Jazz On The Beach 89
Jazz On The Beach 89
Ben Sidran at Ronnie Scott's, jazz radio from Deal
On Tuesday evening I went to see one of my favourite artists whose music and books I’ve been following for fifty years - the pianist, singer and writer Ben Sidran, who was playing at Ronnie Scott’s for one night only. He’d arrived in London that afternoon on the Eurostar from shows in Paris with his band, drummer (and son) Leo Sidran, double bassist Billy Peterson and tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza. They performed two terrific sets of repertoire taken from some of his recent albums that mostly look at life from an ‘old hipster’s perspective’ but always sticking to his mantra of ‘making you feel better when you leave than when you came in.’ It was a wonderful evening - inspirational, entertaining, life affirming and it swung like crazy.
Update: I’ve written a review of the gig for London Jazz News - here’s the link
For this week’s playlist I’ve included the title track from Sidran’s latest album Swing State (Unlimited Media 2022) and I Might Be Wrong from the album Picture Him Happy (Unlimited Media 2017). I played Don’t Cry For No Hipster a month ago and Laura only two weeks ago. But am making no apologies, if you don’t like this man’s music you probably have a hole in your soul.
There’s some wonderful new music on the playlist this week including the Paris-based Cuban-born pianist Harold López-Nussa’s Funky from Timba a la Americana (Blue Note), the wonderfully titled Eat Dessert First by Kaisa’s Machine from Taking Shape (Greenleaf Music) led by Finnish double bassist Kaisa Mäensivu now resident in New York City, which is also the home of trombonist Reginald Chapman with Hearing is Seeing from Accretion (Fresh Selects), while closer to home there's Figuring by Manchester based pianist Matt Wilde from Hello World (Band On The Wall Records).
The big jazz news story of the week is the recently discovered John Coltrane live recordings from 1961 at The Village Gate, which were apparently made as a test of the club’s new sound system and were found in the sound archives of the Library for the Performing Arts. Included on this week’s playlist is an incandescent version of Impressions featuring the quartet plus saxophonist Eric Dolphy. The album will be released as Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy in July by Impulse!
And also this week…a fantastic Argentinian big band cut, El Grito (The Scream) from El Grito: Suita para Orquesta de Jazz (CBS 1967) by Jorge López-Ruiz featuring alto saxophonist Mario Consentino. there's baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne’s Flying Fish from Zodiac (The Music of Cecil Payne) (Strata East 1973) and guitarists Herb Ellis and Remo Palmier’s The Night Has a Thousand Eyes from Windflower (Concord Jazz 1978).
Listen to this week’s Jazz On The Beach on Mixcloud - here’s the link
Radio Times
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