Moonlighting By Name, Moonlighting By Nature
Dave Doyle
May 29, 2024
For many musicians, the jazz life is a constant struggle for survival. The pandemic has only made things more difficult, with venues going bust or
For many musicians, the jazz life is a constant struggle for survival. The pandemic has only made things more difficult, with venues going bust or
Children’s music is trash, isn’t it? Take “Baby Shark,” or that Colomelon dross, or anything released by the cringeworthy cover factory Kidz Bop—it’s all a
I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again anyway: the true joy of vinyl is not so much having some superlative sonic
Some records you really can judge by their cover. Take the latest release by Jane Scheckter, for instance. There’s a picture of Jane on the
Work has had me on the road a lot lately, so that new in-car MP3 player has been a lot of use. (Promoters, take note:
With the UK state pension now standing at 68 for people born in 1987—and likely to rise further, given our shambles of an economy and
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
