News Archives - Jazz Journal

Swanage jazz festival: ‘the largest and purest’ on England’s south coast

Mark Gilbert — Tue, 20 May 2025 12:35:32 +0000

Just as Nigel Jarrett laments the dilution – even hijacking – of the word “jazz” by festivals featuring pop and increasingly resting on “inclusion” as a justification, Swanage in Dorset lays claim to hosting “‘the largest and purest jazz festival on the south coast of England”. Whatever jazz is or may be, the festival’s 2025 […]

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Jools Holland, YolanDa Brown and Elaine Delmar bring jazz to Battersea Park

Mark Gilbert — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 10:39:32 +0000

For a third year Wandsworth – London Borough of Culture 2025 – presents Battersea Park in Concert over the summer bank-holiday weekend, this year 23-25 August. As in 2024, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra will again feature, but this year, in place of the classical repertoire, the RPCO plays Symphonic Disco, accompanied by a full […]

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Miles Davis painting adorns Sir Niels’ new Copenhagen jazz diner

Mark Gilbert — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 20:01:37 +0000

There has been a lot of excitement over the arrival yesterday in Denmark of one Miles Davis’s paintings. It is a painting gifted by Davis to saxophonist Bill Evans for the latter’s work in helping revive Davis’s career in the early 1980s. Evans has now loaned the painting to Danish pianist Sir Niels Lan Doky […]

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Diana Ross headlines North Sea Jazz Festival

Mark Gilbert — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 11:33:44 +0000

The publicity focus of this year’s NSJF is on the appearance of “the legendary Queen of Motown” Diana Ross on the closing Sunday night of the festival, which runs 11-13 July at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Centre. Also appearing on Sunday will be the multi-million-selling US singer, songwriter and pianist Norah Jones, whose album Vision recently received […]

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Jazz FM awards return for 2025

Mark Gilbert — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 13:24:04 +0000

Jazz FM, the London-based radio station, this year resumes its jazz awards scheme, with categories including soul and blues acts of the year. Nick Pitts, Jazz FM content director, says of the awards, launched in 2013 and last held in 2022, that they have been “a benchmark of excellence in the jazz community”. Jazz FM […]

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Billy Cobham and Buena Vista among Cheltenham attractions

Mark Gilbert — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 10:43:00 +0000

The full lineup for the 2025 Cheltenham Jazz Festival (30 April-5 May) has been announced as follows below. Aside from the main stage shows in the “Festival Village” at Montpellier Gardens, there will be an array of one-off performances, free events, group workshops, family-orientated shows and late-night jams. Across the town, other venues will be […]

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Stolen Trane-related saxophone prompts an online fundraiser

Mark Gilbert — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:24:46 +0000

Andy Hamilton advises of a funding campaign to replace the historic saxophone stolen from Archbishop King of San Francisco on his doorstep a month ago. The campaign’s GoFundPage page says: “Four weeks ago, Archbishop King’s beloved Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone, which he has played for over 50 years, was stolen from his doorstep in […]

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Media ‘masking’ female under-representation in Grammys as research finds ‘pressing need’ for more women in jazz

Mark Gilbert — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 20:02:05 +0000

The Grammy awards have been accused of under-representing women in nominations and awards and facilitating a female-positive smokescreen to hide the fact. “The Missing Voices Of Women In Music And Music News”, a report by Luba Kassova of Addy Kassova Audience Strategy, a London-based audience-research body, complains that women received only one in five Grammy […]

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UK tries to reconcile copyright demands with AI growth agenda

Mark Gilbert — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:16:13 +0000

Following the publication of the UK government’s Copyright and AI: Consultation, trumpeter Chris Hodgkins is urging interested parties to write to their MP to ask that there be no copyright exceptions requiring creator opt-out in any legislation on artificial intelligence (AI). The introduction of a copyright exception requiring creator opt-out would mean that AI companies […]

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Mostly jazz?

Mark Gilbert — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 20:29:26 +0000

The press release is headed “Groove Armada and more added to Mostly Jazz Festival 2025.” In a world where “jazz” is widely co-opted – perhaps because of the cachet it bestows, perhaps from misunderstanding or perhaps because few can agree anymore what it is – the heading sounds promising, as if in Birmingham this summer […]

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