Jazz Honours list from Jez Matthews

Cath Roberts Favourite Animals

From Jez Matthews, Jazz at the Lescar Sheffield - Jazz highlights 

Can I cheat? Its almost impossible to get it down to three gigs, such a rich year of music. I think this is actually seven gigs, but in four paragraphs :)

Alice Zawadzki, Shirley Smart, Alex Roth at the Colaboración Fiesta at Home, Manchester. On a cold wet night in Manchester under a marquee these three incredible musicians created something special; beautiful open music delivered with passion, flair, wit and subtlety. Alice repeated this gig at The Lescar, with a slightly altered line-up that featured Misha Mullov-Abbado, which was equally wonderful.

Richard Iles with Jamie Taylor, Eryl Roberts, Garry Jackson at The Lescar. Four stars of the Northern jazz scene, all of whom deserve wider recognition, with a night that was special for all sorts of reasons, some very personal. Honest, swinging, intimate and warm-hearted, and of course, a lovely atmosphere at The Lescar on a mid-summer evening.

Anton Hunter’s Article XI and Cath Roberts Favourite Animals at The Lescar. Two large bands playing creative, explorative music that was vibrant, original and also entirely accessible. A favourite for all sorts of reasons, again, but not least because of the reaction of the audience, including some of our best (but unprintable here) feedback, handed to me on a handwritten note during the second set, which really encapsulated the feeling of togetherness in the room created by a big, responsive audience and 15 wonderful musicians.

Thoughout the year, I also immensely enjoyed three gigs at different venues given by Kit Downes, in the company of Tom Challenger (at the Hop Hideout beer shop in Sheffield, and also at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival) and also with Lauren Kinsella playing the music of Paul Motian at Manchester Jazz Festival. Two very special duos, I’m looking forward to hearing more of both in 2018.

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful and musical 2018.

Jez.
Jazz at the Lescar
www.jazzatthelescar.com/

Mark Beirne Smith -highlights from 2017

Kurt Elling

From Mark Beirne Smith - Ilkley Jazz Festival - his highlights from 2017

"Here is something from us! Best International Artist to visit the North goes to Kurt Elling - thanks to Ian Darrington and all at Wigan Jazz for putting it on.

Best artist from out side the North to visit Ilkley Jazz Festival...
Is a draw between Ian Shaw was amazing giving us an early listen to the new album Shine Sister Shine and John Crawford playing some amazing Latin tinged Jazz from his last two albums (Not sure how we will equal these two performances next year?)

Best performance from an artist nearer to play Ilkley, goes to James Mainwaring, it was a real treat to hear his new original compositions from Ikigai.

Wishing everyone a happy new year from Ilkley Jazz Festival. And we look forward to seeing you all in Ilkley 15th to 19th August 2018

Photo by me!

Mark Beirne Smith - Ilkley Jazz Festival
ilkleyjazzfest.blogspot.com/

Lesley Jeffries favourites at Jazz at Heart

Alison Rayner

From Lesley Jeffries - Jazz-at-Heart in Headingley, Leeds - three (or four!) highlights from the Northern Jazz year...

Jazz-at-Heart had another hugely successful year with bands from near and far playing our lovely space to appreciative audiences. As well as the very popular summer school and Monday night workshops we had eleven gigs, amongst which the highlights were (sorry there are four!):

Mark Donlon, visiting from New Zealand, started 2017 with a very special trio gig featuring Leeds College of Music alumni Sam Gardner (drums), Matt Anderson (tenor) and Simon Read (bass). Mark played some of his own very poignant compositions about displacement and loss.

We were delighted to have so many brilliant musicians offer to play for free at our very first ‘Refujazz’ mini-festival in February, curated by John Marley, which raised £2000 for refugee charities and was a wonderfully uplifting day of constant music throughout the afternoon and evening. Look out for the next Refujazz event on Feb 10th 2018!

We celebrated International Women’s Day in March in style with the Alison Rayner Quintet, a wonderfully energetic band with a great sense of fun.

And we rounded off the summer season in June with Sam Watts bringing a whole sextet to play his original score for a screening of the Charlie Chaplin film ‘The Kid’! An amazing achievement and one we hope he’ll repeat soon.

Lesley
Jazz at Heart
https://www.facebook.com/Jazz-at-Heart-184374588253443/

Martin Powell's Bradford picks from 2017

Perpetual Motion Machine 

From Martin Powell - JATP Bradford/Jazz presenter Bradford Community Radio - live and recorded highlights

"Three of our really popular concerts in 2017 at JATP in Bradford were

• Family Band
• Perpetual Motion Machine 
• Arun Ghosh 

For BCB radio jazz albums, my favourites were:

• Rob Luft's "Riser" 
• Craig Tayborn's "Daylight Ghosts" 
• Brass Mask Live ( the things they do for "wind Instrumental music!")

