The shocking death of drummer Chris Dagley at 38 has robbed British jazz of one of its most respected and best-liked performers. Bright, friendly and conscientious, he was a crisp, hard-swinging drummer who took pride in his work and never gave it less than 100 per cent. As a member of Ronnie Scott’s house band, the James Pearson Trio, he was one of the busiest musicians in London. He was killed on his way home from the club in the small hours, when his motorcycle crashed on the A40 dual carriageway near White City. There were no witnesses.

A drum prodigy since the age of 12, Chris rose to fame with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. “One of the best drummers we’ve ever had,” said NYJO director Bill Ashton when Chris turned freelance. Quickly establishing himself as an unusually gifted and versatile soloist, clinician, arranger, section player and sight-reader, he worked not only with jazz stars (Benny Golson, Randy Brecker, Jim Mullen, Don Weller) but also the BBC Big Band and big pop names including Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler, Lionel Ritchie, Gary Barlow, Westlife and The Osmonds. He lived in Ruislip, Middlesex and leaves a widow and three young children.

– Jack Massarik

It was third time lucky for Courtney Pine last night at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London as he completed the second night of a short residency having played the club for the first time in 2007 during the Jazzwise To The Power of Ten festival.

But the man’s commanding presence is felt in other ways, as that famous Pizza Express artwork on the wall behind pianist Zoe Rahman to the left of the bandstand was inspired, he told the capacity audience someone had told him, by the image adorning Pine’s debut album, Journey To The Urge Within, just reissued.

Opening with ‘Haiti’ from the latest album Transition In Tradition and spending most of the set on bass clarinet, also playing soprano saxophone, and flute, increasingly as the set progressed, Pine was joined by the Joanne Brackeen-influenced Rahman, stalwart guitarist Cameron Pierre, violin star Omar Puente, a highly rhythmic Darren Taylor on bass, and Courtney Pine Band mainstay Robert Fordjour on drums.

One feature of the evening was a joyous tribute to Sir John Dankworth, beginning with a reclaimed death march variant and then free wheeling to almost warp speed. Another highlight was ‘The Tale of Joe Harriott’ a tender narrative with nuanced sections, carefully arranged.

A masterclass in blowing and communication (with great bass clarinet tone and control, and musical personality throughout), the band at times had no alternative but to just watch Courtney soar, as he approached lift-off a few times, when the above- register harmonics and backing piano and guitar vamps combined to form a kind of organic loop. It’s as if he wants to break through the barrier to create a new music with almost every solo. Ostensibly a tribute to Sidney Bechet, the evening had much to offer and was at its most meditative when there was an acoustic flute-led “folk mass” feel.

Word has it that Courtney is working on a new studio album. For the time being there’s a new download-only album Courtney Pine Band Live recorded at the Albany Empire; and the reissued Journey To The Urge Within with extra tracks is a must.

– Stephen Graham

Edinburgh celebrates 60 years of jazz in the city with the 2010 Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, which begins on Friday and runs until Sunday 8 August.

The opening day has plenty on offer, with the early evening set at The Lot comprising an international line-up – French pianist Francis Le Bras and German saxophonist Daniel Erdmann, as well as the intriguing duo of saxophonists Jorrit Dijkstra and Phil Bancroft. There is also a return to swing as Fat Sam’s Band, with a nod to Count Basie and Louis Jordan, play the Assembly@Princes Street Gardens. Also performing on the Friday are Edinburgh-based tenor saxophonist John Burgess and the Rae Brothers with their classic New Orleans sound.

Saturday 31 July sees a wide variety of jazz, with home talent given a heavy push. This ranges from the youth of the Ruaridh Pattison Quartet to the experience of Martin Kershaw, with both saxophonists playing at The Lot. The highlight for trad lovers, however, will be a rare set from the Climax Reunion Band at The Jamhouse, which is – as the name suggests – a reunion of the Climax Jazz Band. They will be supported by the Dixieland sound of the Old Baileys Jazz Advocates. The weekend closes with Todd Gordon alongside the Ryan Quigley Big Band singing Sinatra classics at Princes Street Gardens on Sunday 1 August.

