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Kenny Dorham: a Cubano-tinged infectious beat

Album Review: Una Mas - Kenny Dorham

Trumpeter Kenny Dorham rustles up a bright, airy and indeed Cubano-tinged selection of tunes on Una Mas, which was first issued in 1963 and now reissued as a vinyl

Music • 04 Feb 21

Dave Brubeck: Lullabies may be fruit of the frugal orientation of a pianist-composer of advanced years

Album review: Dave Brubeck - Lullabies

The late Dave Brubeck recorded this amiable, low-key album of new compositions and standards as a present for his grandchildren

Music • 28 Jan 21

Art Blakey plays the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands in 1990

Review: Indestructible Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

Horns in a tight ensemble setting, with borrowings from rhythm 'n' blues and gospel in the mix - the Jazz Messengers were at their musical peak when Art Blakey led them on this set from 1964, his last for Blue Note

Music • 26 Jan 21

Bobby Hutcherson: light-fingered vibes filigree in the company of the stout-sounding tenor player Joe Henderson and others

Album review: Bobby Hutcherson - The Kicker

This warm, companionable session featuring ace vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson's first Blue Note session under his own name was recorded in December 1969, but not released until 1999

Music • 20 Jan 21

John Walsh: an admirable, gutsy quest for self-fulfillment through Flamenco guitar. (All photos Magda Kacperska)

Album review: John Walsh - Irlandalucía

Ireland should be proud of John Walsh, who has gained eminence in Spain, and indeed further afield for his brilliant mastery of Flamenco guitar, as demonstrated on his remarkable debut album

Music • 19 Jan 21

Stanley Turrentine performs in Chicago, July 14, 1979

Album review Stanley Turrentine - That's Where It's At

Saturated in soul and blues, That's Where It's At is a warmly appealing piece of work from saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, which was first released in 1962 and is now reissued on vinyl

Music • 27 Jan 21

Lou Donaldson performs with Pat Bianchi on the organ at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 2, 2015

Album review: Lou Donaldson Alligator Boogaloo

A young George Benson on guitar joins alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson's team for this pleasing 1967 vinyl reissue that is soaked in swing and R 'n B

Music • 12 Jan 21

John Coltrane: fizzing, bubbling out of the primordial earth on A Love Supreme

Album review - John Coltrane: A Love Supreme/Ballads

Recorded in December of 1964 and released in 1965, two years before his death at the age of forty, A Love Supreme is saxophonist John Coltrane's enduring musical account of finding - and settling in - a spiritual way to live.

Features • 03 Nov 20

Jake Stanley: from County Cork, by way of the North of England, a purveyor of fresh-sounding songs with an earthy fabric

Jake Stanley - Fix up Yer Courage, Fasten Yer Smile

Every song sounds individuated, considered, cherished on Jake Stanley's remarkable second album sung by a dream team, featuring Stanley's resonant vocal and Susanna Goodright's sweet harmonies.

Features • 15 Oct 20

Tenor legend Hank Mobley shines on the previously unreleased Just Coolin.'

Review: Just Coolin' Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

This previously unreleased studio album by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers from 1959 should be Mannah from heaven for lovers of curiously easeful hard bop.

Features • 03 Sep 20

Gerald Clayton: Quincy is a big fan and Gerald's dad John was one of his "orchestration students"

Gerald Clayton Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard

Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard is mostly an energetic, if not cerebral post-Bop set, with occasional relief from the frenzy, in quiet and wistful moments on tracks like Body and Soul and the pianist-composer's own Envisionings.

Features • 18 Aug 20

Violinist Dominic Ingham (centre) and his Role Models band - exhilarating and worth repeated spins...

Album review: Dominic Ingham Role Models

It's a brave man who launches his violin-led jazz album. But then again, it's brave man who releases any jazz album and Dominic Ingham's debut shows vitality, intelligence and depth on repeated listens.

Features • 11 Aug 20

Vox Clamantis: a haunting, radiant quality which harks back centuries

Cyrillus Kreek The Suspended Harp of Babel

The many devotees of the music of Arvo Pärt should logically be interested in the music of fellow Estonian Cyrillus Kreek who was a meticulous researcher, composer and song and hymn-gatherer in his native Estonia.

