Tag Archives: roundmidnight

Wayne Shorter (1933-2023): Don’t Forget The 1980s

The sad death of soprano/tenor sax titan Wayne Shorter has inspired many column inches but, reading most of the obituaries, you might be forgiven for thinking that he was completely dormant during the 1980s. Nothing could be further from the truth, even if he took more of a backseat in his ‘day job’ co-leading Weather […]

Book Review: Sophisticated Giant (The Life And Legacy Of Dexter Gordon) by Maxine Gordon

Jazz books written by ‘jazz widows’ are pretty rare. Only a few come to mind: Laurie Pepper’s ‘Art: Why I Stuck With A Junkie Jazzman’, Jo Gelbart’s ‘Miles And Jo: Love Story In Blue’ and Sue Mingus’s ‘Tonight At Noon’. But, as Val Wilmer’s ‘As Serious As Your Life’ demonstrated some 50 years ago, behind […]

Movie Review: ‘Round Midnight’ (1986)

‘Round Midnight’ turns 30 today, and its status as one of the great jazz movies was confirmed at a birthday screening last night at the Cine Lumiere in South Kensington. Whilst the recent ‘Whiplash’ and ‘Miles Ahead’ were moderate commercial successes, they were subject to withering criticism in some quarters – I was with the […]