MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
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Best of 2019: Jazz
FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi
PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
The three most powerful gigs of 2019 were all at this year's London Jazz Festival, beginning with veteran British bassist Barry Guy’s Purcell Room concert The Blue Shroud, a musical reflection on Picasso’s great anti-fascist mural Guernica.
At the UN in 2003, a blue curtain was hung over the tapestry reproduction of the painting while US Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined the US and British invasion of Iraq. Guy’s 71-minute contemplation was marked by his 14-piece orchestra radiating a hymnal melodic beauty and moments of rapture, horror and defiance.
Percy Pursglove’s haunting, breathy opening trumpet chorus, Maya Homberger’s rhapsodic violin, the truculent drums of Lucas Niggli and Ramon Lopez and Agusti Fernandez’s resonant piano all gave sonic reality to Picasso’s warscape so that sound and image held the same urgent truth.
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Re-releases from Bobby Wellins/Kenny Wheeler Quintet, Larry Stabbins/Keith Tippet/Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Charles Mingus Quintet
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ethiopian vocalist SOFIA JERNBERG
