OVER 350 PERFORMANCES TAKING PLACE IN MORE THAN 60 VENUES: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF JAZZ

WELCOME

© 2014. Published on behalf of the EFG London Jazz Festival by Think, The Pall Mall Deposit, 124-128 Barlby Road, London W10 6BL020 8962 3020 www.thinkpublishing.co.uk

Account director Polly Arnold Senior account manager Marsha JacksonDeputy editor James PulfordManaging editorRica Dearman

Art directorDarren EndicottSenior designerFinn LewisDesignerAlix ThomasiCover illustrationNew Future Graphic

CITY-WISE AND CITY-WIDE – the 2014 EFG London Jazz Festival sets off on a global journey that brings 10 days of jazz in all its myriad forms, and from all corners of the planet. Crossing generations and cultures, this is a jazz festival that brings

together the artists who have shaped the music with the new talent that represents its future – and reaches out to audiences throughout London.

Alongside celebrations of the 75th year of that most iconic of jazz labels, Blue Note, and a focus on a 50-year story of jazz and South Africa, there are also heartfelt tributes to some of the artists who have defined jazz in the UK: John Stevens, Lindsay Cooper and Coleridge Goode, who reaches his century this year.

Senior jazz citizens such as Randy Weston and Kenny Barron continue to play at the height of their powers, rubbing shoulders with the next generation. Kris Bowers and JD Allen from the United States; Europeans Ibrahim Maalouf, Marcin Masecki and Hedvig Mollestad; and from this country Roller Trio, Trish Clowes and the Chaos Collective are all representative of a jazz scene that’s full of massive promise for the continuing evolution of this most inclusive and forward-looking of musics.

And of course these are only the tip of a very big iceberg. There’s much, much more, filling the city’s clubs and concert halls with live music – including 21 newly commissioned pieces of music – films, workshops and a wide range of events for young people, talks and panel sessions. You can read all about it here, and on the festival’s website efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk.

A very warm welcome from the EFG London Jazz Festival team.

IN THIS GUIDE

75 years of Blue Note

5

20 years of freedom8

The role of improvisation

Britain’s got talent

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12

EFG London Jazz Festival would like to thank the Wyndeham Group, printing partner of Think Publishing, for their sponsorship of this publication.

14 Clubs programme

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18

20

All eyes on surprise

Academic energy

Playtime

23 Festival listings

34 Q&A

SeriousFor the latest news about all Serious-produced shows, please visit www.serious.org.uk

Trish Clowes (top) represents the new generation at the festival, which also looks

back at 75 years of Blue Note and freedom-fighting South

African musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim (below)

On tour in early 2015: Ravi Coltrane, Konono No1,

Courtney Pine + Zoe Rahman, Richard Thompson,

The Hot Sardines, David Sanborn, Taraf de Haïdouks

Sign up at serious.org.uk/newsletter

to be the first to know

COMING UP FROM

ABDULLAH IBRAHIM

Sat 15 November LONDON Royal Festival Hall

Sun 16 November SAFFRON WALDEN Saffron Hall

Wed 19 November GATESHEAD Sage Gateshead

Thu 20 November LEEDS Howard Assembly Room

FRAZEY FORD

Thu 13 November GLASGOW Òran Mór

Fri 14 November GATESHEAD Caedmon Hall

Sun 16 November NOTTINGHAM The Maze

Tue 18 November BRISTOL Tunnels

Wed 19 November BIRMINGHAM Glee Club

Thu 20 November LONDON Cadogan Hall

Fri 21 November LEEDS Howard Assembly Room

KRIS BOWERS

Mon 17 November BIRMINGHAM Hare & Hounds

Wed 19 November LONDON XOYO

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

GATESHEAD INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL

10 – 12 April 2015

NORFOLK & NORWICH FESTIVAL

8 – 24 May 2015

LOVE SUPREME JAZZ FESTIVAL

3 – 5 July 2015

SOLD OUT

SOLD OUT

EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL 2015

Friday 13 – Sunday 22 November

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RICHARD HAVERS APPLAUDS THE ENDURING LEGACY OF THE LABEL THAT

GAVE THE WORLD ALBERT AMMONS, THELONIOUS MONK, SONNY ROLLINS

AND MANY MORE

BLUE NOTE IS LOVED, revered, respected and recognised as one of the most important record labels in the history of popular music. Founded in 1939 by Alfred Lion, who’d arrived in America a few years earlier having fled the Nazi regime in his native Germany,

Blue Note has blazed a trail of innovation in both music and design. For many, its catalogue of great albums is the holy grail of jazz.

It all began when Alfred Lion went to the Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall, where he saw Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis play fantastic blues piano. A few weeks later,

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Celebrating 75 years of

BLUENOTERECORDS

Blue Note founder Francis Wolff (left) was patnered by Alfred Lion, who took many of the label’s sleeve shots

WIN A LIMITED EDITION BLUE NOTE RECORDS75th ANNIVERSARY POSTER

Each poster features classic Blue Note album artwork. Hand numbered, very limited, not available for individual

purchase and printed on 170gsm, A1 (4’ X 3’) paper(see left)

Every day, we will be picking five lucky Blue Note winnersduring the EFG London Jazz Festival

(14th – 23rd Nov 2014)

Just TWEET #londonbluenote75 with your favourite Blue Note artist, album, track or a picture of an LP/CD sleeveand be in with the chance to receive this beautiful large print

Prize sent to UK postal addresses only. Other T&Cs apply.Please visit www.decca.com/londonbluenote75 for further details

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G&T theAdnams way...

