Music / Jazz
Jazz pick of the week, Feb 23 – March 1
Don’t bother with the Cube’s enterprising double bill of the film Whiplash with live music from The Big R Big Band (Thursday 26): it’s sold out, so you can head instead for Tim Garland’s glorious Songs To The North Sky music at St George’s with Messrs Rebello, Sirkis and (Ant) Law among many delights.
You’ll still be buzzing from the previous night’s Partisans powerhouse gig at the Fringe @ Mall (Tuesday 25), mind you – a real coup for the session.
And, of course, the actual Fringe pub’s monthly free jazz blow-out welcomes Kevin Figes (Monday 23), a player whose formal compositions only hint at his great improvisatory skills. And better keep something in reserve for the unfailing entertainment of sax wizard Gilad Atzmon who’s bringing his Orient House Ensemble to the Hen & Chicken (Sunday 1).
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Good to see pianist Martin Jenkins Latin Descarga session pop up again, this time at Plantation (Saturday 28) while full-tilt fusion guitar merchants Bad Hands appear at Golden Lion the same night. Jenkins appears in swing mode with Paper Moon at Canteen earlier in the week (Wednesday 25), while the equally ubiquitous James Morton takes to that stage on Friday 27 having led his Groove Den at the Gallimaufry the night before (Thursday 26).
Blues fans can catch the Will Edmunds Band’s jazz grooves in the Jimmy Smith mode at the Coronation Tap (Thursday 26) and the rootsier hokum blues of Swansea’s excellent Rumble Strutters at Left Bank (Friday 27).
But do you know about United Vibrations? The young Sun Ra inspired quartet from London will bring their joyful brassy jazz-hop music and Last Poets style conscious declamations to Canteen (Saturday 28) and if you can get in it’ll be another treat. Their gig is the first of next week’s scattered ‘fringe’ flagging up the impending Jazz and Blues Festival weekend (from Friday 6).
Gig pick: Tim Garland Songs of the North Sky (St George’s, Thursday 26)
Well-seasoned musician Tim Garland’s latest CD catches everything that’s great about his music and his star-studded touring band should get that lily well and truly gilded.
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