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Plaistow, Titan, DYFL/Plaistow Music
First published in 2015. The Swiss have more than their fair share of top jazz piano trios. Plaistow however don’t correspond to the more usual Swiss model, which is often...
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2018 Albums of the Year
A year ago everything looked so very different. The 2018 marlbank top picks 1-10 Kamasi Washington Heaven and Earth Young Turks Every track is like an album. Leading the Afrofuturist...
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Spotting a jazzer
First published in 2014 Melodious Crunk, a keen observer of the scene, explains exactly how you spot a jazz musician There’s no parking. Lugging in the gear to a stage...
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The Melodious Crunk column
First published in 2014. In his latest column Melodious Crunk finds waiting around creative, if exasperating. Waiting. It’s one of the things jazz musicians are both very good at, and...
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Nick's licks
For your 2020 radar: Nick Walters is one of the Beats & Pieces star players to have forged an identity increasingly as a solo artist name breaking out of small...
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Joe Lovano UsFive, Cross Culture, Blue Note
First published in 2013. It’s a coincidence that Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Star Crossed Lovers’, the fifth track of Joe Lovano’s latest by his two-drummer band UsFive, appears around the same time...
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Orrin Evans, Liberation Blues, Smoke Sessions
First published in 2014. Dedicated to Dwayne Burno who died far too young at the end of 2013, and beginning with the late bassist’s ‘Devil Eyes’ a tune based on...
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Robert Glasper, Covered, Blue Note
First published in 2015. ‘Cool. What’s up, y’all? Act like you’re at a club…’ That’s Robert Glasper at the beginning of this first trio record in a long while, here...
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