these Live at the Stone pieces which to me is the best thing on the album the ‘Remember me’ version has an electronic keyboard sheen to it – sort of modular monophonic sounding with a woozy “vocalisation” fed in – that’s extremely appealing before peeling off into a piano continuity passage after the hazy introduction and then an incredibly tender Ben Wendel solo. When Hays comps later on before opening up with some trebly piccolo-like lines it’s in a Mehldau-eseque vein engagingly.
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New Irish jazz releases dry up
Choppy waters
Last year, I thought it was a bumper year for Irish jazz albums. This year, by contrast, has been the exact opposite. So much jazz is going undocumented that it is not an overstatement to say the Irish scene, as it stands, is one of Europe’s most under-known, especially when compared with the volume of new jazz released elsewhere.
Take 2025. I put together a list of my favourite albums, a useful aide-mémoire led by crossover trombonist and singer Matt Benson, who uses the singer-songwriter circuit as a springboard for building an audience.
Instead, the picture now is far slimmer. Just where do Irish jazz fans go to find new homegrown product?
If you have been looking for a deluge of new studio albums dropping month after month, you will have been met with tumbleweed. The reality of the modern Irish jazz scene is that new studio LPs are incredibly rare.
The reason is clear enough: new jazz recordings by Irish artists do not sell in significant numbers. Musicians typically have to finance their albums themselves, paying for recording, mixing, mastering, artwork and manufacturing before attempting to recoup the costs through sales. Faced with that risk, many are understandably reluctant to proceed. How do you even market releases when few fans buy physical product any more? A few thousand streams on Spotify isn’t going to be a game changer but let’s be real the streams aren’t ever going to be in the millions.
The fact that a scene can operate largely without putting out many records tells its own story.
The UK scene is much larger in population and benefits from a more substantial jazz infrastructure, including promoters, more music colleges, dedicated magazines and websites and funding bodies plus commercial specialist radio stations like Jazz FM. A better comparison, purely in population terms, might be with a smaller European country – although not one of the Nordic countries, which benefit from considerably stronger national and regional support – Serbia? Belgaria?
Musicians are not mugs. If the choice is between supporting a loss-making tour or a loss-making album, then touring will win almost every time. Only a small number of musicians make money from either activity, but a live performance at least offers an immediate fee and the possibility of several engagements around the same project.
Touring itself tends to be patchy and territorial, with a few gigs here and there rather than sustained national circuits. Meaningful grants to defray the costs remain limited, although the Irish Government’s 2026 grassroots-venue scheme does offer up to €1 million in support for live music venues. That is welcome, but it is primarily venue funding rather than a direct solution to the cost of recording albums.
A fallow release year
The few records that do appear are therefore the exceptions that prove the rule.
The dead end facing Irish jazz recordings comes down to infrastructure and economics. It may, however, be part of a cycle. Some years are simply more fallow than others, and the pool of significant artists who release albums is relatively small. Most issue a major statement only once every few years, rarely more frequently unless the project is a live recording, which tends to involve lower production costs.
Labels such as the once-busy Lyte Records have gone into hiatus. Diatribe Records remains active, but its principal focus is avant-garde and improvised music – a part of the Irish scene, though a relatively small one and not representative of the scene as a whole. Livia Records, meanwhile, which is more representative has concentrated largely on archival material, although it has also issued recent recordings by artists including Carole Nelson and Phil Robson.
The financial mountain involved in funding, recording, mixing and pressing a full-length acoustic album means that musicians, particularly those emerging from music college, may space their major statements three to five years apart, if they can make them at all. Rather than chasing the streaming-era algorithm through rapid-fire releases, Irish jazz musicians have largely doubled down on gigging.
The releases so far
Unlike Ireland’s large indie-pop and traditional-music sectors, jazz operates without significant commercial backing, particularly from major live promoters. Radio support is also limited. Stations across the country are more likely to play country, pop and rock than jazz, with occasional support from RTÉ. BBC Radio Ulster’s jazz provision is also less substantial than it was before the loss of its two weekly jazz programmes.
My favourite of what is out there is the new EP by talented new County Down pianist and keyboardist Zak Irvine. I am also looking forward to the latest from Ireland’s greatest living jazz singer, Christine Tobin.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves so returning to the balmy heretofore for a while, several interesting releases deserve wider notice. The media is asleep at the wheel. Newspapers such as The Irish Times and the Irish Independent continue to give jazz far less regular prominence than pop, rock and classical music. Profile is flagging. Fans simply have no real big media supporters in the quality press to look to any more apart from a once in a blue moon small column inch here and there. Blink and you’d miss it. 3 page specials on some TV reality star who can sing a bit, however, but who you wouldn’t watch anyway, no problemo. Read all about it!