A Happy New Year to you!

Martin
JATP Bradford
jatpjazz.blogspot.com/

Mike and Marian Gordon's choices

Mike Gibbs

From Scarborough - three highlights of the Northern Jazz year from Mike and Marian Gordon

A tremendous highlight at the Scarborough Jazz Festival in September was the premier of Mike Gibbs’ 80th birthday celebration with the Hans Koller 17 Piece Big Band.  The band read like a Who’s Who of jazz stars and it was a fitting finale to a great festival.

I feel I have to include another 80th celebration (mine!) in May at Scarborough Jazz.  The Alan Barnes/Dave Newton Quartet which included bassist Dave Green and drummer Sebastian De Krom gave a joyful and very special evening.

And finally the Christine Tobin Trio had a deserved rapturous reception at Scarborough Jazz in November.  Christine’s unique rich voice was brilliantly backed by guitarist Phil Robson and bassist Dave Whitford.

All in all we had a fantastic jazz year by the sea.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mike & Marian Gordon
Scarborough Jazz
Parliamentary Jazz Award Winners 2017
www.scarboroughjazz.co.uk/

Leeds and more- highlights from Steve Crocker

Seamus Blake - photo c Chris Midgley

From Steve Crocker at JazzLeeds- highlights of the jazz year:

Quite a year in Leeds. I've never seen so much jazz activity and creativity going on. The city now over 20 live jazz venues with three supported by Leeds College of Music alone and jazz being played in all sorts of  unusual venues. Unexpected things are happening too - the revival of interest in jazz vinyl has meant more interest in Jazz Dj's; the popularity of lindhopping is also helping increase support for traditional jazz in the city. The growing number of jazz instrumental workshops rehearsal big bands and vocal choirs is evidence of the vibrancy of jazz at a community level. All this and the formation of "JazzLeeds" in 2017- a new charity to promote jazz and jazz festivals in the city.

It was not all good news though by any means for Leeds- the decision of the European Commission to ditch the UK element of the 2023 capital of culture programme meant a lot of work (and co operation) on the Leeds bid coming to a halt - hopefully not to be wasted.

So which three events to mention? The first was the welcome back to Seven Jazz for stunning New York based saxophonist/composer Seamus Blake with Ross Stanley Hammond Organ, James Maddren drums. Recorded at Seven Arts in Leeds by BBC Radio "Jazz Now" in February. Lots of others too ran it close in particular a solo performance  by Jason Rebello in May and a totally unexpected trio of Matt Robinson, Matthew Herd and Will Glaser in July..

Seeing the premiere of Issie Barratt’s "Interchange" at the Scarborough Jazz Festival was special too-   Yazz Ahmed was on trumpet, Helena Kay on alto, Tori Freestone flute & violin, Maddie Dowdeswell trombone, Shirley Smart cello, Nikki Iles on accordion Charlie Pyne on double bass Katie Patterson drums and Brigitte Beraha vocals - a totally engaging performance in September.

Finally the astonishing guitarist Gilad Hekselman returning to Wharf Chambers in Leeds with Rick Rosato bass and Jonathan Pinson drums and saxophone powerhouse Mark Turner in November

Two of these "best of" gigs are also thanks to the promotional acumen of trumpeter Kim Macari so special thanks to her. Here's to an even better 2018!

Steve Crocker
JazzLeeds
www.jazzleeds.org.uk

David Porter's Northern Jazz Honours 2017

Moon Hooch

Highlights of the jazz year from David Porter:

"My three highlights of the jazz year show the wonderful diversity of artists that we are fortunate to have at the moment:

At Hull Jazz Festival we encountered Moon Hooch a power trio from Brooklyn produced more energy than any band that I have ever seen. One set, in fact one number of 90 minutes long that had the packed audience dancing all night long.

At Gateshead International Jazz Festival (always a delight) Laura Jurd and Daniel Herskedal made beautiful music with the Royal Northern Sinfonia strings

And finally, with an eye for the future, the wonderful Tomorrow’s Warriors led a truly inspirational project celebrating Jazz 100 with 6 local Hull schools and 2 youth jazz orchestras called Jazz Ticket with such great educators as Peter Edwards, Dennis Rollins, Binker, Sarah Tandy – what a great experience for the 100 young folk who took part!

Happy New Year, David
Director J-Night/Hull Jazz Festival
https://jnight.org/hulljazzfestival.php