Album review: Tim Kliphuis - Rhapsody in Blue (Lowland Records)

Tim Kliphuis (violin); Nigel Clark (guitar); Roy Percy (bass)

Ian Hodgson wrote in glowing terms about the trio when they played a gig in, of all places, Wooler as part of the album launch tour. Read HERE.

Having read Ian's review and listened to the album I find myself in total agreement with his assessment particularly when it comes to the main work. Rhapsody in Blue has always been a strange composition neither truly classical nor out and out jazz. A similar observation applies to Aaron Copland's Hoedown for the Common Man.

It is to Kliphuis' credit that he makes a silk purse out of these, jazzwise, porcine appendages. As at the concert the CD includes several Gershwin songs (not Summertime!) and they are as near to perfection as is imaginable in this particular genre.

House of the Black Gardenia @ Sunset Festival (for Ukraine), Cramlington - July 4

Elise Rana Hopper (vocals, washboard); Pete Tanton (trumpet); David Gray (trombone); Keith Robinson (tenor sax, alto sax, clarinet); Katja Roberts (violin); Elliott Rush (piano); Michael Littlefield (guitar, vocals); Neil Hopper (string bass); Kit Haigh (drums)

Last weekend, one of the sponsors of this year's Newcastle Jazz Festival was Transmission Dynamics. This weekend the Cramlington based company hosted a music festival on its front lawn. As the sun shone on Sunset Festival (for Ukraine), we tolerated an annoying breeze (more wind than breeze), food vans fed and watered the punters, the stage hosting an array of musicians.

Late Night Chicago Radio with Denny Farrell (July 2 -8)

Ira Sullivan: Everything Happens to me.

Dave Brubeck: Take Five.

Kay Starr: It Had to be You.

Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd: Desafinado.

Count Basie: St Louis Blues.

George Shearing/Carmen McRae: Too Late Now.

Eddie Condon: Ja-Da.

Jonah Jones: Basin Street Blues.

Linda Ronstadt: When I Fall in Love.

Mel Tormé: I Love to Watch the Moonlight.

LISTEN 24/7.

Album Review: Kay Kostopoulos – All This Is Possible (Black Olive Jazz)

Kay Kostopoulos (vocals); Noel Jewkes, Peter Brainin (tenor/soprano sax); John DiMartino (piano); Sean Conly (bass); Vince Cherico (drums)

I want to share a personal secret with you. For a very long time and having performed with them, I have always had a special affection for exotic dancers, especially belly dancers. While obviously enticing and visually riveting, what always adds to the pleasure is the accompanying music: rhythmically intense, melodically pungent, and perfectly underscoring the undulations.

When I learned by way of her publicist, Holly Cooper, that vocalist/educator/actress/lecturer and dancer, Kay Kostopoulos had toured for 18 years both nationally and internationally as a belly dancer, that made me enjoy her tasteful and engaging most recent album, All This Is Possible all the more. On it, Kostopoulos and her premier team of New York Killer Cats deliver eight impeccably performed, marvelously produced and arranged entries from the GAS, Charlie Parker, and Broadway. It is a recording of depth, subtlety, and artistic uniqueness in which Kostopoulos dazzles.

Jazz Time Aycliffe Radio - Sundays 6.30-8.00pm (repeated Tuesdays 8.00-9.30pm).

https://www.ayclifferadio.co.uk/listen.

Playlist 05/07/26 (repeated Tuesday 07/07/26)

Seasonal: Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald, Albert Ayler, Sonny Stitt.

Memories: Ahmad Jamal.

Requests: Karrin Allyson, Al Wood with the Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra, Dario Ronchi.

New Releases: Vivienne Aerts, Zoe Rahman.

Requests/Memories: Norrie Cox & his New Orleans Stompers, Hank Mobley, Louie Bellson, Wardell Gray.

Seasonal: Tubby Hayes.

What’s on in the NE: River City Jazzmen.

Sonny Rollins & Ornette Coleman.

Aycliffe Radio is available on DAB in County Durham & the Darlington area or via your smart speaker. 

Album Review: Lakecia Benjamin – We Dream (Artwork Records)

Oscar Pérez (piano, Rhodes); Miki Hayama (piano, organ, synth); Elias Bailey (bass); Sean Jones (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jonathan Barber (drums); Nêgah Santos (percussion); Joe Blaxx (drums); Richie Goods (bass); Jahmal Nichols (bass); Jerome Jennings (drums); Chris Rob (piano, organ, synth) 

+Terence Blanchard, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (trumpets); Chris Potter (tenor sax); Jeff “Tain” Watts (drums); Hiromi (piano); Bilal, Tiaranna “Tank” Ball (vocals); Kassa Overall (drums, producer)

After a subdued opening, during which she reads one of her poems, much of this album comes tearing out of the speakers with Benjamin’s, now customary, fire and fury. Despite the addition of several high profile guest stars this still feels like a stripped down collection of Coltrane inspired blowing that burns with the message that Lakecia Benjamin is still loud, still defiant and still righteously pissed off at the state of the world.

