Album review: Mikkel Ploug - Balcony Lullabies

Mikkel Ploug (electric/acoustic guitars)

I've had an influx of Danish albums lately ranging from the brilliant Kathrine Windfeld Big Band to this poignant solo guitar album. It's an album that serves as a terrible reminder of what the whole world's going through.

Just as the Kilsbys did in the northeast of England, Ploug took his frustration out by playing from his small balcony to an empty Copenhagen street. The street may have been empty but windows were open and the applause generated inspired him to play consecutively for 28 days leading to the advent of this album.

Juniper Jazz...pour femme? pour homme?

A CD? A book? A magazine subscription? Just what do you give the jazz fan in your life this Christmas? A lockdown window display (the shop has since reopened) could provide the answer...Juniper Jazz. Well, it's an alternative to a pair of socks!

Russell 

Thanks For the Memory

Bill Gallon kindly sent me these visual memories from 1958 and 1959 at Newcastle City Hall. Interesting to note the relatively small billing that Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee got compared to Chris Barber although Barber wasn't the headliner when Muddy Waters came to town! Also, for the price of a ticket to see Buddy Holly you could alternatively buy a ticket to see JATP with Ella and buy a ticket to see Acker Bilk and yet still have a shilling left over for a pint!

Live stream: Kansas City @ Kansas Smitty's - Dec. 2

Joe Webb (piano); Dave Archer (guitar); Will Sach (bass); Jas Kayser (drums)

(Screenshots by Ken Drew)

Tonight's theme was Count Basie's All-American rhythm section, the name given to the four musicians who underpinned the roaring big band that set Kansas City alight during the 1930s. Bill Basie, Freddie Green, Walter Page and Jo Jones may seem a hard act to follow but homework had been done and our All-British (well 75%) rhythm section did the business.

Album review: Betty Accorsi Quartet - The Cutty Sark Suite

Elizabetta Accorsi (soprano sax); Finn Carter (piano); Andy Hamill (bass/elec. bass); Scott MacDonald (drums).

Apart from being a fine blended whisky, Cutty Sark was, long before that, an English clipper operating the tea trade route between London and China over a period of 85 years before being retired in 1954. She, the ship, is now dry-docked in Greenwich and is still a big tourist attraction.

Accorsi spent a year living in Greenwich during which time she formed an attachment to the "local monument" which led her to compose and perform the music we hear here. It's an impressive work with each movement representing a stage of the return journey from Shanghai via Indonesia, South Africa and, finally, London.

Preview: Paul Edis-Vasilis Xenopoulos Quartet - live & live streaming from Hampstead Jazz Club (Dec. 12)

Ah, today is a good day isn't it?! The vaccine is on its way, it'll soon be spring and we'll be out and about at live gigs and jam sessions. Until then, for many of us, the live stream is our means of keeping in touch with musicians we would normally expect to see up close in our local jazz venues.

Jazz Musicians recognised in The Ivors

The 2020 Ivor Novello Composer Awards (The Ivors) recognised the following jazz musicians:

Written to mark the occasion of National Windrush Day, Renell Shaw’s ‘The Vision They Had’ picked up the award for ‘Jazz Composition for Small Ensemble’. Commissioned by the Vortex Jazz Club, Shaw’s work included words and audio recordings from his grandparents who are members of the Windrush Generation.

Album review: Kenny Kotwitz & The LA Jazz Quintet - When Lights Are Low

Kenny Kotwitz (accordion/celeste); John Chiodini (guitar); Nick Mancini (vibes); Chuck Berghofer (bass); Kendall Kay (drums/perc.)

Remember Art Van Damme? Remember George Shearing? Imagine Van Damme's accordion replacing Shearing's piano and you've got a fair idea of what this is all about.

A dozen tunes played exquisitely, faultlessly, with Kotwitz - a former pupil of Van Damme's - proving that accordions have their place - we each have our own idea as to where that place should be ...

Book review: Jeff Gold - Sittin' In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s

Jeff Gold's new book Sittin' In is a treasure trove of rare material discovered in a jazz collector's safe-deposit boxes. In his introduction Gold reveals that after spending some four hours in a bank vault looking through countless items he concluded:  If I hadn't seen pictures like these, I doubted many others had, adding: I bought all of them.   

December at Kansas Smitty's

Five nights a week (Tuesday-Saturday) Kansas Smitty's continues to live stream gigs featuring members of the band plus guests. The sessions are of a consistently high standard. Log on at eight o'clock.

Russell

Attachments area