Category Live Reviews
Kurt Elling/Yellowjackets Celebrate The Music Of Weather Report @ Cadogan Hall, 15 November 2025
It seems such a logical fit for Yellowjackets (purveyors of quality fusion since 1979 who once counted Felix Pastorius – Jaco’s son – amongst their ranks) to celebrate the music of Weather Report. But throw Kurt Elling into the mix too? Then you remember that he has become legendary for vocalising seemingly impossible tunes in […]
Mel Gaynor @ 606 Club, 25 September 2025
Mel Gaynor spent almost 30 years playing superb drums with Simple Minds in studios, stadiums and sports halls across the globe. But it’s also oft-forgotten that he was also one of the key British session drummers of the 1980s, and, in a 1992 Sunday Times poll, was named the world’s best rock drummer by Stewart […]
Oz Noy Trio @ Ronnie Scott’s, 7 July 2025
It’s always interesting when a ‘fusion’ guitarist downsizes from a quartet or quintet to a trio. Suddenly he/she is in charge of harmony and melody, and if the format offers more freedom there’s also the potential for stasis in the dynamics department. Steve Khan was a pioneer in the 1980s, Robben Ford in the 1990s […]
Ethan Iverson @ 606, 13 March 2025
Befitting such a jazz polymath with a formidable reputation as both pianist and writer (via his Substack, blog and excellent column for JazzTimes), Ethan Iverson’s latest project takes on musical themes inspired by noir movies and fantasy TV shows. In a surprisingly poorly-attended show at the always welcoming 606, Iverson began his debut UK solo […]
The Pete Roth Trio featuring Bill Bruford @ 606, 27 November 2024
Rock and pop musicians make comebacks all the time – in jazz, it’s almost unheard of. Reading drum legend Bill Bruford’s fine autobiography, there was no doubt he’d had his fill of the music business when he officially retired from performance on 1 January 2009 (his last Earthworks gig took place the previous July). Away […]
Bill Frisell @ Cadogan Hall, 25 October 2024
Frisell’s fascinating late-career boom continues abound. The American guitarist is a regular visitor to the Big Smoke but, revelling in his newfound freedom at Blue Note Records, this Cadogan Hall gig felt like his most ‘jazz’ outing for years. Of course that’s chiefly due to the presence of his A-list collaborators, in concert and on […]
Hejira @ The Exchange, 13 June 2024
Joni Mitchell’s complex compositions – utilising unique guitar tunings and dramatic melodic leaps – have at times posed problems for musicians and critics alike, especially during the period when she flirted with the ‘J’ word between 1974 and 1982, roughly from Court And Spark to Wild Things Run Fast. As such she may be the […]
Jason Rebello Quartet @ 606, 6 June 2024
There aren’t many British jazz pianists you can identify within two bars, but Jason Rebello is one. His bright touch and sparkling melodic sense are unmistakable. But which is your favourite Jason? As leader or co-leader, he’s recorded fusion, funky acid-jazz, straight-ish solo piano and Latin-tinged material, while as a sideman he’s worked with everyone […]
Scott Henderson @ Ronnie Scott’s, 4 March 2024
Has there ever been a greater guitar soloist over one chord than Scott Henderson (with stiff competition John Scofield, Frank Gambale, Frank Zappa, John McLaughlin and a few more)? Give him 32 bars of G-minor and he’ll find any manner of exciting, propulsive, envelope-pushing angles, without ever resorting to jazz, blues or fusion clichés – […]
Ron Carter @ Cadogan Hall, 17 November 2023
Ron Carter is reportedly the most-recorded acoustic bassist in music history and has a rich 65-year career as both sideman and bandleader, probably most famous for his key role in Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet. But he has also recorded over 60 albums as a solo artist, and this rare London Jazz Festival concert showcased […]
John McLaughlin/Shakti @ Hammersmith Odeon, 28 June 2023
Late July 1976: if you were a British jazz/rock fan, all roads led to the legendary Hammersmith Odeon in West London. The Billy Cobham/George Duke Band opened three nights of music, followed by John McLaughlin’s Shakti and then the headliners Weather Report. The encores often featured members of all three fusion supergroups. So how apt […]
The Love Supreme Festival 2013
An all-jazz residential UK festival – who’d have predicted it? Spread over an idyllic estate in Glynde, rural East Sussex, Love Supreme’s USP was a wholesale celebration of the music’s huge range, from straightahead to avant-garde, and it certainly delivered on that score. Jazz’s liberation from the club and concert hall also seemed to liberate […]
The Steinway Two-Piano Festival @ Pizza Express, March 2013
To paraphrase Keith Jarrett, the piano perhaps isn’t the most natural instrument for playing jazz, so conquering the beast with 88 teeth remains a huge challenge and this annual festival of duets always throws up an intriguing potpourri of styles. Bath residents Jason Rebello (pictured) and Dave Newton kicked things off with an engaging if […]