Chunk by Insufficient Funs, released by Diatribe Records, is a duo project from Dublin drummer Matthew Jacobson and saxophonist Sam Comerford.
Antes, Siempre (Before, Always) by Orlando Molina, released independently, reflects the globalised nature of contemporary Dublin. The Venezuela born guitarist interestingly strips the music down to a delicate nylon-string guitar-and-vocal format, reimagining traditional Latin American melodies through sophisticated contemporary-jazz harmonies. It is a quiet and deeply personal studio statement.
The Unpredictability of the Sea by the Levy/Robson Quartet, on Livia Records, finds Roscommon-based English guitar virtuoso Phil Robson and powerhouse American saxophonist Jed Levy sounding as impressive as ever. The album balances tradition and modernity through original compositions by both musicians, supported by bassist Mark Hodgson and drummer Roberto Gatto.
There are also signs that Livia Records is becoming more active as a contemporary label. Let’s hope that is the case as a central hub going forward. Archival material does not interest me half as much as releases by the next generation and established masters like Michael Buckley.
The music is still happening
Ultimately, looking at the Irish jazz landscape through the lens of recorded output risks missing the point. The true pulse of the music lives in the rooms and on the festival stages across the island.
While studio schedules are quiet, the live circuit is deafeningly loud. Rather than waiting for physical records, audiences are experiencing this music as it is being born, supported by a dedicated regional network of venues, promoters and annual events.
The problem is not a lack of creativity. It is that too little of that creativity is being documented, distributed and made discoverable beyond the venues where it happens.
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What’s new
“How is the world treating you? You haven’t changed a bit. Lovely as ever, I must admit.” The words of Johnny Burke sung by many down the years. I like the Billie Holiday version a lot. The irony isn’t lost on us, what’s new – it’s a ridiculous question in many ways in the context of below as how precisely, pray, can you compare the jazz past with the jazz present….? As for the beautiful song itself – the tune is by Bob Haggart and it dates back to the late-1930s – it captures the poignant and emotionally heavy experience of unexpectedly running into a former lover and being forced into polite small talk. It explores the sharp contrast between holding onto deep, unresolved feelings and facing the painful reality that the other person has completely moved on.
Catch up on a range of 5 new jazz releases
Ezra Collective – Here Because of Hope
Ezra Collective’s fourth album, Here Because of Hope, arrived digitally on 11 September through Partisan, with the 17-track set tracing connections between African, Caribbean and British music. The album’s obvious stand out a striking vocal collaboration between the Brit and Mercury winners and X Factor winner pop and soul singer Leona Lewis.
Andy Sheppard, Rita Marcotulli & Michel Benita – Salt Catchers
Andy Sheppard brings together pianist Rita Marcotulli and bassist Michel Benita for Salt Catchers, his latest ECM album. The trio recorded eight Sheppard originals alongside Carla Bley’s ‘Lawns’ in Lugano in 2025.
Gretchen Parlato – The Wise Ones
Gretchen Parlato’s The Wise Ones arrives on Edition Records, with Robert Glasper, Gerald Clayton, Mark Guiliana and other collaborators among the musicians involved. The album includes Parlato’s versions of Stevie Wonder’s ‘If It’s Magic’, Tears for Fears’ ‘Mad World’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Landslide’.
George Garzone – Themes for Good Friends
Saxophonist George Garzone’s Themes for Good Friends brings together Randy Brecker, Luis Perdomo, Santi Debriano and Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts. Jojo Records released the album on 11 September. We did a celebratory “The Importance of Being Ernie” themed playlist inspired by one of the tracks to jump off into a theme. (In case you were wondering there was no room made in the list for execrable Benny Hill novelty hit ‘Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West‘. A Christmas no 1 hit in 1971! If you are looking for proof that people will buy any old tat in great quantity, then look no further.)
Maik Krahl – Rain, Flowers and New Beginnings
Melodic German trumpeter and composer Maik Krahl releases Rain, Flowers and New Beginnings on Challenge Records. If you like Till Brönner then this is up your street but with a bit less gloss.
