STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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‘It’s about finding something we didn’t know existed before’
Saxophonist ALAN WILKINSON talks to Chris Searle about the liberating power of jazz improvisation
Free spirit: Alan Wilkinson
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
“AT THE age of 14 I saw Jimi Hendrix and it changed my life.” Surprising words, perhaps, from a baritone saxophonist steeped in free jazz improvisation.
Not so. He recalls his sailor eldest brother who used to bring home instruments from his travels and that’s when Alan Wilkinson first picked up a guitar.
At Leeds College of Art he “pursued painting with a passion” until he became disillusioned with the idea of producing “objects for the bourgeois market.” Gradually, music took over and he began listening to US jazzmen like Coltrane, Shepp and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. But it was hearing Peter Brotzmann with the Globe Unity Orchestra that had a huge effect.
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