CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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‘The day jazz washed away the dust of everyday life*’
CHRIS SEARLE pops into his local for some serendipitous jazz goings-on
Jim Mullen
[Jeff Hardcastle/CC]
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
IN THE upstairs room in my local pub just up the road — The County Arms in Highams Park, east London — Sunday evenings are jazz feasts.
There is always a guest musician of renown, a local accompanying trio of bass, drums and keyboards, followed by a chance for local musicians, young and old, to share the stage with the guest, and gain invaluable confidence from the encounter.
Last week it was the great veteran Glaswegian guitarist, Jim Mullen, who played an opening set including beautifully sharp ballads like I’ll Close My Eyes, I Can’t Get Started and Angel Eyes, with bop classics like Clifford Brown’s Sandu and Wes Montgomery’s Road Song.
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