• Tonight Deschanel Gordon trio, East Side, London
• Wednesday Nate Smith Kinfolk, Jazz Cafe, London

Drummer, composer, bandleader Nate Smith film fans may remember in lesser-known actor guise as the onscreen drummer character in 2014's Oscar best picture-winning Birdman. A few years later Postcards from Everywhere was a revelation in 2017 a sprawling but compelling album that proved modern and in the real world: a diverse assembling that summed up where the music was heading at the time by embracing melody, rhythm, a range of hybrids, harnessing electricity as well as delving into the unplugged fabric of the sound, a little bit of vocalising and that popular spoken word element heard more and more even from Generation Xers to land upon family history and a personal story. It still sounds fresh. Notable among many delights on the record was pianist-keyboardist Kris Bowers who has found fame as a film composer for instance for the 2019 Oscar best picture-winning Don Shirley-inspired road movie, Green Book.

• Thursday John McLaughlin and the Fourth Dimension, National Concert Hall, Dublin
• Friday Trish Clowes and My Iris, Blue Arrow, Glasgow

Deschanel Gordon, top. Photo: East Side site