It’s always a worry when hitherto uncompromising jazz artists invite guest stars onto an album for one or two tracks but the invitees on this album are fine additions to the main band. They include trumpeters Terence Blanchard, and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Chris Potter on tenor sax, Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums and drummer and producer Kassa Overall, all of whom add to, rather than detract from, the quality on show.

Classic Swing featuring Colin Aitchison @ Cullercoats Crescent Club - July 3

Jim McBriarty (alto/soprano sax, clarinet, vocals); Alan Marshall (tenor sax, clarinet); David Gray (trombone, vocals); Jeremy McMurray (keys); Alan Rudd (bass); Ian Stocks (drums); Olive Rudd (vocals) + Colin Aitchison (trumpet)

Classic Swing live up to the band's name and its eponymous signature tune composed by Tommy Moran especially for the band. They swing in the classic style associated with small groups, personified by the various Ellington offshoots and those bands within a band such as Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven, Bob Crosby's Bobcats and Basie's Kansas City Seven to mention but a few.

After they'd opened with the aforementioned Classic Swing, Jim McBriarty sang Sweet Sue and Olive gave out with Almost Like Being in Love and a lovely version of Only Trust Your Heart. When not singing she gees up the crowd to applaud the soloist which we do - we'd be terrified not to!

De'Sean Jones & Blaque Dynamite with the Urban Art Orchestra @ The Cluny, Newcastle - July 2

De'Sean Jones (tenor sax, EWI, conductor); Blaque Dynamite (drums, vocals); Urban Art Orchestra: Carla Rivers-Johnson (violin); Jasmine James (cello); Brendon Davis (piano); Ronald Alexander (bass) + Isaiah Jones (alto sax)

It isn't every day a band rolls in from Detroit, Michigan. First Ronnie Scott's, then up to Newcastle, Glasgow and Carlisle. The Cluny, the second date on the tour, attracted a 'select' audience, no need to decode. Waiting patiently outside the venue, a soundcheck was underway. Woah! It was going to be loud. That's VERY, VERY LOUD!

One set? Two sets? The Cluny's in house crew didn't know for sure. Wait and see. At 8:35pm De'Sean Jones & Blaque Dynamite* with the Urban Art Orchestra ambled onto stage. Drummer Blaque Dynamite would certainly live up to his name, aided and abetted by Ronald Alexander's shuddering basslines. 

Nicole Zuraitis @ Ronnie Scott’s: Songs, Stories and the Spirit of Ronnie Scott – June 30

Nicole Zuraitis (vocals, piano); Idan Morim (guitars); Sam Weber (double bass); Dan Pugach (drums)

There is something rather special about Frith Street on a summer's evening. The conversations spill out onto the pavement, taxis edge their way through Soho, the scent of restaurants drifts through the warm air, and beneath the famous red neon sign of Ronnie Scott’s, people gather with that unmistakable sense of anticipation that only this remarkable club seems able to create. Long before the house lights dim, the performance has already begun.

Inside, little has changed in the qualities that have made Ronnie Scott’s one of the world’s great jazz rooms. The lighting is warm rather than theatrical, wrapping the musicians in soft amber tones while allowing the audience to retreat into gentle shadow. The intimacy remains extraordinary. Every table feels connected to the stage, and the sound is, quite simply, among the finest you will hear anywhere. Every lyric, every brush stroke across the snare drum, every harmonic nuance from the guitar arrives with remarkable clarity. For an artist whose songs depend so heavily on language and storytelling, there could hardly be a better setting.

Album review: Hannah Gill - I Like the Sunrise (Turtle Bay Records)

Hannah Gill (vocal); Luis Salcedo (guitar); Phil Ambuel (bass); Adam Ray (drums) + Ricky Alexander (tenor sax )

Ostensibly a tribute to Duke Ellington - indeed ten of the eleven tunes do have Duke's name among the credits -  the Ellington mood is ever present, even on the the only non Ducal number: So Far, So Good. 

So Far, So Good is in fact the opening track setting the scene for the delights to follow, one of which is I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues. Both have gutsy tenor solos  and Gill is in fine voice as we've come to expect from her previous three albums on the Turtle Bay label.

Love You Madly always reminds me of the first time I heard Duke address the audience at Newcastle Odeon in 1958. The song came later. Hannah does it justice and, along with tenor and guitar, returns the sentiments of the title.