The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
Abbey Lincoln
Sophisticated Abbey
(High Note)
Abbey Lincoln was born Anna Marie Wooldridge in Chicago in 1930. She began her career in song as a supper-club singer and later as a film performer (singing in the 1957 Hollywood film The Girl Can’t Help It).
Then in the same year she met and later married the great bop drummer Max Roach, and together they were swept into the civil rights campaign and together recorded two highly conscious albums: We Insist! The Freedom Now Suite (1960) and Percussion Bitter Sweet (1961), and she spent the rest of her life as a brilliantly radical singer proving through her singular artistry that the woman could certainly help it.
CHRIS SEARLE urges you to listen to two new albums by the US Indian pianist VIJAY IYER
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
As part of the 2025 London Jazz Festival Rich Mix offered intriguing sessions titled 'Persian Jazz,' CHRIS SEARLE was there
New releases from The Dreaming Spires, Bruce Springsteen, and Chet Baker


