New Music Features
2022 Parliamentary Jazz Awards: baubles, bromides and birthdaysThursday, 07 July 2022
The winners of this year's Parliamentary Jazz Awards were announced at a convivial ceremony held on Tuesday night at Pizza Express Live Holborn. Organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group (APPJAG), and co-chaired by John Spellar MP and Lord Mann, the Awards celebrate the vibrancy, diversity, talent, and breadth of the jazz scene throughout the UK. Read more... |
The superstar, the Svengali and a rising young talentMonday, 20 June 2022
I'm at the New Theatre in Oxford. Elvis Costello is playing through the final stages of his 2022 UK tour. The venue is full of memories: I saw The Kinks and Tom Jones here in the 1960s and then The Who in the early 70s. Read more... |
Clubbing with the Stones: Live at El MocamboWednesday, 11 May 2022
In a little over two week’s time, the three remaining ones will kick-start their 60th year as The Rolling Stones by taking to the stage at a stadium on the edge of Madrid on June 1, around the same time that Elizabeth Windsor marks her own @70 jubilee across the UK. Read more... |
First Person: Harpist Rachel Newton on creating music to accompany two well-loved books celebrating nature, poetry and magicThursday, 16 December 2021
I am fortunate to be one of the musicians involved in Spell Songs, a musical companion piece to both The Lost Words and The Lost Spells by acclaimed author Robert Macfarlane and award-winning illustrator and author Jackie Morris. Read more... |
10 Questions for musician and DJ Pete TongFriday, 03 December 2021
Perhaps appropriately, when I called Pete Tong for his 10 questions I was hungover, on the phone in a park after a night at a very good party. It’s a sign of the times that things are appearing to return to a relative normal, despite the threat of Omnicron and a precipitant winter lockdown. Read more... |
K-Music 2021: striking the right note for musical fusionWednesday, 06 October 2021
It’s been eight years since the first K-Music landed in London, courtesy the Korean Cultural Centre UK, along with world, folk and jazz concert producers Serious. Read more... |
Out of the shadows: Dylan’s Eighties reappraisedSaturday, 11 September 2021
Dylan’s 1980s weren’t great in terms of critical acclaim. As an emerging new fan, I knew that first hand from the scathing reviews accorded Shot of Love by the British music press when it was released in the summer of 1981, it seemed about as welcome as a door-knocking Jehovah’s Witness first thing on a Sunday morning. Read more... |
10 Questions for Harry Grafton of Red Rooster FestivalWednesday, 14 July 2021
Harry Grafton (b. 1978) is the preferred title of Henry Fitzroy, 12th Duke of Grafton, custodian of Euston Hall in Suffolk and the man behind the Red Rooster Festival. Read more... |
An Oral History of Glastonbury Festival 1992Thursday, 24 June 2021
There is never one Glastonbury Festival. There are as many Glastonbury Festivals as there are people who attend. Thus it ever was, even back in 1992 when the capacity was only 70,000 (plus multitudinous fence-jumpers!). Read more... |
Glastonbury Festival: Live at Worthy Farm livestream review - glitched access upstages beautifully shot live footageTuesday, 25 May 2021
INTERLUDE 1: INVALID CODE-AGEDDON 6.45 PM on Saturday 22nd May and all is well. Like tens of thousands of others across the UK (or maybe even more?) my wall flatscreen is tuned to Glastonbury’s livestream. Prior to the event itself promos for Water Aid and the like roll by, the kind usually on the huge screens beside the Pyramid Stage at the festival. Read more... |
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