The Vortex Jazz Club - London's premier jazz club

Gig review – Lotte Anker - Wednesday 7 May

Fri, 09 May 2008 19:50:08 +0100

I was drawn to the Vortex for this concert by familiarity with Lotte Anker's Leo CD Triptych, the fact that she has worked with Marilyn Crispell (of whom I am a friend and fan), and the title of one of the CDs by the group Copenhagen Art Ensemble, which she co-leads: Don’t Mention the War.

CD review – Tubby Hayes - Intensity

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:31:10 +0100

Recorded at Ronnie Scott's in spring 1965, this hitherto unreleased material catches Tubby Hayes in a brief period between bands – as fellow tenor player Simon Spillett points out in his comprehensive liner notes, Hayes experienced 'a recurring headache' caused by his 'inability to fix satisfying rhythm sections in the UK' until he chanced upon Tony Levin in 1966.

Gig review – Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2008

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:25:26 +0100

Past years at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival have featured Jerwood Charitable Foundation-supported artists in either a Rising Star category or performing specially commissioned material; on this occasion, the Jerwood remit was broadened slightly to accommodate music commissioned by other festivals, or written for other occasions, thus granting it a new lease of life and enabling the artists concerned to develop and reinterpret it.

Gig review – Sleepthief - Monday 5 May 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 10:11:08 +0100

Anyone familiar with Ingrid Laubrock's albums as leader particularly her 2003 F-IRE recording Forensic, will already be aware that her playing is characterised by a sculptural quality, a scrupulous attention to nuances of timbre and texture, that stands her in good stead in free-jazz contexts.

Gig review – The Zig Quartet - Monday 28 April 2008

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:28:36 +0100

'Colour, wild rhythms, fiery melodies and passionate performance' were promised by the Zig Quartet London Gypsy Orchestra leader Gundula Gruen (violin), Serbian accordionist Zivorad Nikolic, bassist Oliver Baldwin and darbuka / percussionist Rastko Rasic and their music delivers all of this in spades.

Gig review – Christine Tobin - Saturday 26 April 2008

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:47:51 +0100

A packed club, a balmy night, Christine Tobin plus her extended band playing selections from her forthcoming Babel album, Secret Life of a Girl: life can be sweet sometimes.

The Dublin-born singer has always been a mesmerising performer with a uniquely affecting voice, but in her natural environment (the Vortex on nights such as these) she adds an unaffected warmth to her artistic appeal, trading banter with a lively but intent, respectful audience and drawing superb performances from her sextet members through the sheer class of her material and the obvious depth of her own commitment to it.

Gig review – Barbez - Thursday 24 April 2008

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:10:57 +0100

'A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the not always greatly hopeful belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land.' Thus Czernowitz-born poet Paul Celan, explaining the purpose of his work to a German audience in 1958.

Performing Kaufman material based on extensive research into Celan's life and work, the band (joined by Scottish poet and theatre director Fiona Templeton) used a mix of East European folk, 'downtown' (itself an amalgam of jazz, rock and art music) and Brechtian theatre music...

Gig review – Matthew Shipp Trio - Monday 21 April 2008

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:16:51 +0100

Considering the problems they had getting through immigration at Heathrow earlier in the day (passports – and cymbals, bizarrely – confiscated), pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist Joe Morris and drummer Whit Dickey presented a remarkably composed (in the emotional sense, at least) appearance when they took the stage in front of a full house.

CD review – The James Taylor Quartet - Live at The Jazz Cafe

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:53:39 +0100

The James Taylor Quartet have been dispensing their particular mix of organ-centred jazz, funk and R&B since 1985, and this album catches them in their natural setting, London's Jazz Café, a venue at which, according to Taylor himself, they have played over 150 gigs in seventeen years.

Gig review – The Frank Griffith Nonet - Thursday 17 April 2008

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:58:46 +0100

Before counting his nonet into Freddie Hubbard's 'Little Sunflower', Frank Griffith commented, 'This one plays itself', and such ease and assurance characterised a performance that saw the band which included searing alto player Bob Martin, and trumpeters Henry Lowther and Robbie Robson alongside Griffith's tenor and clarinet in the front line move uncontrivedly between the discreetly funky rock-laced rhythms of 'Get Carter/Ode to Bille Joe' and the out and out flagwaving swing of the Basie staple 'Jumpin' at the Woodside'.

CD review – Lionel Loueke - Karibu

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:33:28 +0100

The sheer novelty of Lionel Loueke's approach he simultaneously sings/croons in a gentle, high voice and picks out intriguing runs on guitar, thus producing not instrumental solos plus vocal accompaniment, but a single sound composed of voice and guitar may not make his music immediately accessible, but once assimilated, it richly rewards the effort required to appreciate it.

CD review – Neon - Here to There

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:16:48 +0100

Neon is a trio comprised of saxophonist/flautist Stan Sulzmann, pianist (here also heard on french horn) Gwilym Simcock and vibes/marimba player Jim Hart, and this is their debut recording. Given their instrumentation, the trio might easily have produced a somewhat cluttered sound...

CD review – Tony Kofi Quartet - The Silent Truth

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:40:10 +0100

Returning to the line-up that made the Monk-themed album All is Know four years ago – Tony Kofi on various saxophones, pianist Jonathan Gee, bassist Ben Hazleton, drummer Winston Clifford – celebrates, according to Kofi himself, the fact that the group sound has 'solidified' since that first recording.