Other highlights of the 10-day festival are singer Niki King, who plays The Hub on 3 August; An Evening With Peter Vetesse at Princes Street Gardens on 4 August, and a double bill of the Pete Martin All Stars and David Berkman Trio, who take to the stage at The Lot on 5 August.

– James Bourne

For the full line-up go to www.edinburghjazzfestival.com

Renowned Edinburgh venue The Jazz Bar will be putting on an experimental piece called ‘Five Beats In A Bar’ during the annual Fringe Festival from 9-15 August.

Combining music and beat poetry, the piece will create “jazzetry” – a form whereby the result explores different meanings in the words while at the same time complements the rhythm of the music.

The performers will be pianist Jonathan Gee, co-founder of the Monk Liberation Front, and vocalist Louise Gibbs, along with Leeds-based Trio Literati actors Maggie Mash, Jane Oakshott and Richard Rastall.

The music will mainly, but not all, derive from the music of Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker – including Mingus’ classic ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, which Gibbs recorded for her last album Everybody’s Song But Our Own – as well as other standards, such as ‘Beautiful Love’.

This will be offset by works from Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Robert Creeley, putting itself firmly in the smoky atmosphere of 1950s America. While the poetry remains a constant, the stripped-down arrangements will be open to Gee and Gibbs’ interpretation ensuring a different performance each time. The show will be put on as an afternoon taster from 3.30-4.30pm to hopefully attract more people to the regular jazz nights.

There will be a preview of the show at Richmond House School in Leeds, this coming Wednesday (28 July), with the only other performance so far to take place after Edinburgh scheduled for the Hexham Abbey Festival on 27 September.

– James Bourne

For more go to www.thejazzbar.co.uk

It’s Juan-Les-Pins jazz festival’s half century celebration and it was the Keith Jarrett classic trio’s eleventh in a row here on Wednesday. Think of those Mingus and Miles At Antibes recordings; it’s where Ray Charles did his first ever European concert, and Coltrane performed for one occasion only, the entire suite of A Love Supreme in 1965, splitting the audience into ‘for’ and ‘against’.

This festival has history in abundance. It also has a breathtaking open air performing ambience: the sunset, pine trees and the French Riviera backdrop; as corny as a picture postcard but one that’s helped to find Juan-Les-Pins a special place in musicians’ hearts; and none more so than the notoriously fastidious Jarrett.

The concert was rightly classed as an ‘event’ especially as Jarrett-DeJohnette-Peacock is becoming a rare sighting on the international live circuit these days. A hush descends on the full 2,000-plus audience. He’s late showing, slow hand claps spread like a Mexican wave. But here come the band timed to perfection with the golden sun about to disappear behind the hills.

The first set is an hour of cool restraint and so justifiably is the audience applause. Thankfully, the second reveals they were merely loosening up, just feeling their way, conserving energy. It starts how it means to go on with a blistering ‘Night And Day’ with Jack DeJohnette brilliantly trading witty fours with the pianist. Likewise Gary Peacock’s bass playing is poetic, sprightly, immensely pleasurable on the ears, while it’s good to see Jarrett, back facing the audience, visibly perspiring through his shirt now in the warm night air.

The sound of lapping waves was the kind of backdrop agreeable to Jarrett and the trio whose extremely delicate, meditative balladeering, included an expressive first encore of ‘When I Fall In Love’.

If Jarrett looked a shade reluctant about doing another, when a stubborn standing ovation brought them out for the delicious, chugging R&B funk of their memorable version of ‘God Bless The Child’, it didn’t lack any enthusiasm whatsoever. It was about enough to send this insatiable crowd home happy.

— Selwyn Harris

The Manchester Jazz Festival gets underway today with its biggest ever line-up to celebrate the event’s 15th anniversary, running through to Saturday 31 July with big names, international flavours and young talent drawing the crowds in, as well as a surprise appearance from latin soul revue Kid Creole and the Coconuts, who will play two successive nights – 27 and 28 July – at the famous Band on the Wall venue.