Music Reviews • 01 Jul 20

John Scofield: sensitive, knowing interpretations of bassist Steve Swallow's compositions

Album review: John Scofield Swallow Tales

There is something endearingly low-key about veteran guitarist John Scofield's readings of old Steve Swallow tunes, and to make it all the more of an occasion, Swallow himself plays bass, with Bill Stewart on drums.

Music Reviews • 14 Jun 20

Pianist Jon Balke: "sometimes just vague textures, sometimes solid..."

Album review: Jon Balke Discourses

The Norwegian musician, Jon Balke, born 1955, returns with a series of piano exercises, some of them improvised and ranging from the astringent to the wistful, while tempered with his own 'sound-processing.'

Music Reviews • 11 Jun 20

Album review: Aaron Diehl – The Vagabond

Pianist Aaron Diehl's The Vagabond refers to what he calls his 'itinerant (musical) existence', venturing ouas he has done from the Julliard School through African-American traditions, taking in Gershwin, Prokofiev and Philip Glass on the ongoing journey

Music • 26 Feb 20

Tony Williams, gifted, highly lyrical drummer, born Chicago, 1945, died Daly City, California 1997.

Tony Williams: Foreign Intrigue

Tony Williams, legendary drummer with Miles Davis Quintet, led his own recording session in Foreign Intrigue, released in 1985. It's an exhilarating album, the players clearly enjoying the ever-buoyant tilt of it

Music • 05 Feb 20

Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, trombonist Curtis Fuller with bandleader/drummer Art Blakey at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York in 1964

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers Buhaina's Delight

Here we have impeccably groomed music from guys who know their stuff, loose yet supple bebop from a 1961 New Jersey session with Wayne Shorter to the fore on arrangements.

Music • 29 Jan 20

Divinely-appointed trio: Hussain, McLaughlin, Mahadevan

McLaughlin, Mahadevan, Hussain - Is That So?

John McLaughlin's cautionary, humble words in a CD liner note suggest some nervousness about how his synth guitar might be received. He needn't have worried. Is That So? is an entrancing album of songs from Shankar Mahadevan with Zakier Hussain on tablas.

Music • 22 Jan 20

Alto saxophonist Lee Konitz performing in the Netherlands in 1992

Alone Together Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, Charlie Haden

Legendary saxophonist Lee Konitz and bassist Charlie Haden team up with pianist Brad Mehldau for this delightful double album of standards, recorded in Los Angeles in 1996

Music • 14 Jan 20

Julia Hülsmann: exquisite poise and a David Bowie cover in an album of challenging music

Album Review:Julia Hülsmann Quartet - Not far From Here

German pianist Julia Hülsmann and her quartet have delivered an absorbing, at times challenging album in Not Far From Here, featuring compositions from all the players

Music • 19 Dec 19

Still wowing the faithful: 67-year old John Scofield performing in Rome last February

Album review: John Scofield Hand Jive

Funk, restrained or lively, is the dominant note in this session recorded at The Power Station in New York in 1983, featuring the revered guitarist nestled into a good groove with his ensemble.

Music • 18 Dec 19

Conor O'Sullivan - His Mind Invents Its Own Tragedy

There is a lighter touch to these new songs from Cork troubadour Conor O'Sullivan, the dark import and wryly reflective vision may not have changed much, but some of the music seems airier, more buoyant

Album Review • 28 Nov 19

Charles Lloyd as he is today. The recordings under review catch him as a young tenor saxophonist and flute-player in 1967

Charles Lloyd Quartet - Montreux Jazz Festival 1967

These are historic recordings in that Charles Lloyd was the first international artist to grace the stage at the inaugural Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967 and these are the tapes of that momentous event

Music • 26 Nov 19

Album review: Christy Moore - Magic Nights

Christy Moore returns in time for Christmas with a new live album featuring 26 tracks across two CDs which show that authentic voice in fine fettle still.