Sture Ericson, Pat Thomas, Raymond Strid 'Cut Bag,' 577 ***

Track of the day: 'Cutbag' is perfect if in a particularly destructive frame of mind: the pulverising Bagman sound revolves around loud slabs of piano punctuation ever accelerating, wildly free saxophone and multi-directional drums. English free …

Published: 26 Jun 2022. Updated: 22 months.

Track of the day: 'Cutbag' is perfect if in a particularly destructive frame of mind: the pulverising Bagman sound revolves around loud slabs of piano punctuation ever accelerating, wildly free saxophone and multi-directional drums. English free improviser Pat Thomas is more like Matthew Shipp than he usually is while Swedish saxist Sture Ericson's fast and furious playing is reminiscent of the approach of Mats Gustafsson of The Thing and like a seagull in full, dramatic, cry. Highly uncompromising, stimulating, free-jazz - issuing label 577 describe Bagman, the collective name for the trio who represent this fictional personage, as ''an imaginary character… [who] roams around in the figurative soundscape, collecting sonic debris.'' Drummer Raymond Strid, a fellow Swede of Ericson's, surely must need towelling down after all this mayhem recorded approaching three years ago at Dalston redoutable bastion of the avant-garde Ashwin Street's Cafe Oto. The full album Bagman Live at Cafe Oto is out next month. Get this especially for the incendiary role Thomas, one of the UK's top free improvisers, so mesmerisingly plays at the heart of the sound.

Pat Thomas, photo: Dawid Laskowski

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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.

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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