MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
Latest editorial
The lasting spell of a musical colossus
Veteran jazz trombonist ART BARON opens up to Chris Searle about the good old days of playing with Duke Ellington
Art Baron
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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
ART BARON, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1950, was the last trombonist the great Duke Ellington ever hired.
He was 23 when I heard him during the Ellington Orchestra’s final tour of Europe in December 1973, at the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, London.
Still blowing strong and playing rearrangements of classic Ellingtonian tunes by Mark Masters on the new album Masters and Baron Meet Blanton and Webster, he and his bandmates play themes associated with the Ellington Orchestra of 1940-42, which included bass virtuoso Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophone master Ben Webster.
Similar stories
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a new album featuring Pat Thomas and Ahmed, and marvels at the tempestuous power of a live performance
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to saxophonist and retired NHS orthopaedic surgeon ART THEMEN