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Lucy-Anne Daniels is a semi-finalist in the upcoming Herbie Hancock Institute jazz vocals contest
Leeds jazz singer Lucy-Anne Daniels has been named among the 11 semi-finalists for the 2026 Herbie Hancock Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition.
For the first time, the event will be held outside the United States, with the semi-finals and final taking place in Paris on 10 and 11 October.
Six of the 11 semi-finalists hail from places outside the US, making this the most international group in the competition’s history.
The other semi-finalists are Joie Bianco of Staten Island, New York, who has performed with Emmet Cohen; Paris based vocalist, composer and arranger Anouk Chemla, who was selected for the Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead programme in 2025; Georgia Heers of South Carolina, who appeared as Ella in George Clooney’s 2025 Broadway production of Good Night, and Good Luck; Australian vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Courteney Hooper; Houston vocalist Kate Kortum, winner of the 2025 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition; Slovakian vocalist Kristin Lash; Zhenxuan “Jimmy” Lin of Guangzhou, China; French vocalist Malou Oheix; Miami based Ashley Pezzotti; and Tawanda Suessbrich-Joaquim of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Daniels, 23, grew up singing gospel and jazz, was a pupil of the Grammar School at Leeds, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in jazz from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. In 2025 she won the Tina May Young Jazz Musician Award, also taking the audience award.
She has since performed with the BBC Orchestra and appeared at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in a programme celebrating Sarah Vaughan’s centennial. And she has also worked with NYJO (National Youth Jazz Orchestra) as a composer and vocals musical director touring their celebration of the music of Amy Winehouse.
The semi-final takes place on Saturday 10 October, with each vocalist performing a 15-minute set of three songs including one non-jazz work. They will be accompanied by Carmen Staaf on piano, Ben Williams on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums. The judging panel comprises Patti Austin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roberta Gambarini, Gretchen Parlato and Gregory Porter.
Three finalists will be selected for the final on Sunday 11 October. The competition carries more than $100,000 in scholarships and prizes including a $50,000 first prize, $25,000 for second place and $10,000 for third.
– Read more at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz website
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Duke’s the word by George: Christian McBride and Ursa Major new album and Ronnie’s shows
Christian McBride returns to the musical world of The Mothers of Invention jazz rock fusion keyboards legend George Duke for the first track from his forthcoming album with new group Ursa Major. Have a listen ahead of his Ronnie Scott’s dates in London on 1 and 2 October:
‘No Rhyme, No Reason’, Duke’s 1992 single, is the sole cover on Points of Light, which McBride and Ursa Major release at the end of next month just before Halloween through American jazz label Mack Avenue.
Philly icon McBride knew Duke well. Duke produced McBride’s third album, A Family Affair in the late 1990s, and the bassist also played on several of Duke’s projects. McBride has spoken of Duke as an important link between jazz and R&B, and of his particular interest in Duke’s work with Cannonball Adderley and Gerald Wilson.
George Duke, left, with Christian McBride an image that is found on Christian’s blog. Therein he writes by explaining more of their collaborative work together:
So many of my greatest memories of George were related to music – him producing my third CD, A Family Affair, making my first appearance on one of his CDs (After Hours), getting my first call to play with the George Duke Band playing electric bass, auxiliary keyboards and background singing (I so wish social media existed then!), playing with him on the first domestic performance of his “Muir Woods Suite”, playing with him on many Montreux Jazz Festival “Jams”, playing with him once in LA when the original George Duke Band – Sheila E., Byron Miller and Leon Ndugu Chancler – came and bum rushed the stage, having him sit in with my band on numerous occasions, sharing the stage with him on keyboards, Stevie Wonder on Rhodes and Herbie Hancock on piano, and playing on George’s final two productions – Jeffrey Osborne’s A Time For Love and his own final CD release, Dreamweaver.
In 2011, George wrote a bass concerto for me entitled, ‘Concerto For McB’ which was performed at UCLA with the Symphonic Jazz Orchestra. George explained that he wanted my ‘full arsenal’ on display in this piece – acoustic bass (pizzicato and arco), fretless electric bass, and fretted electric bass. Until this very day, it doesn’t feel right saying ‘George Duke wrote a bass concerto for me.’ I don’t know that it ever will sound right. Just sounds too heavy, you know?