Wayne Shorter/Martial Solal + Tomorrow’s Warriors @ St Luke’s Church, 27 January 2004
It’s always interesting to hear jazz away from a club or concert hall, and both the unique location and musical content made this a very interesting evening indeed. The always-interesting Tomorrow’s Warriors started off the second night of Wayne Shorter’s Barbican residency with a mixture of the saxophonist’s early compositions for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers […]
John McLaughlin & The 4th Dimension @ Barbican, 23 April 2019
If this was John’s final London gig, what a way to go out. Though the audience’s response was at times reverential and/or strangely undemonstrative, the outpouring of emotion at the conclusion was heartfelt and seemed to come as quite a shock to the performers too. It’s hard to think of another ‘jazz’ band which has […]
Hubert Laws/Smithsonian Masterworks Orchestra @ Milton Court, 6 April 2019
Mention the name of flautist Hubert Laws to jazz fans of a certain bent and it’ll elicit an expression of appreciation and affection – his name is synonymous with the kinds of cool jazz/Latin/funk exemplified by the CTI label, where he made a few fondly remembered albums, as well as making key contributions to Gil […]
Three Views of the Piano @ London Jazz Festival 2017: Monk’s Centenary, Nik Bärtsch and Kate Williams
The sumptuous Cadogan Hall hosted the fitting finale to this year’s London Jazz Festival, a recreation of Thelonious Monk’s famous New York Town Hall concert of 28th February 1959. Charles Tolliver, who had attended the original concert as a teenager, conducted and added occasional trumpet. In a neat touch, the band set up in the […]
Harvey Mason @ Ronnie Scott’s, 13 May 2017
Who’s the most-recorded drummer in music history? Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie, Jeff Porcaro and Hal Blaine would make pretty good bets, but I’d raise you Harvey Mason. He’s played on some of the all-time-great jazz/funk sides: ‘Westchester Lady’, ‘Chameleon’, ‘Some Skunk Funk’ and ‘Breezin’; played pure jazz with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan and smooth […]
MCA Power Trio @ Cadogan Hall, 19 November 2016
The ‘cry’ takes many forms – you can hear it in Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, Miles, Albert Ayler and reedsman David Murray too, and it was very much in evidence during Saturday’s electrifying London Jazz Festival gig at the Cadogan Hall. What initially seemed a strange choice of venue for this bass-less supergroup turned out […]
Jason Rebello Trio @ 606, 28 October 2016
What makes a good jazz club? Clear sightlines, decent acoustics, a varied program and cosy atmosphere are surely required. The 606 in the heart of Chelsea has always scored highly on these and a few more too, and the club is currently celebrating its 40th birthday with a fortnight of triple-headers featuring an impressive line-up […]
Cyrus Chestnut/Nikki Yeoh @ Ronnie Scott’s, 15 August 2016
The piano trio form is expanding in all sorts of directions these days, from the metric perambulations of Vijay Iyer to the deep Zen grooves of The Necks. At last night’s opening gig of the International Piano Trio Festival, a neat bit of programming juxtaposed two bands at the opposite ends of the stylistic spectrum […]
Phil Gould/Mike Lindup/Wally Badarou @ 606 Club, 11 January 2016
‘Pocket’ is hard to define but you know it when you hear it. Something akin to a drummer’s ‘feel’, musicians often say that you’re either in the pocket or you ain’t, and as such the expression is mostly used in association with great US groovemasters like Richie Hayward, James Gadson, Bernard Purdie and Andy Newmark. […]
Jarrod Lawson @ Shepherds Bush Empire, 14 November 2015
The vacuum left by North London genius Lewis Taylor’s virtual disappearance from the music scene has left space for various young blue-eyed soulsters (Bo Saris, Allen Stone, Mayer Hawthorne et al), but Jarrod Lawson has surely emerged as the pick of the bunch. His assured, ambitious and well-received 2014 debut album announced a major new talent, […]
Billy Cobham @ Ronnie Scott’s, 6 February 2014
If 1959 is generally considered jazz’s annus mirabilis, you could make a pretty good case for 1973 as fusion’s apogee with key releases from Mahavishnu, Santana, Zappa and Herbie’s Headhunters. But for sheer energy and wow factor, drum master Cobham’s Spectrum might just trump them all, and he celebrated the classic album here at Ronnie’s […]
Wynton Marsalis @ Ronnie Scott’s, 17 August 2011
He’s one of jazz’s most controversial and iconoclastic figures, a thoroughbred trumpet player with chops and opinions for miles; keeper of the pure jazz flame since his emergence as part of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1980, guarding against Fusion, Nu-Jazz, Acid Jazz, Jazz/Funk, Avant-Garde Jazz and all post-1967 developments; an erudite educationalist, a natural, […]
Sounds Of Surprise 