Late Night Chicago Radio w. Denny Farrell (Feb.6 - Feb. 12)

Charlie Parker: Hootie Blues.
Ray Brown: Just a Gigolo. 

Chet Baker: I Wish I Knew.

Benny Carter: Prelude to a Kiss.

Dinah Washington: Squeeze Me.

Bud Powell: Yesterdays.

Jim Hall/Paul Desmond: The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else.

Kay Starr: It Had to be You.

Barney Kessel: I'm Glad There is You.

Bud Shank: Shank's Pranks,

Ella Fitzgerald: Goin' Out of my Head.

?: You Made me Love You.

Joe Williams: Every Time we Say Goodbye.

LISTEN 24/7.

Album review: Soft Machine - Thirteen (Dyad Records)

Theo Travis (flute, saxes, Rhodes, electronics); John Etheridge (guitar); Fred Thelonious Baker (bass guitar); Asaf Sirkis (drums, percussion)

It’s a strange and beautiful thing to witness a band with sixty years of history sounding not just alive, but newly awakened. Soft Machine - the psychedelic adventurers who once shared stages with Hendrix, the Canterbury visionaries who helped define jazz fusion before the term even existed - return with Thirteen, an album of thirteen new tracks that feels both deeply rooted and unexpectedly fresh.

What has always set Soft Machine apart is their willingness to inhabit contradiction: experimental yet melodic, precise yet spontaneous, cerebral yet playful. On Thirteen, those contrasts are magnified. The sound is broad and cinematic in places - widescreen, atmospheric, alive with colour - yet close, intimate and intensely personal in others. Music that can bloom with orchestral expansiveness, then fold into the quiet of four musicians breathing as one.

Album review: Josie Falbo - Kickin' It (self)

Josie Falbo (vocals) + (collective): Jeremy Kahn, Chris Sargent, Marshall Vente, Steve Million (piano); Eric Hochberg, Lawrence Kohut, Scott Mason (bass); Bob Rummage, Tom Hipskind (drums) + horns and the Crystal String Section.

So many musicians, so many permutations that it's impossible to list them all with any degree of accuracy in the space allotted which is why it's been hanging around in my in-tray since the world began, or so it seems.

Falbo has been singing professionally for 50 years and, although this is only her third album you've heard her voice many times exhorting us to, among other things, dine at McDonalds, fly with United Airlines, bank at Nationwide and drink Budweiser  with maybe a Coke chaser. In other words, a singer of jingles.

And why not? It's a regular paycheck as opposed to an album that's subject to the vagaries of public taste. No such worries with a Big Mac or a bottle of Bud!

Album review: Tim Garland & Geoffrey Keezer - Keezer (Tim Garland Music)

Tim Garland (mezzo-soprano/soprano sax); Geoffrey Keezer (piano).

You learn something every day particularly when it comes to saxophones. Until I played this duo version of Chick Corea's La Fiesta I didn't know there was such a beast as a mezzo-soprano saxophone. Pitched in F - a tone above an alto - it offers yet another variation of saxophone sound. 

On the above track Garland whizzes around the instrument with his customary dexterity. If he'd been driving a space ship he'd be on a mission to Mars. Keezer hangs on in there providing his own impetus to the gravity defying musical astronaut.

Garland sticks with the instrument for all but two of the nine tracks only reverting to the conventional soprano for Carousel and Keezer's Ghost in the Photograph.

Farewell to Brain Carrick: St Gregory's RC Church, South Shields - Feb. 4

It was a dreich day on South Tyneside. St Gregory's RC Church stands on Borough Road, just off Sunderland Road. Many mourners were there to pay their respects to Brian Carrick. Clarinettist (and tenor saxophonist), Brian was a devotee of the music of New Orleans, over the years he made many visits to NOLA, playing at many of the haunts where some of the legendary New Orleans jazz musicians once played.

