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Slightly belated congratulations to Rob Luft for winning the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Group’s  Instrumentalist of the Year award. Well done, Rob, this is a well-deserved honour. Photo [...]

Winston Clifford keeps time for Chris Briscoe’s fine Profiles Quartet. Progress Theatre, Reading, Berkshire.  10th October 2025. Photo by the always impeccable Steve Foster.

As my connection with jazz in Ireland strengthens, I’ve decided to run an occasional series on the jazz jam scene across the country. Jam sessions are essential incubators for nurturing [...]

My apologies for this rather late follow up to my initial post on the BJF but as the saying goes, “life gets in the way!”.  Doesn’t it just! Anyway better late than never so [...]

Oddly, this album crossed my desk while I was thinking about the current state of jazz in Ireland and how the genre deserves a higher profile.  It’s a very interesting offering from [...]

A striving for “collective possibility” ‘Who We Are’, the stunning new studio album from UK pianist, composer and vocalist Ashley Henry is out now on Naïve Records, with a new single featuring [...]

Here’s an interesting landmark for jazz historians that I encountered on my travels. The town of Salaparuta (pop. c2000) in the west of Sicily lays claim to being of seminal importance in the [...]

The always impeccable Corrie Dick keeps time for Spellbound featuring Iain Ballamy and Rob Luft, Tap Social, The Spin Club, Oxford. 24th July 2024. Photo by Steve Foster.

Anglo-Greek reedman, Vasilis Xenopoulos, doubles on flute while playing with Keith Fairbairn’s Groove Collective, Tap Social, Oxford. 19th June 2024 Photo by Steve Foster

Very sad to learn of the passing of John Mayall, OBE (and slightly eerie that I published a photo of him just a few days previously).  John was a pioneer in the development of the British blues [...]