Music, Jazz

Little Women - Lung

Somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock

(Aum Fidelity) Like their more fidgety Brooklyn associates Zs, Little Women operate somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock. Lung is conceptualised around the human breath, treating it as a sound source and organising…

Quercus - Quercus

June Tabor and Huw Warren collaboration blending jazz and folk tradition

(ECM) The great English folk singer June Tabor has been working with Welsh pianist Huw Warren for several years, most notably on her 2011 album Ashore. Now, under the Quercus umbrella, the pair is joined by saxophonist Iain Ballamy, best known for…

Arika Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle - Tramway, Glasgow, Thu 18–Sun 21 Apr

A quietly powerful weekend of jazz, poetry, philosophy and 'haiku for black people'

Arika may no longer do music festivals, but Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, boasted the most sublime music the innovative Edinburgh-based curators have presented since the glory days of Instal, alongside riveting talks, readings and…

The Cat Empire add UK dates to 2013 World Tour schedule

The ska-jazz collective are touring their fifth studio album, Steal the Light

Melbourne-based ska-jazz collective The Cat Empire will visit the UK on their biggest world tour to date. Celebrating the release of their new album, Steal the Light, the genre-defying band will visit a total of four continents and perform a total of 70…

Death Shanties - Nunatak

Free jazz outfit featuring Alex Neilson, Sybren Renema and Lucy Stein

(Self-released CD-R) When Alex Neilson launched his folk-rock project Trembling Bells, he spoke of having fallen out of love with improvisation, preferring to focus on songwriting. Five years on, the drummer fervently reconnects with free music…

Glasgow experimental music festival Counterflows set for 2013 outing

Highlights of second edition include Peter Brötzmann, Loren Connors and Jandek

Now in its second year, Counterflows channels vital currents in experimental music and art into a world class three-day festival. This year, there’s a particular focus on mixed-media performance. Saturday sees the CCA reverberate to the intense drones…

Fire! Orchestra - Exit!

Mats Gustafsson collaborative project featuring Sofia Jernberg is a thrilling gamb

(Rune Gramofon) We know Mats Gustafsson is an insatiable collaborator, but this is ridiculous. New album Exit! sees the intrepid saxophonist expanding his jazz-rock trio Fire! into a 30-strong big band. As with previous Fire! releases, the music is…

Decoy with Joe McPhee - Spontaneous Combustion

Head-spinning live set from veteran free-jazzer and Alexander Hawkins' organ trio

(Otoroku) A veteran free-jazzer (check out his 1971 classic Nation Time for a righteous blast of fire music, James Brown funk and radical black politics), Joe McPhee has been making some of his most adventurous and vital work in recent years. This…

The Group - Live

Gloriously creative and soulful 1986 live recording from dream team of first generation free jazzers

(No Business) A dream team of first generation free jazzers (altoist Marion Brown, bassist Sirone and drummer Andrew Cyrille) and 1970s avant-gardists (violist Billy Bang, trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah and bassist Fred Hopkins), The Group left no studio…

Wayne Shorter Quartet - Without A Net

Ingenious chamber jazz from 79-year-old saxophone legend

(Blue Note) Wayne Shorter's first album for Blue Note in 43 years is not quite the daredevil leap into freedom its title might suggest, but it does show the 79-year old saxophone legend in inquisitive form, leading his superb group through an artful…

StAnza, Fife Jazz Festival and other events to continue in wake of Byre Theatre's closure

The St Andrews theatre is set to close on Thu 31 Jan; scheduled shows will go on in new venues

The Byre Theatre, St Andrews, is being forced to shut down because of its financial difficulties. The theatre has struggled to cover its costs in recent years, with problems exacerbated with the withdrawal of funding by the former Scottish Arts Council…

A preview of the Edinburgh Iranian Festival 2013

The festival brings together film, music, visual art, and comedy in the shape of Patrick Monahan

When you mention Iran in the current climate, most people think of the politics of the country. But there is of course more to the place than what we see in the news – and the 2013 Edinburgh Iranian Festival is our opportunity to learn more about…

Colin Stetson & Mats Gustafsson - Stones

Live recording from Swedish jazz heavyweight and US saxophonist

(Rune Gramofon) In the red corner, Swedish jazz heavyweight Mats Gustafsson, a man who has played with everyone from Sonic Youth to Neneh Cherry. In the blue, Canadian reed mangler to the stars (Tom Waits, David Byrne, Arcade Fire et al), Colin Stetson.

