Tune in to Eddie Gripper - today (Friday)

This afternoon on In Tune there will be a live studio set by the Eddie Gripper Trio. Currently touring the trio's new album, Americana, pianist Gripper made a big impression when he turned up recently at Newcastle's award-winning Globe. Tune in to In Tune (BBC Radio 3) at five o'clock. Russell  

Nick Mondello interviews Oscar Onoz

 

Mystery trumpet player

Watched a 1957 b & w movie - Pickup Alley. Starring Victor Mature and Anita Ekberg, it was the usual noir crime story of the time with Mature providing the beefcake and Ekberg the cheesecake.

However, what made it interesting for me was the jazzy soundtrack by RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT and a night club scene featuring singer  YANA who took Ekberg the distance in the beauty stakes.

In another scene, in a Roman dive  a jazz combo play some hard-blowing bop with an outstanding trumpet solo. Was it an actor miming? The credits didn't enlighten me and it isn't mentioned in Meeker's Jazz in the Movies. Can anyone help? Lance

Album review: Jaana Narsipur - The Re-Collection (Self)

Jaana Narsipur (vocals, arrangements, producer); Nikki Adams (piano, M.D.); Marco Panascia (bass); Joe Abba (drums, perc.); Wayne Tucker (trumpet tks 1, 4, 9); Sean Nowell (tenor sax tks 1, 9, 10); Alex Jeun (trombone tks 1, 9); Meg Okura (violin tks 5, 6, 8); Hannah Selin (viola tks 5, 6); Laura Masferrer (cello tks 5, 6)

An album that's been hanging around my in tray since April. Such is the nature and volume of music being released by the hour that it becomes very much a lucky dip as to who makes the cut.

Narsipur is from a generation that missed the glory of the GASbook years but found her niche in the music she heard as a child on MTV the fruits of which are found on The Re-Collection. Here the Gershwins and Porters, even the Bacharachs and co. are replaced by: Swing Out Sister; Peter Gabriel; Basia; Simply Red; Julia Fordham; Kate Bush; U2; Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart; Joe Jackson and Sting (he's everywhere man!)

Stockport Jazz

This week Stockport Jazz welcomes legendary alto saxophonist Greg Abate, direct from USA. This the only opportunity to see him perform in the North West as part of his current UK tour. 

Greg Abate (alto saxophone) with Paul Hartley (guitar), Ken Marley (double bass) and Johnny Hunter (drums).

Sunday 12th July 2026

8-10pm, doors open at 7.30pm

Minimum £5 entry on the door, donations welcomed. 

The Moor Club, 35 Heaton Moor Road, Stockport SK4 4PB  (next to the Elizabethan PH)

Album review: Zoe Rahman - Hull Suite Live (Manushi Records)

Zoe Rahman (piano); Alec Dankworth (double bass); Gene Calderazzo (drums)

Having witnessed Zoe Rahman’s solo performance of Hull Suite for World Piano Day in 2024, commissioned by Hull Jazz Festival, this album has fulfilled a long-held wish that the music would be committed to disc.

Here, the six-part composition is the centrepiece of a live performance at London’s Vortex Jazz Club where she’s joined by Gene Calderazzo on drums and Alec Dankworth double bass. It’s both joyous and thought-provoking; in short, a spellbinding performance.

The suite is based on themes of voyage, migration and family, taking inspiration from two statues in Hull: One which commemorates the 2.2 million people who passed through the port city between 1836 and 1914 on. Their way to a new life in America, and the other which looks out across the Humber to the sea and has a twin sculpture looking back towards it from Iceland, commemorating fishermen, seafarers and trade shared between the two countries.

Album review: Oliver-Smith Incomparables - Stomp Your Stuff (Turtle Bay Records)

Andrew Oliver (piano); Hal Smith (drums); Colin Hancock (cornet); Andy Schumm (clarinet, cornet); T.J. Müller (trombone, cornet, vocal); Jacob Alspach (guitar, banjo); Dan Anderson (string bass, tuba)

Co-led by pianist and Jelly Roll Morton authority Oliver and veteran drummer Smith, alongside their like-minded cohorts they dig deep into the archives of the legendary Melrose Brothers publishing catalogue. I quote from the blurb: the Incomparables have transformed rare 1920s melodies into vibrant, hard swinging modern classics.

Sunday night @ the Globe: Gerry Richardson's Big Idea - July 5

Gerry Richardson (Crumar keyboard, vocals); Dave Hignett (trumpet, flugelhorn); Darren Irwin (trumpet); David Gray (trombone); Garry Linsley (alto sax); Stuart Johnson (tenor, soprano sax); Sue Ferris (baritone sax, flute); Rod Sinclair (guitar); Paul Smith (drums)

Once upon a time a Gerry Richardson gig was a rare happening. Of late, Newcastle Jazz Co-op's Railway Street HQ has become the band's primary rehearsal/performance venue. This evening's concert was the nine-piece outfit's third appearance in something like twelve months.  

Lydia Rae Quintet @ Central Bar, Gateshead - July 5

Lydia Rae (vocals); Sam Lightwing (tenor sax); Ben Lawrence (Fender Rhodes); Andy Champion (double bass); John Bradford (drums)

An unknown quantity (to BSH), Lydia Rae was making her Central Bar debut in the company of a band of A-listers. Pianist Ben Lawrence, bassist Andy Champion and drummer John Bradford were familiar faces: between them they have appeared at countless venues across the region. As an award-winning musician at the Great North Big Band Jazz Festival, tenor saxophonist Sam Lightwing, from west of the Pennines, wasn't entirely unknown. 

Album review: UDEiGWE - Four Lemmas - Toward a Proof of Identity in Music and Mathematics (Self produced)

Lawrence Udeigwe (vocal, piano, keyboards, compositions, lyrics and arrangements); Steph Clement, Wayne Tucker (trumpet, arrangements); Josh Green (drums, arrangements); Rade Bema (bass)

If there is one key thing that is presented and reinforced to the listener in composer/ pianist/vocalist/educator Lawrence Udeigwe’s (pronounced oo-dee-gway) fascinating recent release, Four Lemmas, it is the idea that this original unique eight-segment suite is not “derived” from any formulaic approach, but rather that music and math can have a fundamental influence in “presenting a proof of identity.” By the way, A Lemma, is a mathematical term defined as “a statement which supports a larger concept.”