DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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Music bridges troubled waters
CHRIS SEARLE reports on a festival where musicians from around the world defied dark times with a sense of musical unity
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
THE MENACE of the impending Trump presidency was reflected in the anxious soundscape created by many of the musicians at this year’s London Jazz Festival.
Tenor saxophonist Trish Clowes asked everyone at her free-stage Barbican performance to shake hands and hug each other in anti-Trump solidarity before she played her tune Blue Calm, while young pianist Elliot Galvin said it was “now very pertinent” to play Kurt Weill’s Mack the Knife, conjuring an aura of murderous dark forces at work as he did so.
And the diaphanous blues cadences of Are You Glad to Be in America? rang out from the slashing guitar of James Blood Ulmer at Rich Mix.
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