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140 articles

Barry Witherden

I first started to enjoy jazz when I was about nine through watching films like The Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story and anything with Gene Krupa on drums. In my early teens I began to delve into modern jazz: first Stan Getz, the MJQ and Dave Brubeck, then the likes of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean and Ornette Coleman.When I was 15, disgusted by the general drubbing that my hero, Brubeck, got (from the critics, not the public) I submitted an article defending him to Jazz Journal. The legendary Sinclair Traill, founder and then-editor of JJ, disagreed with everything I said but enjoyed the article and published it. Soon after, I had pieces published in Jazz Monthly, International Times, Jazz and Blues and several fanzines. In my late teens I was, for a while, Secretary of the British Institute of Jazz Studies and contributing editor of its magazine. Then I dropped out of the fanzine scene, but at a Christmas party in 1985 I met the late, much-missed Richard Cook. He had just been appointed editor of The Wire and, remembering some of my earlier writings, invited me to contribute to the magazine, which I did for about a quarter of a century. I subsequently contributed to Jazz Review, Jazz on CD, Jazzwise, Gramophone, Music Week, Classic CD, Avant, The Rough Guide to Classical Music and The Guinness Who's Who of Jazz (for which I wrote 45,000 words without the aid of free samples from the sponsor) and currently contribute to BBC Music, allaboutjazz.com and, of course, Jazz Journal. I currently present a jazz show and a “left-field” show (which often features the more outré reaches of jazz and improv) on my local radio station, 10Radio (105.3 FM and www.10radio.org).

Jon Irabagon: Bird With Streams

During Covid-19 lockdowns musicians found various ways to keep their hands (or chops) in, including organising live jams via Zoom, circulating recorded tracks for...

Anti Rubber Brain Factory: Marokaït 

The name might lead you to envisage a late-60s Californian psychedelic-rock band, but you’d be mercifully mistaken. The music is rooted in the culture...

Alchemy Sound Project: Afrika Love

The original five members of the Project - Tonooka, Washington, Lindsay, Boshnack and Arend - had already established distinguished individual reputations when they met...

John Coltrane: Ballads

Ballads, along with Duke Ellington And John Coltrane (recorded 26 September 1962) and John Coltrane And Johnny Hartman (recorded 7 March 1963) seemed to...
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Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus

Before I’d ever heard this album it seemed familiar because I had read so much about it, including classical composer, conductor and critic Gunther...

John Coltrane: Coltrane Time

Coltrane Time has a convoluted discographical history: recorded for Vanguard, credited to the Cecil Taylor Quintet and released on United Artists as Stereo Drive...

Three-Layer Cake: Stove Top

How to categorise this? Watt says: “I’ve really outgrown that genre sh*t. For me, music is music.” Fair enough, but for ease of reviewing...

Nigel Price Organ Trio: Wes Reimagined

Price describes this album as a “what if?” project. Wes Montgomery, he says, “influenced a lot of the funk, soul, boogaloo and earthy groove...
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Bobby Watson, Vincent Herring, Gary Bartz: Bird At 100

August 2020 saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Parker. By then he had been dead for more than 65 years but...

Orrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: The Intangible Between

For me, as for many others, the idea of walking down the road to a friend’s house for coffee and a chat has seemed...

Stefano Bollani: El Chakracanta

To my taste this album is very much the proverbial curate’s egg. Your level of enjoyment is likely to be determined by your degree...

Andy Hague’s Double Standards: Release

This is the debut recording by Hague’s new band. In fact, he has been using the Double Standards brand for his quartet dates, focusing...
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