Trudy Kerr Steps into the breach at Wakefield Jazz, May 24th

Owing to a bereavement overseas, Georgia Mancio is unable to appear at Wakefield Jazz this Friday, May 24th.

At very short notice, experienced performer Trudy Kerr will visit to sing in her place. The same band will support her led by pianist Tim Lapthorn with Julie Walkington on bass and Dave Ohm on dru

The Friday Interview: Laura Cole

                                Laura with band Metamorphic (photo by Alex Bonney)

A graduate of Middlesex University's jazz degree, pianist and composer Laura Cole is now based in the North. Her work with Metamorphic is recognised nationally, with the group releasing albums on F-IRE label and touring throughout the UK. As well as Metamorphic, Laura also co-leads a large ensemble with bassist Seth Bennett and is the pianist with Martin Archer's Engine Room Favourites, one of the 12 bands selected to take part in Jazz North's Northern Line scheme.

Jazz Does Crowdfunding - UPDATE

                                 Led Bib


Following up from our recent interview with guitarist Alex Roth, today he announced that his Sponsume campaign has raised £1,310.97 to go toward his UK tour with band Otriad. Congratulations to Alex, who has put in a lot of hard work to promote the tour, so head to see a gig if you can.

Led Bib are also going down the crowdfunding route and have started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new studio album and live vinyl to mark their 10th anniversary. They've set a £10,000 goal and have until 25th May to achieve it. To see their video or to pledge, visit Led Bib Kickstarter page.

Garforth Arts Festival 2013

Garforth Arts Festival has announced their 2013 programme and it's full of big names from world music, folk and more.
Amongst many other events, guitarist Eduardo Niebla will perform as part of the festival on Sunday 30th. Their headline event, the Playground Party will take place on Saturday 6th July and feature LAU, Bellowhead, Kate Rusby, Ruby Turner and Leeds-based group Hope and Social. Tickets for this event are on-sale now - £22 full price, £18 conc and £54 for a family ticket.

More Information and Ticket Bookings

Metamorphic & Royst UK Tour

Pianist and composer Laura Cole has been in touch to spread the word about her upcoming tour with band Metamorphic and vocal trio Røyst.

Laura says 

I would just like to invite you to a very exciting series of gigs throughout the UK in June that my contemporary jazz folk sextet Metamorphic have coming up alongside the fantastic vocal trio Røyst. The tour is in support of the new Metamorphic album, Coalescence, out on the F-ire label on June 17 2013. These double bill gigs with Røyst will also feature three collaborative pieces involving both groups written specially for this tour. Special guests Seth Bennett on bass (IDST) and Oliver Dover on bass clarinet (Shatner's Bassoon) will also be joining us for the tour.

Blue Note and Artistshare Become Partners

Record label Blue Note has announced plans to form a partnership with crowd-funding platform Artistshare.

The new partnership, led by Artistshare founder Brian Carmelio, Blue Note chairman emeritus Bruce Lundvall and Don Was, Blue Note's president has been described as developing a "low-risk development arm of the label."

In essence, Blue Note will help select musicians and groups, and assist in the promotional aspects of record releases, while the crowd-funding element of Artistshare will be retained.  The musicians themselves will be still be owners of the recorded material.

This new partnership reflects the changing world of the recording and distribution of music. Artistshare has an impressive track record and has connections with world-class musicians and composers. One of their biggest successes, Maria Schneider, has won a number of awards for the music she has released through Artistshare.

Blue Note have stated that the focus of this partnership will be on finding up and coming artists and providing support to them, a focus which Blue Note has retained throughout their history.

APPJAG Awards 2013 Winners

The award ceremony for the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Apprecation Group Awards took place this week - congratulations to all the nominees and winners!

Jazz Musician of the Year - Guy Barker

Jazz Album of the Year - 'Saltash Bells' - John Surman

Jazz Ensemble of the Year - Impossible Gentlemen

Live Jazz Venue of the Year - The Vortex, London

Jazz Journalist of the Year - Rob Adams

Jazz Broadcaster of the Year - Mike Chadwick

Jazz Publication of the Year - Catherine Thackley - Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert

Jazz Education Award - Nick Smart

Services to Jazz Award - Stan Tracey OBE

APPJAG Special Award - Elaine Delmar

UK Premiere for Stuart McCallum's Ballet Score

Guitarist Stuart McCallum will be at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield this Saturday at 2pm for the UK premiere of his ballet score as part of artist Linder Sterling's new work, The Ultimate Form.

It was first premiered in Paris in January 2013, at the Musée d'Art Modern, as part of Linder's retrospective. As well as the work of Linder herself and Stuart McCallum, fashion designer Richard Nicoll and dancers from the Northern Ballet are also part of the work.

