John Fordham

1 week ago | theguardian.com | John Fordham

However edgy and angular Mary Halvorson’s music gets, powerful melodies and inviting harmonies always drift below even the stormiest surface, giving the much-lauded New York composer and guitarist an appeal way beyond the avant garde. About Ghosts features an expanded version of her Amaryllis ensemble, which made one of 2024’s standout jazz albums, Cloudward.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | John Fordham

Whichever of his enthusiasms he was describing, the music critic and author Ronald Atkins, who has died aged 88, instinctively kept his ego in the shadows and out of the way of the much more interesting minutiae of subjects he loved. He was the Guardian’s principal jazz critic for three decades and a day-job civil servant, from the 1960s to the 90s.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | John Fordham

Drummer/composer Sun-Mi Hong didn’t get to where she is now without a struggle for independence. She was born in Incheon, South Korea, to a conservative family and earmarked for a teacher’s life, but her teenage dream was to become a drummer. At 19, as the only woman in a not-overly respectful percussion class, she got wind of the Amsterdam Conservatorium’s jazz course, moved to Europe and met her band of skilful soulmates.

2 months ago | msn.com | John Fordham

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2 months ago | theguardian.com | John Fordham

Joe Lovano, that giant American elder of jazz reeds-playing, nowadays seems – rather like the equally eminent saxophone master Charles Lloyd – to be simmering all his decades of timeless tunes and exquisite passing phrases down to essences. The 72-year-old Ohio-born sax star and occasional drummer’s partners here are Polish pianist – Homage’s shape was formed on extensive tours with them, and a week in 2023 at New York’s Village Vanguard club that acted as an impromptu rehearsal.