Bobby Wellins is 70 this year and to celebrate the occasion Peter Vacher chews the fat with Bobby, hearing the great tenor player’s tales of early days back in Glasgow, high jinks with Buddy Featherstonehaugh, great music with Stan Tracey and the highs and lows of drug addiction and what has often been a tough life playing jazz
Acoustic Triangle has quietly championed a back to basics approach in playing totally acoustically, melding jazz and classical music and, while hardly raving in the nave, completed a tour of concerts in sacred places up and down the country. Stuart Nicholson finds out what’s ahead for the trio of Malcolm Creese, Tim Garland and Gwilym Simcock as they release their latest album Resonance
As the world reels from a series of natural disasters and powerful
international leaders dither dangerously on the issue of climate change, many
jazz artists fear for the safety of the planet. Kevin Le Gendre hears how the
legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders is both concerned for the future of Mother
Nature yet continually inspired by the environment while the adventurous
trumpeter Byron Wallen explains how the earth provides magical sounds that are
beyond the reach of man-made instruments.
When Stuart Nicholson’s biography of Billie Holiday was published in the
USA it was nominated a "Notable Book of the Year" by The New York Times Review
of Books and praised by Pulitzer Prize winner for Music, composer Ned Norem, for
its musical insights. Here, prompted by the release of Verve’s Billie Holiday:
The Complete Verve Studio Master Takes, Nicholson reflects on the enduring
artistry of the singer they called Lady Day, talks about how he discovered some
of the previously unknown facts he discovered researching her life and discusses
the sensational conclusion he came to after his book was published.
‘With the passing of Shirley Horn, who was born in 1934, an era ended.
She was the last in line of jazz’s great female vocalists from its Golden Era’,
says Stuart Nicholson. In a previously unpublished interview he made with her in
Paris he pays tribute to Shirley Horn and looks back on her career and recorded
legacy.