• Live reviews
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top new artists
  • Top jazz albums so far in 2026
  • Track choice
  • Live reviews
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top new artists
  • Top jazz albums so far in 2026
  • Track choice
  • Live reviews
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top new artists
  • Top jazz albums so far in 2026
  • Track choice

Month: October 2025

Play Elmo Hope
Reviews

Vinnie Sperrazza, Jacob Sacks, Masa Kamaguchi, Play Elmo Hope, Fresh Sound New Talent

What's not to love about this new collection of Elmo Hope tunes from a talented trio. Langston Hughes wrote and it seems...

Bymarlbank29 October 2025
Reviews

Grant Stewart, Next Spring, Cellar Live

Dreamy old fashioned tenor saxophone craftmanship from a master in a quartet setting recorded at Van Gelder's.

Bymarlbank29 October 2025
Reviews

Fergus McCreadie, The Shieling, Edition

Pianist Fergus McCreadie's most Scottish statement to date.

Bymarlbank29 October 2025
Reviews

John Scofield and Dave Holland, Memories of Home, ECM

A twice as nice siren call for the faithful.

Bymarlbank28 October 2025
Reviews

Gareth Lockrane Big Band, Box of Tricks, Whirlwind

Immaculate big band led by a formidable flautist.

Bymarlbank28 October 2025
Think piece

Kind of Keith

At last amid the gloom a renewed sense of Belonging emerges plus an Irish jazz resurgence and we are on the cusp of the dawn...

Bymarlbank28 October 2025
John O'Gallagher
Album of the WeekReviews

John O’Gallagher, Ancestral, Whirlwind

Outstanding, original work. Albums like Ancestral make me change the way I think about what is possible in 21st century jazz all over again..

Bymarlbank27 October 2025
Al Foster
This just in

The Saturday Morning Listen: ALL for 1: This 1’s for AL

For Saturday morning listen - our favourite time of the week - it's the Brad Mehldau composition 'Unrequited' in focus in a range of treatments....

Bymarlbank25 October 2025
This just in

Hold on – they’re comin’: Howl Quartet stream of consciousness is a winning breakthrough

On our radar - Night Song

Bymarlbank25 October 2025
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Welcome note

Thanks for visiting. Not opening time just yet. But what's next, you may well wonder beyond a bit of a recce to see Banjo Paddy playing to dancers down the alley locally very possibly. Look out for the podcast on Monday - lives return in September. Sunday listening is a very decent new number ever so wisely interpreted from Cambridge scene singer the highly more-ish Myles Sanko, 'Slow Down.' SG

Baggy playlist

Track of the year in 2026

Lizz Wright and Kenny Banks Sr | marlbank article
Playing EFG London Jazz Festival in the autumn. Click the pic for the venue link and more gen about it
Track choice: Lizz Wright and Kenny Banks Sr – Amazing Grace

MORE READING have a gander at my review of Lizz & travelling band fam in tow in the agreeably louche surroundings of what was the Soho Revue Bar - formerly the Raymond Revuebar - run in Streatham period Jazzwise long home to the mag in 2008 before moving to Herne Hill five years later. Jazzwise will be 30 years old in late March 2027. Her Lizzness' take on Led Zep's 'Thank You' that night was the ultimate jaw dropper. Recorded version above. It was far better live - that long lost night saw the audience totally unprovoked by cheerleaders or fooled by any showbiz artifice adoring what she had just sung. Oh to have a bootleg to try to recreate the memory even more than what I noted down and can recall. But whatever: you have to let it linger.

"You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand" - Bob Dylan

Track choice: Lizz Wright and Kenny Banks Sr - Amazing GraceTrack choice: Lizz Wright and Kenny Banks Sr - Amazing Grace24 August 2026marlbank
Kurt Elling and Yellowjackets are in their elementKurt Elling and Yellowjackets are in their element28 August 2026marlbank
Top jazz albums so far in 2026Top jazz albums so far in 202623 August 2026marlbank

"It took me years to write, will you take a look?" - Paul McCartney

  • Carla Bley classic Lawns streams drawn from Andy Sheppard trio’s Salt Catchers
  • Punkt. Vrt. Plastik, Kompress, Intakt ****
  • Kurt Elling and Yellowjackets are in their element
  • The sound of Tony Bennett and Bill Evans touched upon by Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson and Marc Copland
  • What’s on

“I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later” - Miles Davis

Live: Count Basie Orchestra directed by Scotty Barnhart feat. Gunhild Carling, Ronnie Scott’s

New on marlbank

In the marlbank mix – the latest podcast and a playlist
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