The piece, described as "a fusion of  dance, music, fashion, art, sculpture and landscape" will take place outdoors between 2pm and 4pm.

The Ultimate Form marks the next step in a successful partnership between artist Linder and musician Stuart McCallum. Amongst other works, Stuart collaborated on Linder's 13 hour performace piece The Darktown Cakewalk: Celebrated Live From The House of Fame, which also featured a number of jazz musicians from the North - Kim Macari, Katie Patterson, Peter Lee, Dave Walsh and Linder's son, Max Sterling.

Saturday's event is free to attend but booking is essential.

Book tickets for The Ultimate Form.

The Friday Interview: Alex Roth

  

Guitarist and composer Alex Roth is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, and is part of a group of forward thinking UK musicians who take inspiration from visual art, dance, film and literature as well as music.He performs with groups including Blue Eyed Hawk, CHAOS orchestra and Outrenoir, but has recently been recognised through his work with his own group, Otriad and their decision to embrace crowd-funding as a way to finance their UK Tour. He joins a small but growing number of jazz musicians including Gwyneth Herbert and Reuben Fowler who have explored this source of funding. In return for pledging money which will help to fund their UK tour, Alex and the group have a number of rewards and unique experiences to offer. We spoke to Alex about the project, crowd-funding and what lies ahead for him in 2013... 

Go find out more from Alex's Sponsume page and to pledge money visit Otriad Sponsume page.

Glasgow Jazz Fest Line-Up Announced

Glasgow Jazz Festival has announced the full programme for the 27th annual festival. International artists include Burt Bacharach, pianist Leo Blanco and Snarky Puppy. The festival also showcases the best of homegrown talent including Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Stevenson's New Focus and Scottish Young Jazz Musician of the Year Pete Johnstone.

Full Glasgow Jazz Festival Programme

The J-Word

On Sunday evening, the J-Word kicked off their second tour at The Sage, Gateshead featuring Omar Sosa, Paolo Fresu and Trilok Gurtu with support from Fraser Fifield and Graeme Stephen. Although the attendance was fairly low (which Trilok Gurtu noticed, asking the audience where everyone else was but remarking in his upbeat manner "It's ok - we're used to it! We're having a great time anyway."), those in attendance were treated to an evening of beautiful music and many smiles.

Jazz Round-Up

                               Sonny Rollins sits next to a dog.

We're nearing the end of Jazz Appreciation Month and heading toward International Jazz Day (April 30th), so now seems like as good a time as any to look at what's happening in jazz...

Jazz Appreciation Month and International Jazz Day concert

A Global Concert is taking place on April 30th in Istanbul, Turkey. It is being broadcast live online at 9pm (Istanbul) / 7pm (London) / 2pm (New York) / 4am (Sydney - next day). You can watch it HERE.

The concert features Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Robert Glasper, John McLaughlin, Terence Blanchard, Ruben Blades, Ramsey Lewis, Hugh Masekela, Eddie Palmieri, Al Jarreau, Dianne Reeves, George Duke, Lee Ritenour, Marcus Miller, Jean-Luc Ponty, Milton Nascimento, John Beasley, Igor Butman, Anat Cohen, Vinnie Coliauta, Imer Demirer, James Genus, Bilal Karaman, Pedrito Martinez, Keiko Matsui, Terri Lyne Carrington, Hüsnü Şenlendirici, Joe Louis Walker, Ben Williams, and Liu Yuan.

(concert presented by UNESCO, Republic of Turkey and Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.)

The Friday Interview: Nikki Iles

Pianist Nikki Iles is celebrating her 50th birthday with a UK tour featuring her group, The Printmakers. The group, which was nominated for a Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Band last year, will perform across the country between May 2nd and June 5th. As well as doing that, what else does one of the UK's most sought after jazz musicians fill her time with? Well, she is writing a series of books for Oxford University Press, gigging with a number of different groups and maintaining a busy schedule of educational engagements in the UK and Europe.

The Friday Interview: Stuart McCallum

“Guitarist Stuart McCallum’s compositions are exemplary of everything that is exciting about new British jazz.” (Jazzwise). What is the best way to describe Stuart's career in music so far? Diverse, certainly. Ambitious. Impressive. There are few corners of the music world that he hasn't found himself in - he has worked with jazz musicians like Kenny Wheeler, John Surman and Mike Walker. His work with the Cinematic Orchestra has taken him all over the world from The Royal Albert Hall, to Montreal Jazz Festival, to Coachella. He has collaborated with artist Linder Sterling on large-scale improvised works and recently composed a score for a Ballet in collaboration with the Northern Ballet Company. (He has even written music for Disney...) On Saturday, he brings his trio with Dave Walsh and Les Chisnall to HEART in Leeds.