Tag Archives: garyhusband

Level 42: Every Album, Every Song

‘Level 42 – Every Album, Every Song (on track)’ is the first in-depth study of the jazz/funk/pop supergroup’s illustrious catalogue.

It features recording information, musical analysis, studio gossip, full credits, stories from the road and contributions from head honcho Mark King and key past members Gary Husband and Phil Gould.

John McLaughlin & The 4th Dimension @ Barbican, 23rd 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 […]

Album Review: John McLaughlin & Jimmy Herring Live In San Francisco

If this is indeed McLaughlin’s final album, as some recent interviews have intimated, it’s a pretty remarkable one to go out on. There are various reasons for this; it’s the first bona fide full-scale return to Mahavishnu Orchestra material since the final incarnation of that band waved goodbye in 1975; it was recorded live on […]

Allan Holdsworth @ 70: Five Of The Best

There’s an alternative, fantasy version of the BRITS Lifetime Achievement award where the likes of Allan Holdsworth get the recognition they deserve from their native music industry. There would also be gongs for Courtney Pine, Gary Crosby, John McLaughlin, Django Bates, Julian Joseph, Gary Husband, Bill Bruford and a few others. Of course that’ll never happen, […]

Billy Cobham @ Ronnie Scott’s, 6th 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 […]

Mark King @ Ronnie Scott’s, 28th February 2012

Bass legend and mainman of pop/funk/fusion titans Level 42 for the last 30 years, Mark King has flirted with the J word intermittently throughout his career. Early on in their tenure, the band were seen as a kind of English Weather Report, marrying funky, rock-solid basslines and jazz/soul keyboards with danceable rhythms. But then King almost jumped ship […]

Jim Mullen @ 606 Club, November 2011

Glaswegian guitarist Jim Mullen is a hero to a generation of Brit jazz/funk fans mainly thanks to his work with late great saxophonist Dick Morrissey. Morrissey Mullen had some success in the late ‘70s and mid-80s, giving The Crusaders, Ronnie Laws and Don Blackman (not to mention Shakatak) a run for their money. Since then, Mullen has […]

Janek Gwizdala/Gary Husband @ Hideaway, 14th November 2011

Old-school fusion is alive and well and coming to a venue near you during this week’s London Jazz Festival. In the vacuum left after Tribal Tech‘s extended sabbatical in 2000, a number of units have emerged to take on the Miles Davis/Weather Report/Herbie Hancock template and run with it. The latest is this powerful group led by London-born, […]

John McLaughlin @ Barbican, 23rd April 2010

What is the role of the electric guitar in jazz music? Since Charlie Christian‘s revolutionary bebop permutations in the ’30s and ’40s, the guitar has undeniably held a fascination for jazz fans specifically and music fans in general. And when volume levels were increasing and minds expanding in the mid-to-late 1960s, in some ways John McLaughlin […]