Jazzwise

Welcome to the UK’s biggest selling jazz monthly. Jazzwise has been at the heart of the global jazz scene since the magazine’s launch in 1997, changing the way jazz publications look and think for the last two decades, with a stunning editorial and design package that reaches out worldwide to both the new jazz audience and established fans – qualities that have led to it winning Jazz Publication of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, the Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Awards and the Jazz FM Awards.

Jazzwise

NEWS • For the latest breaking news visit www.jazzwise.com

Sullivan Fortner named first-ever recipient of prestigious new international jazz award

Soweto Kinch and LSO partner to premiere new work at the Barbican

Editor’s Note

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra’s fest returns with a global focus

INCOMING!– SCORCHING NEW RELEASES LEGGING IT INTO THE JAZZWISE INBOX…

BACK IN THE DAY…

FUTURE MOVERS

SARATHY KORWAR TAKES 5 • The percussionist and drummer selects the albums he can’t live without…

Jazzfest Berlin 2025 to feature 120 musicians with shows including Wadada Leo Smith with Vijay Iyer, Mary Halvorson’s Amaryllis Sextet and the Fire! Orchestra

85 YEARS AGO…CHARLIE CHRISTIAN

Hermeto Pascoal: 22/06/1936 – 13/09/2025

Danny Thompson: 04/04/1939 – 23/09/2025

Charting the Jazz Message/November 2025

JAZZ AT THE PHIL… IN KILBURN! • Former Melody Maker scribe Chris Welch remembers an era when promoter Norman Granz brought American jazz giants to Britain with his unique package shows under the banner of Jazz At The Philharmonic. Chris saw all he could afford when tickets cost ten bob and the programmes were two shillings. Now, read on…

THE WORLD COMES TO LONDON • Ahead of this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, Ammar Kalia speaks to festival director Pelin Opcin breaking down stylistic barriers and pushing the envelopee

Upstairs at Ronnie’s to reopen as revamped 140-capacity venue

Evans/LaFaro studio recordings get the mega-box treatment

Never mind the Balearics… • …Here’s Marco Mezquida! In advance of a headlining gig at the EFG London Jazz Festival, Tony Benjamin meets the up-and-coming Menorcan piano wizard

Sing, sing, sing! • Despite his enormous influence on jazz’s current crop of singers, Mark Murphy is in danger of being forgotten a decade after his untimely death. It’s time to celebrate his life, talent and work, argues Peter Jones

HIGH FIVE TO THE FUTURE! • Two decades in, and the Take Five artist development scheme, run by live music producer Serious, has nurtured hundreds of young musicians. With a headline concert as part of this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, marking 20 years of this evolution of UK jazz, Kevin Le Gendre speaks to Take Five alumni Shabaka Hutchings and Camilla George, and former course leader John Surman, about the importance of championing jazz’s stars of the future

Surman’s view

Come swing with us! • The Jazz Repertory Company returns to the EFG London Jazz Festival with Pete Long’s 40-piece orchestra, celebrating the music of the 1950s and 60s and the songs made famous by Sinatra, Billie and Ella with four stellar guest vocalists. Alyn Shipton speaks to bandleader/conductor Pete Long and drummer Richard Pite about the intricacies of this swingin’ celebration

Afro-Celts MEET THE ROLLING STONES • Val Wilmer recalls how a journeyman Welsh dancer encouraged a group of black Cardiffians in the 1930s. With rare photographs from her collection

Blues for the Duke • With Figure in Blue, his latest album for the Blue Note label, the ever-youthful (he’s 87) Charles Lloyd dives deeper into the trio format with Jason Moran and Marvin Sewell, to create his own poetic salute to the majestic music of Duke Ellington. Stuart...