Haftor Medboe and Anneke Kampman - Places and Spaces

Refreshing collaboration between dexterous jazz guitarist and electronic chanteuse

(Fabrikant) At first listen, Conquering Animal Sound chanteuse Anneke Kampman's first sojourn into off-piste collaboration sounds like the straightest thing she's done. Here she is, singing proper words and everything alongside seasoned jazz guitarist…

National Jazz Trio of Scotland - The National Jazz Trio of Scotland’s Christmas Album

(Karaoke Kalk) Forget Bowie and Bing. As winter warmers go, Bill Wells’ reinvention of 12 festive favourites featuring vocalists Lorna Gilfedder (Golden Grrrls), Kate Sugden (Johnny and the Entries), Aby Vulliamy (The One Ensemble) and Gerard Black…

Lean Left - Live at Cafe Oto

Sax-guitar unit dispense prickly and spry, wielding post-punk jitters

(Unsounds) Pitting Terrie Hessels and Andy Moore – axe wielders for Dutch avant-punks The Ex – against free jazz heavyweights Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love, Lean Left are a rumble in a scrap heap, a joyride around Saturn’s rings. Guitar…

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra/Barry Guy/Edwin Morgan - Schweben

Celebration of Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky's radical vision

With his brilliant Scots translations of the Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, Edwin Morgan sought to bring the spirit of the pre-war avant-garde to 1960s Scotland. Barry Guy and GIO celebrate his radical vision, using Mayakovsky’s Futurist…

John Butcher - Bell Trove Spools

Gorgeous and frequently astonishing collection of Coltrane-like sheets of sound and sound effects

Considering John Butcher’s PhD in theoretical physics, it’s tempting to think of him as a boffin painstakingly investigating the possibilities of the saxophone. Yet there is nothing drily academic about the Londoner’s avant-garde explorations: the…

Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex & Friends - Y’Anbessaw Tezeta

A fine farewell from the great Ethiopian saxophonist, accompanied by Dutch avant-punks The Ex

Getatchew Mekuria, the great Ethiopian saxophonist, ends his 65-year career with Y’Anbessaw Tezeta (‘In memory of the lion’), an album recorded with Dutch avant-punks The Ex. Perhaps surprisingly, the tempos are moderate and the guitars tightly coiled…

Bradford, Gjerstad, Haker Flaten, Nilssen-Love - Kampen

Cornettist Bobby Bradford collaborates with Norwegian trio on a thrilling past-into-future session

An inspired summit between 78-year-old West Coast cornettist Bobby Bradford and the younger Norwegian trio of clarinettist and alto player Frode Gjerstad, bassist Ingebrit Haker Flater and sticksman Paal Nilssen-Love. The session has a thrilling…

2012 Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra Festival

Highlights of GIO Fest 2012 include new work from Jim O' Rourke and Shetland Improvisers Orchestra

This year Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra celebrates a glorious decade of making it up as they go along. Bringing together musicians from a range of backgrounds - jazz, classical, experimental, electronic - GIO has explored a range of creative approaches…

Celtic Connections 2013 programme launched

The music fest launches anniversary programme featuring The Mavericks, Aimee Mann and more

The cultural behemoth that is Celtic Connections looks set to bring its A-game next year, as it celebrates 20 years on the music scene with a bumper programme from around the globe. Folk, roots, indie and jazz will all be represented as stalwarts of the…

Django Bates Beloved - Confirmation

Lively and beautiful homage to Charlie Parker featuring Peter Eldh, Peter Bruun and Ashley Slater

British pianist Bates pays homage to Charlie Parker through the idiosyncratic deconstruction of bebop classics, twisting the alto sax legend’s lines into weird shapes, while retaining their puckish sense of adventure. Bates’ knotty improvisations and…

William Parker Orchestra - Essence of Ellington

An innovative free jazz tribute to Duke Ellington

The Wynton Marsalis paradox: the works of jazz legends deserve to be celebrated, but by treating them like classical repertoire, you lose jazz’s spirit of spontaneity and invention. It’s that essence that William Parker taps into so successfully on this…

Roller Trio - Roller Trio

A taut fusion of jazz, rock and electronica that is both accessible and inventive

This year’s token jazz nominee for the perennially boring Mercury Prize, Roller Trio’s debut is a leaner, edgier affair than such middlebrow recognition might suggest. Hailing from the same Leeds scene as the thrashier Trio VD, RT offer a taut fusion of…