246 articles
Matthew Wright
Matthew worked at Chris Wellard’s Jazz & Blues in New Cross, Collets Jazz & Folk Shop and for John Jack’s Cadillac Music. He helped Ray Smith set up Ray’s Jazz Shop in Shaftesbury Avenue and was its first manager. In the early 1980s he ran the Seven Dials Jazz Club, Covent Garden. He left London to work as a teacher in schools and at Warwickshire College in Leamington Spa. He has written for various magazines including Collusion, Jazzwise and Jazz Journal and was part of Leamington-based Jazz & Blues promoters, In the Moment. His book Jazz & Cricket - An Unlikely Combination was published in 2021
Barnes, Spillett, Brown and Tracey at the Garibaldi in Northampton
Saxophones, bass and drums didn't miss a piano or guitar in a set of standards at a venue reminding of London's New Merlin's Cave of yore
Miles Davis: In Amsterdam 1957
The trumpeter is on good form, stylistically presaging his cool modal work, with Barney Wilen, René Urtreger, Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke
Tommy Crane: Dance Music For All Occasions
Tribute to 70s and 80s smooth jazz demonstrates good musicianship but perhaps wants more development and soloing
Equal Spirits: Wise And Waiting
Trombonist Raph Clarkson leads Mark Lockheart, Chris Batchelor and others through tunes that draw substantially on South African jazz style
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Sonny Rollins: A Night At The Village Vanguard
Live date for Rollins' late 50s trio, freed from the constraints of explicit harmony, is reissued with two other live tracks from the period
Joe Harriott: Abstract / Southern Horizons / Free Form
Double CD spanning 1955-62 collects three albums, EP tracks and oddments by Britain's Parker acolyte turned avant-garde experimentalist
Dexter Gordon: Go! + A Swingin’ Affair
The saxophonist's deceptively languorous style is well evinced in a pairing of two of his Blue Note albums from 1962
Hill Collective: Tonal Prophecy
Brighton-based band reminds of Sun Ra and Willem Breuker as it combines dry humour, free improv and straightahead playing
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Jazz Artists Guild: Newport Rebels
Charles Mingus and Max Roach's alternative Newport, a 1960 reaction to the festival's commercialism, was taken into the studio later that year
Chet Baker Quartet: In Paris
The trumpeter's 1955 sessions in France, notably with the progressive pianist Dick Twardzik, are reissued on 180g vinyl in a gatefold sleeve
Amsterdam Klezmer Band: Bomba Pop
Klezmer fusion set reminding of Ibiza and Eurovision is occasionally redeemed by richly toned trombone and accordion passages
Alina Bzhezhinska & Tony Kofi: Altera Vita
Harpist and saxophonist pay tribute to Pharoah Sanders, apparently inspired by his later, gentler, more mesmeric style
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