MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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‘Jazz has always been a music of resistance in the way it reacts to the turbulence of its times’
CHRIS SEARLE in conversation with jazz guitar maestro Rob Luft
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
ROB LUFT is a brilliant young Sidcup-born jazz guitarist who proudly told me: “I share my birthday with Jimi Hendrix!” He began learning guitar at six and as a boy was immersed in an eclectic storm of music. “I loved the 1990s grunge rock bands like Nirvana, yet very early on I was playing the blues of Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker.”
His guitar teacher took him to hear his first jazz gig, with the Allan Holdsworth Trio: “I'll never forget hearing Holdsworth's virtuosity right up close at such a young age,” he remembered.
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