Award-winning Adnams Gin, served with a wheel of lime.

Cool, fresh and crisp.

Fancy a refreshing Adnams tipple? Head to the Gin Joint at the Barbican.

adnams.co.uk

Best Gin in the World!

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in January 1939, Lion booked a studio. He agreed to pay Ammons and Lewis for their time and took along a bottle of whiskey to lubricate the pianists’ fingers.

Later, while listening back to the 19 sides in his apartment, Lion knew the music deserved a wider audience: ‘I decided to make some pressings and go into the music business.’

The first 78rpm singles by Lewis and Ammons came out in March 1939 and sold for $1.50 each.

Musical manifestoAnother key figure in launching the label was Max Margulis, a writer and voice coach.

Lion understood the importance of marketing and, in May 1939, Margulis wrote the label’s manifesto.

Its message remains a guiding principle for Don Was, the label’s current president: ‘Blue Note Records are designed to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz or swing. Direct and honest hot jazz is a way of feeling – a musical and social manifestation, and Blue Note Records are concerned with identifying

its impulse, not its sensational and commercial adornments.’

In 1947, Lion and Francis Wolff met Thelonious Monk, who recorded his first sides as a leader for Blue Note.

Wolff was another exile from Germany. He became Lion’s partner and took the evocative photographs that graced so many of the Blue Note albums.

A few months later Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers made their first Blue Note recording. Before long, other bopsters joined the label: Howard McGhee, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly and Miles Davis, along with Horace Silver and the brilliant Clifford Brown.

By mid-1953 Blue Note began to use Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. This was a key step in making Blue Note recordings sound so good.

Recording moved to the studio of Rudy Van Gelder (left) in 1953; Art Blakey (right) joined the line-up shortly after Thelonious Monk

Blue Note’s illustrious back catalogue will be celebrated with a series of events at the Barbican and Southbank Centre (opposite)

Jimmy Smith marked a bold

and idiosyncratic change of direction

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Throughout the rest of the 1950s the list of Blue Note artists was consistently impressive: Lou Donaldson, JJ Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Burrell, Hank Mobley, Curtis Fuller and John Coltrane, whose one Blue Note album, Blue Train, is one of his finest. By the early 1960s they were joined by The Three Sounds, Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy Reece, Jackie McLean, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Dexter Gordon, Tina Brooks and Grant Green.

Lion’s unique combination of intuition, consideration, single-mindedness and, most of all, his innate sense of class, resulted in Blue Note releasing some of the greatest jazz records ever made. Jimmy Smith blazed an idiosyncratic trail and, alongside musicians of the calibre of Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Tony Williams, Don Cherry, Larry Young and Ornette Coleman, the pantheon of Blue Note jazz was added to immeasurably.

In May 1966, Liberty Records purchased Lion’s

26-year-old record label, but Lion struggled to get to grips with the big company ethos and retired. By 1970 Blue Note and jazz in general was finding it tough. Donald Byrd, who had been with the label since 1956, began taking his music in a new direction. While some audiences didn’t like it, there was definitely public acceptance.

In a similar vein, Bobbi Humphrey, Ronnie Laws and Marlena Shaw made records that sold well enough to make the charts and many records from this era inspired the Acid Jazz and hip-hop movements that followed.

New dawnDuring the early 1980s, after a hiatus when Blue Note lay dormant, the label was resurrected. Bobby McFerrin and US3, with their sampling of Thelonious Monk, Donald Byrd, Art Blakey and Horace Silver, helped jazz to reach a whole new market. During the label’s seventh decade, along came Norah Jones.

Some claimed it wasn’t jazz at all, but does it really matter? Her debut won eight Grammy Awards and marked a shift in emphasis for Blue Note Records.

By the second decade of the 21st century, under Don Was’s leadership, Blue Note has entered a new era of ‘uncompromising expression’.

The variety and integrity of the music is testament to Was’s creative strategy. Any label that can comfortably release Robert Glasper, José James, Jason Moran, Gregory Porter, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, Rosanne Cash, and Derrick

Hodge alongside one another has to be taken seriously.

If ‘uncompromising expression’ needs further definition, here it is: ‘Just do it. You don’t have to describe it,’ says Was. ‘It’s a great contribution to society to make great records.’

And that’s exactly what Blue Note has done for 75 years.

Can you dig it?

When and whereDon’t miss these events inspired by Blue Note’s celebrated back catalogue.Details of all performances can be found at www.efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk

The Connection (screening preceded by Nathaniel Facey performance)SUNDAY 16 NOVEMBERBarbican, Cinema 1, 3pm

Nathaniel Facey SUNDAY 16 NOVEMBERBarbican FreeStage 5.30pm FREE

Marcus Miller + Tony Remy’s Stolen Clones FRIDAY 21 NOVEMBERSouthbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, 7.30pm

Blue Note at 75 – Don Was meets Richard HaversSATURDAY 22 NOVEMBERSouthbank Centre, Level 5 Function Room, 6pm FREE

Celebrating 75 years of Blue Note; Robert Glasper & Jason Moran, and Robert Glasper with Ambrose Akinmusire, Derrick Hodge, Kendrick Scott, Lionel Loueke and Marcus Strickland SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBERSouthbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, 7.30pm

Charles Lloyd – Wild Man Suite + Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas: Sound Prints SUNDAY 23 NOVEMBERBarbican, 7.30pm

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Norah Jones brought a new audience to Blue Note

Richard Havers is the author of Uncompromising Expression. The Finest in Jazz Since 1939, published by Thames and Hudson