Brian, an Honorary Citizen of New Orleans, was played in by The Old Rugged Cross (a recording of Brian himself), which he no doubt played on countless occasions at gigs. Following a lengthy service, at which many musicians were in attendance, Brian was played out with another of his own recordings, St Philip Street Breakdown. Russell           

Stockport Jazz

This Sunday Stockport Jazz welcomes Stockport-based tenor saxophonist Zac Harrison to the Moor Club, accompanied by Paul Hartley (guitar), Peter Hartley (bass) and Eryl Roberts (drums).

Sunday 8th February 2026

8-10pm, doors open at 7.30pm

£5 entry on the door, all welcome

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

Album review: Asaf Harris - I Thought I Was Ready (Self. Distributed by ECN Music)

Asaf Harris (tenor sax); Guy Moskovich (piano); Omri Ever Hadani (bass); David Sirkis (drums) + Onn Yosef Kadosh (oud tk 8)

Middle Eastern sounds and gentle cinematic colour is how the press release describes Israeli tenor saxophonist, composer and educator Asaf Harris' sophomore album I Thought I Was  Ready.

Eight originals* inspired by self-reflection on  various events that have shaped his life to date. Before actually listening my first reaction was that this is going to be a load of pretentious twaddle.

I couldn't have been more wrong!

February goodies

As the days slowly but surely begin to lengthen, there is a long list of gigs well worth going to during February. Here's a relatively short list. On Friday 6th, Encounters in Concert is a coming together of two big bands at Saltburn Theatre. Durham Alumni Big Band and Saltburn Big Band will share the stage on Albion Terrace, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, it's a seven thirty start, it promises to be a memorable occasion.

Tees Bay Swing Band meets at Hartlepool's Blacksmith's Arms on Saturday (Feb 7th, 1:30pm). It's an open rehearsal and you're invited to pop along, sit with a drink and listen to the band as it's put through its paces and it's free admission! Up the road in Newcastle on Sunday evening (Feb. 8th) one of the great bands makes a swift return to Jazz Co-op HQ. In October last year Gerry Richardson's Big Idea sold out the Railway Street venue and the nine-piece band is on course to do the same thing this weekend. The Globe is a thriving, independent music venue, to show your support, book in advance at: www.theglobenewcastle.bar. Do it now or miss out! 

Southport Jazz Festival: Claire Martin @ the Grand Hotel, Southport - Feb. 1

Claire Martin (vocals); Nikki Iles (piano); Karen Sharp (sax, clarinet); Ewan Hastie (bass) 

Fans of top quality vocals were fully pleased, impressed and satisfied at the closing show of the fourth annual Southport Jazz Festival on Sunday, Feb. 1 at the spacious and well appointed Grand Hotel. The multifaceted vocalist, Claire Martin delivered a two hour concert of a winning and eclectic mix of jazz, classic standards and 1970s' pop songs.

The trio of pianist, Nikki Iles, saxophonist/clarinettist, Karen Sharp and Ewan Hastie’s bass accompanied her with sensitivity and aplomb in equal measure. The slightly unconventional absence of a percussionist was more than made up for with Hastie’s driving bass along with Iles’ relentless rhythmic fluidity of comping and fills. Sharp’s seamless verve in her swinging melodic solos, scored highly in lifting the bar of intensity and depth to engage the audience throughout.

Farewell to Ken Peplowski (1959 - Feb. 2, 2026)

The sad news has filtered through that saxist/clarinetist Ken Peplowski passed away yesterday (Feb. 2) after playing a set as part of the Jazz Cruise. Although he'd had health problems in recent years he seemed to be on the mend.

I have so many memories of seeing and hearing him over the years both live and on disc.

A Corner House gig with the Bill Harper Trio in, I think, the late '80s/early '90s got me hooked, Around about then he also took part in one of the all-time greatest north east jazz concerts at the (then) Saville Exchange, North Shields...

Marty Grosz (guitar, vocals) and Ken Peplowski (tenor sax, clarinet) were not only musically compatible but could also lay claim to be the best comedy duo to come from America since Abbott and Costello.