Upcoming Gigs

"The jazz police" is a usually just a slightly overused media term that doesn't actually mean anything except to point out that (shock, gasp) some people listen to and like different types of jazz music than others, and occasionally get all vocal and subjective about it. Nothing new there, then. But here's a story from today's Guardian website that gives new creedence to the phrase...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/09/jazz-festival-larry-ochs-sax...

It’s not every day that I get free tickets to a show. To expand that, I guess it’s not every day that I get tickets to see a huge artist like Jason Mraz. And on that note, it’s not every day that you get to intern with an organization that represents artists like Jason Mraz and Jamie Cullum (a blatant shout out to my summer 2008 internship at Air).

I saw Christian McBride and his Inside Straight group at Ronnie's last Friday. It was awesome. Just really freakin' awesome. So awesome in fact, that I don't think it's wise for me to try and put it down in a blog as I'll just end up babbling, so I'm gonna hand you over the Financial Times' resident jazz expert Mike Hobart, who's a professional at this kind of thing and probably less given to unhelpful hyperbole... One thing I will say though; if you get the chance to see this band, DO IT.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8d789c46-6fc2-11de-b835-00144feabdc0.html

Ronnie Scott's just keeps pulling them out of the bag - two great performances this week from Swiss trumpet maestro Erik Truffaz, and guitar hero Stanley Jordan...

While the world of jazz might not seem to the casual outside observer like the most glamorous of music fields to work in, it certainly has its perks. I've recently returned from Berlin, where I attended the annual general meeting of ACT, the German-based label responsible for putting out some of the best jazz Europe (and occasionally further afield) has to offer.

I was treated to a short performance by Finn Peters last night at The Forge in Camden, a new venue and the main purpose of this blog. Music comes first, however, and the group were on fine form, with regular collaborators Al Cherry (guitar), Nick Ramm (piano) and Tom Skinner (drums) all impressive. Particularly worthy of note was bassist Jasper Hoiby; his own group Phronesis - http://www.myspace.com/phronesismusic - are well worth checking out (reminds me a little bit of some of Avashai Cohen's recent stuff).

Get The Blessing always put on a great show - I've probably seen them a dozen times or more since we started working with them here at AirMTM - but their album launch for 'Bugs In Amber' last Thursday at Cargo in Shoreditch was one of the best yet.

Aside from everything I do at AirMTM, I've long harboured some relatively laid back and unambitious aspirations to music journalism, and have had the chance to write up a few gigs for the Camden New Journal (and seen people like John Scofield and Stanley Clarke up close...for free!). Here's my review of Kaki King's latest appearance at the Jazz Cafe earlier in the month.

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So I've just got back from a weekend in Serbia for the JazzFest Kragujevac. Last year I went out with Anita Wardell and Paul Booth and we had such a lovely time. So, of course I was delighted to have artists in the festival this year as well!