(Impulse!) British jazz star Shabaka Hutchings drops the sax for reeds and flutes on an album exploring fear, courage and the power of breathwork Typical: you wait ages for a flute album from a musician famous for other things, and then two come along almost at once. Hot on the exhale of rapper André 3000’s New Blue Sun, released last November, comes another exploratory redefinition, this time from British sax phenomenon Shabaka Hutchings. André 3000 guests here. Hutchings stepped away from the saxophone at the end of 2023. Since the pandemic, this maven of the London jazz renaissance has been ..read more

Chronicler of San Francisco’s now-vanished Fillmore district who studied under Ansel Adams turned his lens on his people David Johnson saved a portrait he took as a teen of his younger brother and a relative while they were growing up in segregated Florida in the 1940s. Johnson, who was the only person who could read and write in his household, knew nothing about photography then, he recalled in 2017, but something told him that one day he would be a photographer ..read more

(ACT) Harmonica star Maret and pianist/composer Collin pay homage to Ennio Morricone with drifting church-echo and trancelike sounds Ornette Coleman once told the BBC’s Jazz on 3 that when his mother Rosa gave him his first saxophone, but couldn’t afford lessons, he thought it was a toy and played it without realising “you have to learn something to find out what the toy does”. Maybe it’s an extreme case, but not an unfamiliar jazz story. Collisions of improvisers’ whims and formal and informal learning drove ghetto prodigy trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s trailblazing timing, dynamics and rhythmic ..read more

From elephant blasts to spiritual jazz, Wynton Marsalis’s concerto is a history of the world in trumpet form. As she prepares to give the UK premiere, Balsom describes the thrill of playing it When I tell people I’m a trumpet soloist, there are three kinds of response I usually get: “Wow, what a great job!”, “Isn’t that unusual for a woman?” And “That’s jazz, right?” And it is a great job, the best in the world, if not always the easiest when you consider you have to master hundreds of the tiniest muscles around your mouth, perfectly align your breath control and musical goals, and hold your n ..read more

American jazz drummer known as a refined, quietly sparkling stylist who teamed up with his siblings to form the Heath Brothers The drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, who has died aged 88, was a member of one of the most distinguished American jazz families. Where the Detroit scene had its Joneses (the brothers Thad, Hank and Elvin) and New Orleans its Marsalises (Ellis and his sons Wynton, Branford, Jason and Delfeayo), Philadelphia had the Heaths. Albert, universally known since childhood as Tootie, was the youngest of the three brothers who would each go on to be awarded the status of Jazz Maste ..read more

(Self-released) The UK-based French folk singer embellishes her trad leanings with sultry blues and upbeat swing on a poignant and poetic second album Her 2020 debut, Numberless Dreams, introduced Bristol-based French singer Julie Abbé as an artist steeped in Irish and English folk with a telling way with WB Yeats poems. The album closed with Yeats’s celebrated line: “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” Someone has clearly trampled over Abbé’s since. She frames this second outing as “a full cycle of love, celebrating the beauty of what once was, and honouring the different stages of ..read more

(Native Rebel Recordings)The latest album in an exciting wave of experimental north Indian classical music enlists Shabaka Hutchings and Leafcutter John in its downtempo quietude The intricate vocal acrobatics of north Indian classical music have been fertile ground for exciting fusions in recent years. Singer Arooj Aftab’s delicate variations of Urdu poetry have provided the perfect accompaniment for ambient synth soundscapes and sweeping strings on 2021’s Vulture Prince and 2023’s Love in Exile, while US vocalist Sheherazaad’s 2024 debut Qasr found harmony in Hindi lyrics and finger-picked S ..read more

(Blue Note)The octogenarian joyfully whispers and warbles his way through sublime tone poems, impassioned tributes and traditional spirituals with an all-star band Charles Lloyd is the last man standing of an inspired 1950s American saxophone generation, which included his late friends and contemporaries John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and the now-retired Sonny Rollins. He once recalled to the Guardian that the free-jazz visionary Coleman had told him in 1956: “Man, you sure can play the saxophone, but that don’t have a lot to do with music.” Lloyd has been searching the world’s songs for t ..read more

The American poet and musician’s new album The Great Bailout tracks the money given to British slaveowners – including David Cameron’s ancestors. She explains why she is pessimistic about getting true justice ‘The aftermath of enslavement just doesn’t wash away with bleach. It doesn’t wash away with new buildings. It doesn’t wash away with so-called diversity and representation.” The voice of poet and musician Camae Ayewa, known as Moor Mother, commands your whole attention even over a video call. Within minutes of connecting with her, it’s clear that when she speaks, she does so not to impres ..read more

(Spiritmuse) The Chicago drummer’s collective add strings to their loose, laid-back groove, making for a subtly powerful listen Over the past 50 years, Chicago drummer Kahil El’Zabar has been at the forefront of the avant garde in jazz. He has collaborated with the trumpeters Don Cherry and Dizzy Gillespie and provided percussion for stars such as Stevie Wonder, but it is with his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble that El’Zabar has found himself most free. Across their 15 albums he has tapped into west African polyrhythms, meditative ambience and soaring spirituality, producing a signature swing that i ..read more