Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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Salute to Duke Ellington, Cafe Oto London
Pat Thomas pays memorable tribute to the ‘Duke’
True genius: Duke Ellington in 1971
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
APRIL 29 was the 120th anniversary of the birth of Edward “Duke” Ellington, the greatest American orchestral innovator of the last century and commemorating his genius on solo piano at this gig is marvellous Antigua-rooted pianist, Pat Thomas.
For Thomas, Ellington is the epitome of jazz and all creative music and he himself has built a reputation for his brilliant free improvisation excursions with confrere Orphy Robinson.
Yet here he is both in the tradition yet simultaneously beyond it. He begins with Prelude to a Kiss and the hammer blows of his chords combine huge manual effort with gentle and serene melody.
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