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A transcript of the latest episode
Hello, welcome to marbank for the latest episode of the podcast. It’s Stephen Graham here from the site, so you’re very welcome.
It’s the weekly chance to have a look at some of the pressing issues and observations that spring to mind following on with a bit of time to think about some of the posts and what’s going on roughly with Marbank.
The site, of course, is something that I look at every day and I try to make improvements to. Unfortunately, I’m just looking at the stats for May and it’s quite a poor month. I think things are changing with AI and so on. People aren’t clicking or viewing as much. Sadly, it’s 30% down on the previous month, so that’s not very good. I think possibly I’ll have to have another think about the future really for the site, whether it’s worth doing at all. You need to get in touch and give us your thoughts if you’re interested in that.
Looking at the stats more positively, the most popular post is to do with the top jazz so far in 2026. That’s the list that I curate to keep, really, I suppose, a sense of perspective. It’s not fact or anything like that. It’s just subjective views of what I think in terms of ranking the albums that I’ve heard so far.
It certainly makes you concentrate. It makes you think, well, was I being too generous? Was I being too harsh about this or that? Sometimes I actually find that an album that’s got three and a half stars ends up in the top list, which is odd. Now, I think in a way you could go in and you could analyse how things work out, but I suppose sometimes you get a week when something is the best album, but it’s really not that great. You might give it four stars or something like that, and then it’s because there’s nothing else particularly good that week. Yet in the bigger scheme of things, it’s not really something that you’d be listening to this time next year, for instance.
I think sometimes it’s to do with what’s good and what’s really good: it’s what sticks in the mind. So sometimes I’ll just sit down and I’ll think, well, what can I instantly hear without playing a note on any device? And then I think, right, that’s stuck with me.
Now you may say there’s a fault to that, and there is, because maybe the more catchy stuff will stick in your mind. The catchy stuff isn’t necessarily the best material. People who listen to jazz know that it’s often to do with the context, isn’t it? You get a really incredible riff, but that riff isn’t in isolation. It might be in the middle of a whole dense foliage of notes, and that context is really why it’s interesting, not necessarily the riff itself.
Although, of course, you get albums which have an incredible riff-groove alchemy, and in fact that sort of part of the whole music is very crucial, I think. Maybe it goes back to the blues, it goes back to the simplicity that perhaps a lot of new jazz has lost. I often think that the hardest things are to make things simple, to make things plain and expressive. If you can do that as a musician, then it’s an incredible gift even when something is complex. If you make it simple and something that connects on an emotional level with an audience member, then you’re onto something.
Top jazz so far in 2026
So anyway, the top jazz so far in 2026 post is the most popular in May. The Irish Jazz scene gig page, which I’ve developed recently, also has done well. That’s quite a new one. I just started that, I think about a week ago or so, and already it’s amongst the month’s most popular. The playlist section is quite popular as well, although I think that might go on hiatus for a little bit.
The jazz clubs across Europe page is good too. I enjoy doing that. I think it’s good to look out there and find out, and I love it when you find a small city somewhere, not necessarily a massive city, putting on some incredible programming. So for example, Tilburg — it’s not a massive city, it’s not a capital — has a club there called the Paradox. I’d love to visit it. They put on some incredible stuff. I think they had Ambrose Akinmusire recently, Brussels Jazz Orchestra. There must be something special in the water in Tilburg.
I’ve also got a list of the top UK jazz albums in 2026, which is developing. There’s a new entry in that just today, the latest from Paul Dunmall. You might say, well, how does that connect to the bigger picture? I would say at the moment the bigger picture, the Norma Winstone album, connects with the wider overall list. I think the Jasper Høiby record too probably does as well. These things change though and by the end of the year they’ll probably look a bit different. But as we are looking at things at the moment, it’s been a pretty decent year for UK jazz.
There’s a bit of trad coming through, which is interesting. That usually doesn’t figure in the top list that I put together anyway. I like James Davison with Misha Mullov-Abbado. And there’s a bit of other trad popping through too, the stride coming through from Joe Webb, which really is trad jazz. I reviewed him last year. He’s quite amusing, and I think Will Sach is an amazing bass player.
On the stride front, I know comparisons are invidious, but I think Ethan Iverson is a better stride player than Joe Webb, to be perfectly frank about it. Just after Christmas, I heard Ethan do some stride at the Vortex, and I’d like to see him do a full stride album. I wonder will that happen.
James P. Johnson, of course, influenced both him and Joe Webb. And the Charleston rhythms are incredibly popular beyond jazz really. When it’s fed in there via people with extraordinary techniques like Iverson and Webb, it’s quite thrilling, and for the drummer and the bass player to keep up with that sort of stuff is a feat in itself. It’s pacey, it’s very complex, there’s a lot of notes, and there’s that rhythm that obviously dancers love, and it’s infectious. But to be able to play at that level is no mean feat. They make it look easy.
– Drop us a line at stephen@marbank.net, and as I say, the site’s struggling a bit at the moment. Do give us a few thoughts as to how to maybe pick things up a little bit. I don’t really want to stop it, but if it dribbles away any more, I think I may have to just decrease the activity on it.
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