Christian McBride
Duke died in 2013. His career included prominent musical associations as a member of The Mothers of Invention with Frank Zappa, the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, and the Clarke/Duke Project alongside bassist Stanley Clarke. His solo discography spans 32 studio albums, highlighted by key releases such as the jazz fusion records Faces in Reflection (1974) and The Aura Will Prevail (1975), the commercial funk breakthrough Reach for It (1977), and the much loved Latin-influenced A Brazilian Love Affair (1979).
The new version of Snapshot track ‘No Rhyme, No Reason’ also brings producer and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin into the frame. Known like McBride for his work with Herbie Hancock, Martin adds Oberheim, Mini Moog and vocoder, giving the track a more electronic setting around McBride’s acoustic bass, Nicole Glover’s soprano saxophone, Mike King’s piano, organ and synths, Ely Perlman’s guitar and Savannah Harris’ drums. Martin produced Points of Light, with McBride as associate producer.
Check live footage of Ursa Major, a band that has been going for around 4 years, above
McBride describes the band as a hybrid group, with the music drawing on acoustic jazz alongside funk, soul, hip-hop and electronic influences.
The album consists mainly of original material by members of the group. Other tracks include ‘Sakura’, ‘Two Check’, ‘Cows’, ‘Same Folks’, ‘Familiar Steps’, ‘A Morning Story’ and ‘Orquídea’.
McBride piece ‘A Morning Story’ fans will know in another guise found on late 1990s album, Number Two Express.
For McBride, the project also continues a long-standing role as a presenter of younger musicians. Glover and the other Ursa Major members represent a new generation of players he has brought into his musical orbit. Read a review of Artemis player Glover’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections issued a year ago above.
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Jalen Baker, RePaved, Cellar Music ****
Canada’s Cellar Music put out a lot of albums. To be frank a lot of these this year aren’t my cup of tea much – I thought their output last year overall was stronger – but RePaved certainly is an album I admire and enjoyed listening to and underlines despite sometimes switching off from their output from time to time what an important record company for jazz Cory Weeds’ indie is. Baker’s album from my knowledge of the label is one of Cellar Music’s finest achievements.
Why? Perhaps it’s because I liked vibist Jalen Baker’s role in the Jeremy Pelt sound on Woven (and fittingly Pelt produces); perhaps it’s because Paul Cornish is on piano. That last point is probably the most significant here; other recommendable factors in what is a very good record indeed include the arrangement on ‘Kashmere’ – the broader ensemble at play has flute, violin, viola and cello in addition to the rhythm section. Baker’s solo when it comes is full of character. And character is what this album is all about. Baker recorded the album over two days in January at a studio in Long Island City, New York. He composed the project in response to the gentrification transforming Houston’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th Wards.
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Julian Joseph to play Rhapsody in Blue with the Ulster Orchestra
Delivering one of the best UK jazz albums of 2026 there’s a chance this autumn for a Belfast audience to hear Julian Joseph perform at the Ulster Hall on Bedford Street with the Ulster Orchestra on George Gershwin’s 1924 first performed classic, Rhapsody in Blue.
‘Energy of the Trees’ from the Nine Elms Suite – named after the reborn area of Battersea not far from Vauxhall in London which has been massively developed in recent years.
Julian, 60 this year, was born in London and attended primary school in nearby Wandsworth before later studying at Berklee in Boston and debuting to massive acclaim in the 1990s with The Language of Truth, one of the defining UK jazz releases of the last 40 years.
His style lands in the Mulgrew Miller and Chick Corea influenced domain and he himself is an influence on new generation players running a Jazz Academy in East London on such by now established players as Deschanel Gordon and Sultan Stevenson.
He has written operas and other classical work and led his own big band. I have heard him play numerous times & interviewed him in addition – read my review of his big band appearance at Ronnie Scott’s that ran in Jazzwise in 2011. In Ireland I attended a Cork Festival broadcast he did in 2010 the year Herbie Hancock and Robert Glasper both appeared at the festival when JJ had a regular jazz show on BBC Radio 3 and introduced to the stage the great Irish singer Christine Tobin. On Julian Joseph’s new album there is a local Irish connection in that Irish singer Ken Papenfus (frontman of the rock band Relish, from Downpatrick, County Down) is featured on the Stevie Wonder-esque track ‘Ponto de Meditação’. Julian has also frequently appeared as a panellist on BBC TV Proms coverage.
