The World is our oyster

There haven't been many good things to come out of Covid-19 from a jazz point of view. Venues closed, no gigs and, if you're sentenced to Tier 3 which is, in military terms, confined to barracks, the run up to Christmas is less than festive.

Fortunately, the advent of the live stream and the podcast has meant that music of all genres is spreading across the planet faster than the pandemic itself. For a modest sum or a donation you can stream Sunday night sessions from the Globe in Newcastle, Kansas Smitty's, Ronnie's, the 606 and elsewhere in London as well as many others in between. If you're prepared to burn the midnight oil well past the bewitching hour, top American names can be streamed from New York and Chicago to LA and beyond.

In normal times, a recent email from Simon Thorpe would perhaps not have immediately caught my attention, fine musician that he is. Hexagonal, the band with whom he plays bass had a tour arranged by Jazz South as well as a piece commissioned by Jazz South and composed by the band's tenor player Greg Heath. Noted jazz writer Kevin Le Gendre (Jazzwise, BBC Radio etc.) talks to Heath about the recording along with several other Jazz South bands in a series of podcasts that can be heard here. 

Well worth a listen.                                                                      Lance