ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
HEARING the Bolton-bred clarinettist Arun Ghosh and his quintet, live again at the Vortex in Dalston, with the communal sounds directly outside the venue of Gillett Square’s talkers, declaimers, drinkers, skateboarders, eaters and dominoes virtuosi accompanying every note they created, was a wonderfully restorative musical post-pandemic experience.
They were playing tunes from their new album Seclused in Light. The beautiful melodism of Surrender to the Sea and Sister Green and the rampaging Sidney Bechet-like verve and rhythmic upsurge of cityscape sounds like Fiveways and Hanji!, fused in a surge of now-times sonic vision which made the heart and brain of Dalston shudder with joy.
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
Re-releases from Bobby Wellins/Kenny Wheeler Quintet, Larry Stabbins/Keith Tippet/Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Charles Mingus Quintet
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to saxophonist and retired NHS orthopaedic surgeon ART THEMEN
Chris Searle speaks to saxophonist XHOSA COLE and US tap-dancer LIBERTY STYLES