The first night will start with a bang, with the Jim Hart Trio joined by Ralph Alessi at the Festival Pavilion, while Sun Ra Arkestra reeds man Marshall Allen combines with avant-garde film maker James Harrar to go on the kind of spiritual journey once travelled by Sun Ra in the 1960s.

Liane Carroll headlines with her piano trio on the second day, playing and singing in her inimitable fashion with the backing of Roger Carey on bass and Mark Fletcher, drums, at the Festival Pavilion. The evening ends with Jon Thorne’s exciting Oedipus Mingus project at Matt and Phred’s Jazz Club.

Make sure not to miss the supergroup of pianist Gwilym Simcock, guitarist Mike Walker, electric bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Adam Nussbaum as they play at the RNCM on 27 July, as well as the high-octane sets of The Golden Age of Steam and trioVD at the Festival Pavilion on 30 July.

Manchester continues to be committed to giving fresh groups their chance thanks to the MJF Introduces scheme, with the likes of the Andrew Woodhead Quartet, the Sam Rapley/Adam Chatterton Quintet and the Orca Trio taking the stand.

Other highlights of the festival include the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland (25 July) and the Asaf Sirkis Trio, with the Israeli drummer heading a double bill with the Arun Ghosh Quintet on 29 July.

– James Bourne

For the full line-up go to www.manchesterjazz.com

Trumpeter Harry Beckett has died, reportedly of a stroke, on 22 July. A longstanding presence on the London jazz scene, trumpeter Harry Beckett has kept his music fresh over a long career and none more so than on his 2008 release The Modern Sound of Harry Beckett which saw him combining reggae and dance music influences alongside his modal jazz flavours.

Born in Barbados in 1935, Harry was just 19 when he left home and travelled to Britain. All he brought with him was his trumpet, the talent he was born with and a desire to learn. He was no overnight success. The jazz scene of 1950s London didn’t open its arms to him and it wasn’t until the mid-60s that other musicians began to take notice. Ever since, Harry Beckett’s playing has been turning heads.

Forming his own sextet/septet in the late-60s, Harry emerged as an excellent writer and one of the finest trumpeters to grace these shores. The three albums – Flare Up, Warm Smiles /Themes For Fega – he made with players of the calibre of John Taylor, Frank Ricotti, Mike Osborne, John Surman, Alan Skidmore and Chris Laurence are as fine as any of the period. At the same time, Harry had begun playing with guitarist Ray Russell. Russell’s music was so far ahead of its time, that fans are only now catching up.

Harry’s associations stood the test of time. Whether it was with Ray Russell, Graham Collier, Dudu Pukwana and more recently Chris Biscoe, the most telling thing for Harry is the music. Along with Biscoe, Harry had just completed a three-year stint with the wonderful French Orchestre National de Jazz. When Courtney Pine and Gary Crosby formed the Jazz Warriors, who would they call? Harry Beckett, of course. When Chris McGregor put together a new Brotherhood of Breath and recorded the Country Cooking album, Harry was there. And when Louis Moholo and others put together The Dedication Orchestra to pay tribute to their fallen comrades, Beckett was there just as he had been when McGregor and Moholo first put their big band together. We miss you madly.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow for two exclusive Herbie Hancock Royal Festival Hall concerts scheduled for 13 and 14 November, part of this year’s London Jazz Festival held in association with BBC Radio 3.

The pianist and composer who turned 70 in April was last at the festival two years ago when his band featuring trumpeter Terence Blanchard played separate shows at the RFH and the Barbican. Hancock interviewed in Jazzwise published today talks about his new album The Imagine Project which is the third in a trilogy of vocals-based albums and follows the Grammy-winning album, River: The Joni Letters, and the earlier Warners album, Possibilities.

“This record is about peace and global collaboration,” says Hancock in the interview. “It’s about collaboration, inspiration for the average person, for the people themselves, rather than complaining about globalisation, and it’s a call to arms for the people to be proactive, for building, creating a future world that we want to live in, the kind of globalisation that we want.”

