After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
Eric Reed
Groovewise
(Smoke)
IN MAY 1952 and again in August 1958, the great singer, actor and cultural militant Paul Robeson, having been denied a passport by his own US government and confined within the boundaries of the world’s most powerful imperial nation, gave historic concerts on the back of a flat-bed truck in Blaine, Washington state, under the Peace Arch, a few feet from the Canadian border.
He sang across the US/British Columbia frontier which he was forbidden to cross, to 40,000 US and Canadian citizens in a unique and defiant performance of international solidarity.
I thought of these momentous events and Robeson singing Joe Hill, No More Auction Block or Ol’ Man River as I listened to the first very evocative track, Powerful Paul Robeson on the live album by the Philadelphia-born (in 1970) pianist Eric Reed and his quartet, recorded at New York’s Smoke Jazz Club in 2014, and called Groovewise.
As part of the 2025 London Jazz Festival Rich Mix offered intriguing sessions titled 'Persian Jazz,' CHRIS SEARLE was there
Chris Searle speaks to saxophonist XHOSA COLE and US tap-dancer LIBERTY STYLES



