Today we give a loud shout-out to the jazz Grammy award nominees and winners of 2023, we mourn the passing of Wayne Shorter and we share recommendations from jazziz about new record releaes and upcoming jazz gigs. We alo point you to the official web site of a lady causing quite a stir and who looks certain to take her place among the jazz greats.
Ángeles Portana (left) was born to be an artist. Like a tree, she grew up with roots within a family of great masters, whose works are in great museums such as the Prada Museum.Ángeles has participated in multiple exhibitions in Spain. She has achieved recognition of professional prestige, Gold Medal, Europe Forum 2001 in Madrid, and her works have sold in many countries U.S.A., France andGermany
While celebrating Chuck Berry´s accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist.
Beck rarely, if ever, used a pick. He’d strum with his thumb and index almost immortally, as if the heavens touched his hands in a way the rest of us will never experience. 50 years have passed and all of Beck’s creative ticks and tricks are still indescribable.
If your read the recent text of a speech made by The President of Lanzarote about the way ahead for the tourism of the island, I think you will find she made some serious reflections on how her country might survive the prospective surge in tourist numbers that are already suffocating some of the island. However, The Daily Mail have been accused of editorialising her words, surely knowing their own interpretation would mean different things to different people, some of whom would read The Daily Mail story and feel as though Dolores Corujo had delivered a slap to the face of our tourist industry whilst others might just read the piece as a show of support to all sectors of our economy, including tourism.
First, though, Jazz at the Merchants House in Glasgow continues its current successful season with a visit from saxophonist Martin Kershaw’s octet on Sunday 12th. As well as being a Scottish National Jazz Orchestra stalwart and a founder of Edinburgh’s Playtime sessions, Martin (left) is a hugely accomplished composer who often takes great inspiration from literature. Drawing on poets from Virgil to Sylvia Plath and more, Martin’s latest work reflects life in all its experiences and he has a superb band to bring his reflections off the page including Scottish National Jazz Orchestra colleagues, Sean Gibbs (trumpet) and Liam Shortall (trombone), Playtime playmate Graeme Stephen (guitar), and Paul Harrison (piano)
It’s a quirk of history that around the same time the music was first taking shape, organized crime in America was also in its incubation stage. In New Orleans, where jazz began (though today some jazz historians take issue with this fact), the Sicilian mafia emerged in the early years of the 20th century. The Matranga crime family, an offshoot of the Stuppaggieri, a faction of the mafia based in Monreale, Palermo, were among the first club owners to hire young Louis Armstrong. In his memoir, Armstrong describes working at a club called Matranga’s, located in Black Storyville, the city’s renowned vice district.
Somehow the inclusion of black and white photographs lends a drama, a tension even, to the story they depict.
Music can also follow sidetracks and detours and can integrate communities in any part of town: in the concert halls, the folk clubs, the country side, along the blues alleyways. Burt Bacharach songs can be heard in all of them, and many of them have enjoyed interpretations by musicians playing in the jazz joints of the UK.
The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, co-led by pianist/composer Steven Feifke and trumpeter par excellence Bijon Watson, is a seventeen-member ensemble comprising seasoned players paired with young lions who are poised to capture pride of place
SIDETRACKS & DETOURS: 7 / 12 / 25 classical, jazz, folk, rock, americana; songwriters & invisible angels7th December 2025 - 7:00 am
SIDETRACKS & DETOURS Pass It On 2/11/2025 Jenny Bray, Nash and Asher, Opus 222nd November 2025 - 7:00 am
A LITTLE BUNDLE OF SUMMER. sidetracks & detours 3rd September 2025 featuring Jazz Artist, Jenny Bray. Broadcaster and writer, Steve Bewick, Expo Folk and Sound Roots3rd September 2025 - 7:00 am