In June Hancock, one of the most influential and innovative pianists in the history of jazz, celebrated his seventieth birthday with a special concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. This September following European summer festival dates including the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway tonight, he will appear at a special Hollywood Bowl concert closer to home in Los Angeles.

Hancock has been touring recently with a band that includes guitarist Lionel Loueke and keyboardist Greg Phillinganes and the relatively little known vocalist Kristina Train. Hancock says, in the interview, Train is “in her own way as much a jazz singer as Norah Jones is, kind of hybrid with her own material and her own record.”

On the new album a who’s who of famous names including Wayne Shorter, Anoushka Shankar, Vinnie Coliauta, Jeff Beck, Pink, Lisa Hannigan, James Morrison, John Legend, India.Arie, Juanes and Céu appear, with a range of songs including ‘Don’t Give Up’, Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Gonna Come’ and the album standout ‘The Song Goes On’.

– Stephen Graham

Jazzwise is a media sponsor of the London Jazz Festival. For tickets go to www. southbankcentre.co.uk

'Identity By Subtraction', the title track of Denys Baptiste's new album to be scheduled for release later in the year, was played live for the first time last night along with other songs from the new album.

Performing at the Hideaway club in Streatham on tenor and soprano saxophones, Baptiste, whose last album Let Freedom Ring! was released seven years ago, first made an impact on the UK jazz scene as a member of the late Bheki Mseleku's touring group in 1994 when Baptiste was touching his mid-twenties.

As a tribute to Mseleku, Baptiste performed the sophisticated and tender unreleased 'Song For You' (quoting slightly from 'If I Should Lose You') in a set that contained some exquisite ballads and driving, fast, hard bop.

Baptiste, from west London of St Lucian descent, brought his quartet who also feature on the album to be released by his long time label Dune which recorded his other albums Let Freedom Ring referred to above; Alternating Currents; and his Mercury-nominated debut from 1999, Be Where You Are.

Andrew McCormack on piano played effectively and astutely with Baptiste throughout, especially on 'Tunnel Vision' which featured on MY Duo, the album McCormack released last year with saxophonist / composer / producer, Jason Yarde.

Drummer Rod Youngs was joyfully propulsive throughout the evening (and at times dipped into a multi-directional style) while bassist Gary Crosby's ballad 'Ja-nine' was a highlight of the latter part of the first set. Baptiste's 'Special Times' dedicated to his family was accessible and engaging and the clubgoers warmed to a fine quartet performance, a taster for an album that will mark the welcome return of Denys Baptiste.

‒ Stephen Graham

WOMAD opens for three full days of world music, arts and dance at the weekend (after some initial concerts tomorrow) running through from Friday to Sunday with two new names added to the bill now including Angélique Kidjo and Sierra Maestra. Cuban group Sierra Maestra carries on where Buena Vista Social Club left off, playing new and more traditional material in the son cubano style, while Kidjo is a Beninese vocal star and one of Africa’s most forward-looking singer/songwriters.

The biggest name at the festival – which takes place at Charlton Park in Malmesbury, Wiltshire – is American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron, who will play the main Open Air Stage on Sunday July 25. Other names to look out for at the festival are Salif Keita as well as the spectacular Drummers of Burundi and the Senegalese vocalist Cheikh Lô, who plays a late set on the Open Air Stage.

WOMAD is not only known for its music of course, encapsulating the entire cultural spectrum with many dance workshops, as well as the Taste the World tent which features delicacies from all over the world. The festival is also very family friendly with under-13s getting in for free and many music, cooking and dance workshops for children.

There are plenty of homegrown artists appearing too ranging from the exuberance of the Afro Celt Sound System to the heavy improvised dance-grooves of The Bays to the expansive jazz-meets-classical sounds of The Heritage Orchestra. The dizzying array of international artists also appearing features such diverse acts as Calypso Rose (Tobago), Alim Qasimov Ensemble (Azerbaijan), Bibi Tanga and the Selenites (Central African Rep/France), Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotono (Benin) and Muntu Valdo (Cameroon) all taking their sound to the stage.

– James Bourne

For more go to www.womad.org