The first names set to play next year's Maiden Voyage festival have been announced.
Run by the team behind Camden's Jazz Cafe, the festival - which takes in techno, house, jazz, hip-hop and more - makes its return to Lee Valley Park in North London on the Bank Holiday Sunday of 28th August 2022.
A new short film series from audio design company AIAIAI and DJ Benji B aims to give insight into artists’ creative process.
The series, titled My Process, is curated by Radio 1’s Benji B and has launched with an episode featuring London jazz innovator Nubya Garcia, whose 2020 LP ‘Source’ was nominated in the Best Album category at DJ Mag’s Best of British Awards.
The episode gives a look into Garcia’s writing and performance techniques, using examples of tracks from ‘Source’ to discuss her approach to melody, arrangement and creativity.
Over the last decade, Korean pop, a.k.a. K-Pop, has taken the Western world by storm. K-Pop draws influences from numerous genres from around the globe such as hip-hop, pop, EDM, R&B, jazz, house and more and blends this infectious fusion with catchy hooks and flawless dance routines. Even if you’ve never heard of K-Pop as a genre, it’s likely you’ve heard of the global phenomenon, BTS.
‘Boulevard’, the 1995 debut album from Parisian producer Ludovic Navarre — aka St Germain — was by no means the first time jazz had mixed with house. Larry Heard, to name just one artist, was making those connections years earlier. But it was perhaps the first time the mixture had felt so downright inevitable. ‘Boulevard’ is one of those rare records that makes everything sound easy: An album that revolutionized the perception of French music, consummated the union between house and jazz, and spawned a million weakling copies.
‘Boulevard’ created waves in France and beyond. America may have initially looked the other way— the album wasn’t even released there until 2002 — but the UK, then in the middle of an acid jazz splurge, flipped for the album’s Parisian cool, with it topping dance magazine Muzik’s albums of the year list ahead of Goldie’s ‘Timeless’. This may seem unremarkable now. But in those days, British attitudes to French music often fell somewhere between willing ignorance and downright contempt.
Gilles Peterson is starting a new label, Arc Records. Set to launch in the new year, it will focus on "curiosities and gems from the basement".
The first release will be a three-track jazz record, Tino Contreras' 'Musica Infinita', landing on 10th January 2020. The reissue was originally released back in 1978, and comes with something of a personal backstory for the Worldwide FM founder.
Bristol contemporary jazz and electronic outfit Ishmael Ensemble will release their debut LP, ‘A State of Flow’ on 3rd May.
Following a banner year in 2018, saxophonist and band leader Peter Cunningham moves Ishmael Ensemble forward from its beloved ‘Severn Songs’ series, and sees the six-piece outfit and collaborators championing the UK’s thriving contemporary jazz sound while simultaneously keeping in step with experimental and inventive electronic tropes.
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ANNA LANN
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TIBASKO
DANIELLE
VLADIMIR DUBYSHKIN
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