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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