The Belfast based Ulster Orchestra will be conducted by Ryan McAdams who is principal conductor of Crash Ensemble who are reckoned to be Ireland’s foremost contemporary music group. I heard Crash Ensemble at the Happy Days festival in 2014 performing Samuel Beckett’s radio collaboration Words and Music quite brilliantly featuring music composed by Morton Feldman at the Ardhowen Theatre and starring Adrian Dunbar as Words and Ian McElhinney as Croak. Julian has performed the Gershwin jazz influenced classic with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Other items on the programme are Schulhoff’s Symphony No. 2 first performed in Prague in 1935, Leonard Bernstein‘s Fancy Free from the 1940s and movements from Julian’s own Nine Elms Suite first performed in March this year. Before the concert Julian will participate in a talk joined by the Ulster Orchestra’s artistic director Patrick McCarthy.
- A link to the concert page for further details of the 9 October concert
MORE FROM MARLBANK – THE FULL LIST OF TOP UK JAZZ RANKED AND RATED THIS YEAR
Terje Gewelt, The Old Tree, Resonant Music **** recommended
Norwegian bassist Terje Gewelt reunites with Scottish tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith – the two go back to their days with Forward Motion at Berklee in Boston in the 1980s.
The quartet is completed by pianist and keyboard player Erlend Slettevoll and drummer Erik Smith, no relation to Tommy – he grew up in Hønefoss near Oslo.
There is a reflective quality to much of the music, with Smith’s tenor carrying the melodic line over Gewelt’s bass and Slettevoll’s spacious piano voicings. The album doesn’t have a heavy groove and is loose enough in feel to allow for a lot of melodic mobility and extensive improvisation grounded in a gloomy Scandi tonality that anyone into Jan Garbarek (who adapted it from Coltrane) will be happy with.
The title track is followed by ‘Woodland’, ‘Sentinel’, ‘Last Leaf Falling’ (with tin whistle a folkloric twist), ‘Landmark’, ‘Oak Wisdom’, ‘Longevity’, ‘Cycle Of Life’ and ‘Ogham’. The writing is predominantly “spiritual jazz”, emotive in some of the most passionate soloing eg on ‘Oak Wisdom’ most. An emphasis on space and relatively uncluttered quartet interplay gives it a certain gravitas. It isn’t portentous.
Smith’s tenor has a poise that reflects the Coltrane and 1970s Jan Garbarek influence that has long been part of his musical vocabulary in his Scottish National Jazz Orchestra days. In the overhead canopy of tree lined traceries there are also echoes of the open, spacious sound associated with his ECM work that branch out organically, particularly his recordings with Arild Andersen and Paolo Vinaccia (who died in 2019). And if you like the Jarrett “Belonging Band” recordings and interpretations like Keith based on these since – particularly Branford Marsalis‘ sterling work in that domain – then surely The Old Tree will also appeal on a certain deep level.
Born in Oslo in 1960 and raised in Larvik, Gewelt began on guitar before moving to electric bass and then double bass. He studied with the aforementioned giant of Scandi bass Andersen and subsequently attended the Bass Institute of Technology in Los Angeles and Berklee College of Music in Boston. At Berklee he formed Forward Motion with Smith, pianist Laszlo Gardonyi and drummer Ian Froman. The group recorded The Berklee Tapes, made in 1984, and later Progressions.
After returning to Norway, Gewelt worked with musicians including Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham and Misha Alperin. He established Resonant Music in 1998 and has released much of his own work through the label.
Slettevoll is impressive as a foil to the main lead lines and adds his own often significant touches in a dynamic way. A graduate of the jazz programme at the Trondheim conservatoire, the 44-year-old pianist surfaced in the mid-2000s as part of the exciting Trane inspired outfit The Core. Slettevoll was on Gewelt’s tremendous 2022 trio date Dusk Till Dawn alongside long time Norway residing Englishman the sax and bass clarinet icon, John Surman whose must hear work down the years includes his significant role found on John McLaughlin’s late-1960s classic and debut as a bandleader the ferociously compelling Extrapolation.
Marlbank previously reviewed Then and Now, Gewelt’s stunning collection of recordings made between 1998 and 2022 which is textbook bass and an album that should be required listening for any student of the instrument who wants to inhabit this idiom and compose in its wake. It brought together Gewelt with musicians including Karin Krog, John Surman, Billy Cobham, Christian Jacob and George Garzone.
The Old Tree is superb.The appeal is in the familiarity between Gewelt and Smith but also found in the space given to the quartet and the way the folk inflections sit within the contemporary jazz setting so naturally.
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