John Ellis, Mancunian Way, Limefield ***1/2

Nothing at all represents upside down thinking here. It is all quite moving this right way up 2006 live Manchester recording just issued for download on Bandcamp. The radical sense of the album grounded in the atrocity that was Peterloo (1819) …

Published: 16 Mar 2023. Updated: 8 months.

Nothing at all represents upside down thinking here. It is all quite moving this right way up 2006 live Manchester recording just issued for download on Bandcamp. The radical sense of the album grounded in the atrocity that was Peterloo (1819) referenced right at the beginning, later intimations of Irish traditional music, modal jazz of the 1950s alluded to in 'Blues Through the Mill', the arrangement of Indojazz fusions via Arun Ghosh - his harmonium touch on 'What Was Spoken Of In The Sun Inn, Long Millgate' - some of the key moments. Pianist John Ellis (The Breath, Cinematic Orchestra, Corinne Bailey Rae, Lily Allen) is with bassist Jon Thorne, drummer Andy Hay, violinist Laura Ibbotson, cellist Sian Jones clarinettist/harmonium player Arun Ghosh, trumpeter-bodhran player-tinwhistler Neil Yates plus singer George Borowski on the affecting 'Still Bought Nothing' a contribution that joins the dots somehow between Ewan MacColl and John Cooper Clarke. All in all a Manchester homage that makes you feel close to the city even when far away and not even from there at all. John Ellis plays Band on the Wall, Manchester - on 30 April. Click for tickets Photo: press

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The stirring sound of Shayna Steele

Not strictly a jazz vocal or even at all depending on how narrow or not you are but stepping into an area not unfamiliar to the terrain Lizz Wright inhabits - Wright usually plays to open minded jazz audiences - and relatable to the marlbank …

Published: 16 Mar 2023. Updated: 8 months.

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Not strictly a jazz vocal or even at all depending on how narrow or not you are but stepping into an area not unfamiliar to the terrain Lizz Wright inhabits - Wright usually plays to open minded jazz audiences - and relatable to the marlbank readership we think.

Irrespective of where the song lands stylistically backs-against-the wall Shayna Steele, Kamilah Marshall, David Cook song 'The Bloodline' is a fine, highly sociopolitically conscious, introduction - couched within a humane lens - to Shayna Steele's upcoming Ropeadope album. In the percussion undertow is the great sessioneer Daniel Sadownick who for instance was with the guitar microtonal music icon David Fiuczynski aka Fuze in Screaming Headless Torsos back in the day.

And the guitars - Americana flavoured pedal in the blend that projects a deep delta rootsy bluesy chiming saltiness - add a lot of drama behind Steele's powerful voice. The Broadway singer - this is a world away from musical theatre - mixes several elements on the album itself entitled Gold Dust (out 21 April). It includes a version of Stevie Nick's Fleetwood Mac Rumours song 'Gold Dust Woman'. Sax icon Donny McCaslin (late-period Bowie) is on the album version of Cole Porter's 1940s song 'You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To.' Shayna Steele, photo: detail from the Gold Dust art