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.
https://www.ayclifferadio.co.
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.
+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.
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.
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.
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| © Colin Muirhead |
My relationship with the Montreux Jazz Festival started back in 1995. At that time I was still getting into jazz, having started listening to it on the radio whilst working in the US in the early 1990s. After returning to the UK, I wanted to discover more about jazz and decided to kill two birds with one stone: by having a relaxing holiday overseas and attending a jazz festival at the same time. And where better to do so than in Montreux?
Northern jazz promoters are invited to apply for bursaries up to £1,000 to programme emerging northern talent and support acts
For this round only, Jazz North will allocate a limited number of higher bursaries of up to £3,000 for Northern jazz festivals
New Northern is Jazz North’s promoter bursary to support live emerging talent. It supports promoters to programme emerging northern artists by underwriting risk and helping pay essential costs.
Designed both to support emerging artists in the north and give an injection of cash to promoters who need it, this easy-access scheme offers a quick intervention to northern grassroots promoters facing difficult financial circumstances.
