Live - the week of 27 June-3 July

Chris Batchelor Zoetic The Yard, Manchester Monday 27 June Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen Ronnie Scott's, London Mon 27- Thurs 30 June Forj Oxford Tavern, London Mon 27 June Black Top with Xhosa Cole Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham …

Published: 26 Jun 2022. Updated: 22 months.

Chris Batchelor Zoetic The Yard, Manchester Monday 27 June

Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen Ronnie Scott's, London Mon 27- Thurs 30 June

Forj Oxford Tavern, London Mon 27 June

Black Top with Xhosa Cole Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham Tuesday 28 June

George Benson Symphony Hall, Birmingham Tues 28 June

Jo Harrop Hampstead Jazz Club, London Wednesday 29 June

Mark Lockheart and Dreamers Bristol Music Club, Bristol Wed 29 June

Dreamers released in January is a very different kind of Mark Lockheart album. Opening in a contemporary even Americana type space this quartet affair which has the avant pianist Elliot Galvin perhaps making the biggest different in Lockheart's sound and here along with Lockheart's erstwhile Polar Bear collague Tom Herbert on bass and the powerful Dave Smith on drums on a record where the writing is imaginative and very unorthodox. The spectrum of the compositional reach is very considerable. With most of the tracks written solely by Lockheart the album once again flags up just what a fine writer he is. State of the art UK jazz overall from a master who refuses to stand still and once again sets the bar very high as he journeys on and ever deeper.

The Clare Teal 7 Grassington Festival, Grassington Wed 29 June

Jean-Pierre Magnet New Peru Quartet Vortex, London Thursday 30 June

This special Vortex gig, presented by the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Dalston rather than Soho as the Pizza is currently being decorated, marks the re-opening of the new look Vortex main room upstairs.

Erykah Badu, Gregory Porter, TLC, Tom Misch, Lianne La Havas, Sons of Kemet, Nubya Garcia and many more Love Supreme, Sussex Friday 1-Sunday 3 July

Jo Harrop, top, is playing the Hampstead Jazz Club on Wednesday

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Caili O'Doherty, Quarantine Dream, Posi-Tone Records ****

One big jazz trend this year is the new straightahead arriving in quantity from labels, none of them new, such as Posi-Tone, Cellar Live and Storyville bolstering other tried and tested labels in this area such as HighNote, Smoke Sessions, Mack …

Published: 25 Jun 2022. Updated: 22 months.

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One big jazz trend this year is the new straightahead arriving in quantity from labels, none of them new, such as Posi-Tone, Cellar Live and Storyville bolstering other tried and tested labels in this area such as HighNote, Smoke Sessions, Mack Avenue and to a lesser-extent April Records. US pianist Caili O'Doherty is certainly a mainstreamer who can veer in and out of being modernistic but not selfconsciously arty although there is a lot of art to what O'Doherty does. Saxophonist Nicole Glover is Joshua Redman-like, another big plus factor here as an add-on to an ostensible trio record. The feel-goodness circulates and transmits. Relative newcomers bassist Tamir Shmerling and drummer Cory Cox complete the line-up. 'Runaway' with Glover works on every level. Forget the inanities of Instagram O'Doherty as a jazz influencer keeps it real but it's in the playing here and not some sort of concocted image factory elsewhere where the real interest lies.