Gig review – Seb Pipe's Life Experience - Wednesday 2 April 2008

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:31:38 +0100

Alto player/composer Seb Pipe was clearly so keen to air his set of originals – his band's eponymous album, after all, has 'Music is Life' as its motto – that he played a hundred-minute set without an interval on this, his first gig at the Vortex with his quartet: pianist Arthur Lea, bassist Larry Bartley, drummer Chris Vatalaro.

CD review – Jazz Warriors - Afropeans

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:53:55 +0100

Given that one of the most disappointing aspects of the much-vaunted UK jazz renaissance at the end of the 1980s was the somewhat mysterious demise of the original Jazz Warriors, disbanded after only one album (Out of Many One People, Island, 1987), the rebirth marked by Afropeans is doubly welcome.

Gig review – Outhouse Thursday 27 March 2008

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:37:34 +0000

When John Chilton's Who's Who of British Jazz was first published a decade ago, an American jazz writer poured scorn on the whole idea: what next, he asked, a history of Swiss naval victories?

CD review – Louise Gibbs & Kirk Lightsey - Everybody's Song but Our Own

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:59:41 +0000

For this album, its name adapted from the celebrated Kenny Wheeler composition, singer Louise Gibbs and pianist Kirk Lightsey have taken their material from modern jazz classics (Wayne Shorter's 'Footprints', Charles Mingus's 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat', Thelonious Monk's 'Ruby My Dear' etc.)

Gig review – Will Collier Septet - Monday 24 March 2008

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:56:53 +0000

With a four-horn front line (tenor, alto, trumpet, trombone) and the leader driving proceedings with his vigorous but melodic bass playing, the Will Collier Septet is an exuberant, punchy ensemble dispensing hard-hitting but melodic originals.

CD review – Outhouse - Outhouse

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:28:22 +0000

Outhouse have been dispensing their driving, often exhilarating music live for some time now, frequently at the Vortex, the Oxford and similar venues, but this eponymous album is their first attempt to capture their sound on CD.

Gig review – David Friesen - Thursday 20 March 2008

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:07:34 +0000

The late lamented Richard Cook, in his Jazz Encyclopedia (Penguin, 2005), comments that US bassist David Friesen's music 'tends to reside in the dreamier climes he seems fondest of … although he can play demanding straightahead music when he wants to'.

Gig review – Curios - Wednesday 19 March 2008

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:31:08 +0000

Having had considerable success BBC Jazz Awards Album of the Year with their first recording, 'Hidden' (Jazzizit, 2007), Curios (pianist Tom Cawley, bassist Sam Burgess, drummer Josh Blackmore) are moving onwards and upwards, airing material from their forthcoming second album at this absorbing gig.

CD review – Nicolas Meier - Silence Talks

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:13:18 +0000

Thoroughly immersed in Turkish culture and music his wife is from Turkey and he spends a lot of time there but grounded in jazz, guitarist/composer Nicolas Meier has found the perfect musical collaborator in front-line partner, saxophonist Gilad Atzmon.

CD review – Cormac Kenevey - The Art of Dreaming

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:44:17 +0000

The follow-up to Irish singer Cormac Kenevey's debut album This is Living, The Art of Dreaming mixes a selection of standards (torchy – 'The Night We Called It a Day', 'I Fall in Love Too Easily'; romantic – 'All of You', 'The Way You Look Tonight';

Gig review – Carlos Lopez-Real/Fini Bearman Band - Monday 17 March 2008

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:03:56 +0000

Having guested on saxophonist Carlos Lopez-Real's debut album, singer Fini Bearman has now formed a band with him, building on the rapport that clearly exists between his pure-toned saxophone sound and her agile, light but strong voice.

CD review – Arthurs.Hoiby.Ritchie - Explications

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:03:57 +0000

This trio mention everyone from Der Rote Bereich, Ellery Eskelin and Tim Berne to Andrei Tarkovsky and Jean-Luc Godard as inspirational figures, and their shifting, restless, multi-faceted music faithfully reflects this wide-ranging artistic adventurousness.

Gig review – Bryan Corbett - Thursday 13 March 2008

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:35:31 +0000

As the programme suggested, this gig provided a rare chance to hear one of the UK's most accomplished trumpet players, Bryan Corbett, in an informal setting doing what he does best: blowing over accommodating changes.

Discreetly but punchily supported by guitarist Deidre Cartwright, bassist Alison Rayner and drummer Mike Pickering, Corbett grasped the opportunity with both hands...

CD review – Emil Viklicky Trio - Ballads and More

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:03:09 +0000

Anyone who attended last year's Cheltenham Festival is likely to have seen this trio pianist Emil Viklicky, bassist Frantisek Uhlir, drummer Laco Tropp playing an hour-long set that has been immortalised on the album Cookin' in Bonn (Dekkor), and which was described on this site as 'affectingly lyrical when addressing his speciality material, Moravian folk songs', but 'rumbustious where required' and 'touching and robust'.

CD review – Vinicius Cantuaria - Cymbals

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:17:38 +0100

'How I miss Brazil/I've been away a while/The cold is killing me/No one sees me on the subway' or 'I walk in the void/Without your eyes/I wander in darkness' are not lyrics consistent with the stereotypical view of Brazilian singer-songwriters, but despite the fact that his voice's overall timbre and his gently insinuating, intimate approach somewhat resemble Caetano Veloso's Vinicius Cantuaria is a highly original, individual talent.