Jazz In Britain

30/10/2025

Imagine if you could travel back in time… to nearly 40 years ago… to a studio in Hannover… and there before you was a full symphony orchestra… but with a jazz pianist… and a jazz saxophone soloist… playing compositions written and arranged by that pianist…

And imagine that the pianist/composer was John Taylor… and that the soloist was Stan Sulzmann… and that the conductor was Dieter Glawischnig…

Well, you don’t have to imagine anymore! As Jazz In Britain will be releasing a recording of this remarkable occasion in the new year… it’s all licensed… all the consents have been secured… we just need to get the sleeve notes written and the cover designed etc…

This will be legendary…

(NDR logo used with permission)

29/10/2025

Read Stewart Smith's preview in The Quietus of the EFG London Jazz Festival which includes an interview with Neil Charles about his 'Dark Days' project...

EFG London Jazz Festival returns this November with ten days of concerts across concert halls and clubs, churches and community spaces. Next to more tightly curated European festivals like Berlin or Wrocław’s Jazztopad, London can feel a little impersonal. Yet the sheer range and depth of the fes...

29/10/2025

Review of: Northumbrian Blues: The Lost World of Big Pete Deuchar: Volume 1: 1933-60 on the Bebop Spoken Here blog:

https://lance-bebopspokenhere.blogspot.com/2025/10/book-review-northumbrian-blues-lost.html

29/10/2025

'Colin Harper’s book is more than a sparky musical biography: it is an invaluable piece of social and cultural history of a post-war era when live “traditional jazz” crowded into teenage hearts and consciousnesses in its own very British way...'

Northumbrian Blues: The Lost World of Big Pete Deuchar reviewed by Chris Searle in the Morning Star today...

Northumbrian Blues: The Lost World of Big Pete DeucharColin Harper, Jazz in Britain Publications, £13WHEN this book arrived, I first of all flicked through the photographs of the protagonist and his cohorts from the early 1960s. There he was, snapped in 1961, playing banjo with Dick Charlesworth’...

29/10/2025

The Ambrosia Rasputin Show on Resonance FM: Freewheeling music series with Ivor Kallin. This week's show features edited highlights from the Mopomoso International Free Improvised Music event at the Vortex in August. Plus new releases from Mike Cooper and Gordon Beck (on Jazz In Britain).

The Ambrosia Rasputin Show by Resonance FM

28/10/2025

Jazz In Britain has created a Bandcamp presence for our very good friend Ben Crosland and his Jazz Cat Records. It went live this afternoon with the first two albums released on the label… with both available as downloads for the first time ever… but also as physical CDs. And we will be adding more albums over the coming months.

So, please head on over to Ben’s page, take a look, and grab these albums featuring Alan Skidmore or Jim Mullen:

https://jazzcatrecords.bandcamp.com/

Here’s some background on Jazz Cat and its first two releases:

Jazz Cat Records was founded by Ben Crosland in 1995. Since then, many leading UK and International artists, including Alan Skidmore, Jim Mullen, Steve Waterman, Mark Nightingale, Steve Lodder, John Etheridge, Martin Shaw, Barnaby Dickinson, Dave O’Higgins, Theo Travis, Alan Barnes, Chris Allard and Dylan Howe, have recorded on the label.

2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Jazz Cat Records and to celebrate that milestone, the label is beginning the process of remastering its catalogue and making it available on Bandcamp. The first two albums to be remastered are The Northern Run JCCD 101 by The Ben Crosland Quintet with special guest Alan Skidmore and Spread the Word JCCD 102 by The Adrian Ingram/Ben Crosland Quartet featuring Jim Mullen and Eryl Roberts.

Skidmore’s association with the Quintet began in 1992 when they joined forces at the first Marsden Jazz Festival and lasted for a decade as they played many jazz clubs across the north. Two recording sessions in 1993 and 1995 produced The Northern Run.

‘Skid is hard-edged but muscularly lyrical, Ingram warm and ingratiating with his gentle, swinging contributions and the other two saxophonists softer, more rounded in their choruses. Add the firm foundation provided by bassist leader Crosland and the two drummers and you have a very fine band’. Derek Ansell, Jazz Journal International.

Crosland and Ingram worked with Jim Mullen several times during the late 80s and early 90s and their musical compatibility was confirmed during a performance together at the Marsden Jazz Festival in 1995. That led to two sessions in 1995 and 1996 along with leading drummer Eryl Roberts that became Spread the Word.

‘The style is familiar but that doesn’t prevent Crosland the composer from springing surprises. His compositions are colourful, beguiling and thoroughly musical. He also has on side two of the country’s finest guitarists. Jim Mullen is the star attraction and is on typically ebullient form but the less well known Adrian Ingram is a revelation…the leader and drummer do sterling service out back and the result is a record which should please and impress any fan of the Montgomery/Grant Green lineage.’ Mark Gilbert, Jazz Journal International.

Jazz Cat Records was founded by Ben Crosland in 1995. Albums featuring some of the best known names on the British and International jazz scene have been released during the years that followed. Jazz Cat remains a very active label and continues to produce and promote recorded jazz.

27/10/2025

The Birmingham concert (disc 3 of the Mujician 'In Concerts' album) was played on Peter Badore's show on Wayo FM yesterday...

WAYO is a free-form, low-power station in Rochester, NY providing diverse and idiosyncratic arts and cultural programming.

26/10/2025

Very fortuitous that Art Themen was playing last night about 6 miles down the road from Jazz In Britain headquarters… as it gave us the opportunity to discuss an impending album release that he’s on and that he’ll be writing sleeve notes for once all the music is sorted out.

And we talked about a possible gig involving Art in a year or so… but this has to remain ‘secret’ until the new year when the ‘members of the committee’ convene.

All we can say is that the album is an expanded version of this… and, if it happens, the concert will have something to do with it!

PS as I posted this, I released we were photobombed by Ben Crosland!

24/10/2025

Subject to the necessary consents… a live compilation, one CDs-worth of music, related to these albums… combined with two more CDs from bands led by this brilliant bass player… should be on the Jazz In Britain horizon in the not too distant…

The compilation will feature a track called Idle Monday (which is an anagram of Lydian Mode… and that’s a clue to where we’re going next) written by Bold Len Hernia and played by Snortty Bore, Mad Luna Paul, Oyly Barge, Trendi Hedjehog & Stompy No Hands…

Note to self… must ring Tony Roberts tomorrow (he’s on every track on the mooted album)…

22/10/2025

This a 'must have' so I've just pre-ordered my personal, ie John Thurlow', copy... and the sharp-eyed among you might just realise that we previewed one track from this on the CDs that accompanied Duncan Heining's 'And Did Those Feet' book of six musical biographies... which included... Mike Westbrook...

13 track album

21/10/2025

Pay Now, Live Later from Gordon Beck's new album on Jazz In Britain played on Peter Badore's Other Aspects show in Rochester, NY at the weekend... listen from 2:22...

WAYO is a free-form, low-power station in Rochester, NY providing diverse and idiosyncratic arts and cultural programming.

18/10/2025

We’re very happy / proud / sad / devastated * to announce that we’ve sold out of the Mujician ‘In Concerts’ CD that hasn’t even been released yet!

The pre-orders, the necessary ‘complimentary’ copies, and the orders from resellers who got in quick have accounted for all of the stock already!

There are no copies to send to reviewers!

Thank you everyone who has bought a copy. If you didn’t pre-order a physical CD copy, you’ll have to make do with a digital download: https://jazzinbritain1.bandcamp.com/album/in-concerts

* delete as appropriate, ie if you were successful in scoring a copy!

4 track album