YouTube is just full of surprises, isn’t it? For instance, today I learned that there’s a channel called Electro Swing Thing, which recently uploaded a
Behind every great man is a great woman, they say. Often she’s sitting on a piano stool, if my “forgotten ladies” features are anything to
Over Christmas, I bought myself a new car. Well, nearly new—enough that I drive it everywhere like a partially-sighted senior, terrified of even the lightest
“Oof.” That’s my one-word review of Angie Wells’ second album. What does it mean? Why, all manner of things… Oh, you want me to elaborate?
It’s tempting to think of LGBT acceptance and allyship as a very 21st-century phenomenon, distinct from the dark ages of yore when queer communities hid
This week I got a parcel from eBay. Inside was a tiny amplifier, only about 10 cm square by 5 cm high, but its impact
One of the great perks of writing for the Syncopated Times is that people are forever sending you records and imploring you to review them.
Very, very occasionally I receive fan mail from a reader who has enjoyed one of my articles. Often it’s about one of my “forgotten ladies”
One depressing trend emerging from some of my recent artist interviews—specifically those profiling younger women—is a fear that they will become unemployably elderly before reaching
It’s rare, when I go out record shopping, that I’m looking out for big band stuff—by and large, I’m more interested in small combo music.
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside. I grew up in a quiet coastal town, where the shore and adjacent pine forests were
As regular readers will be well aware, I love swing dance. Whether Lindy hop, Balboa or St. Louis shag is my current thing, I just
You can bet an album review is going to be positive when, by the time you read it, I’ve already learned to play parts of
Women are relatively rare in the jazz world. They still constitute only a small minority of performers, compared with men, particularly if you exclude singers:
At just 26 years old, Hannah Gill could hardly be better established as a performer. She’s toured the world twice with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox
Danny Jonokuchi features on both of the records I’ve reviewed this month—yes, it’s a Doyle’s Discs double-Danny discourse. He isn’t someone I was too familiar
It’s easy to prejudge an album, based on a band’s blurb and the first track or two. The latest release by Southside Aces promises “original
We Brits like to think of ourselves as European—or 55 percent of us do, judging by a 2023 YouGov survey on Brexit “Bregret” (well, quelle
Many aspirational jazz musicians make their way to New Orleans at some point—to soak up the culture they love, to undertake a musical apprenticeship or
When I wrote about last year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival, I noted the dearth of old-timey acts compared with its soul, pop, and fusion-oriented headliners. Well
Do you like scat singing? My Mum absolutely hates it—the wordless vocal improvisation featured on so many of Ella Fitzgerald’s sides (which she loves, by
How many albums is “a lot of albums”? Not to own, I mean—I’ve got around a hundred LPs, a number which most collectors would consider
I stuck this record on without first looking at the track list. As the first number opened, I felt a thrill of excitement—it sounded like
I did a double take when I read this album’s cover. From the title and band name I half expected—with a mixture of excitement and
