Full house again at The PizzaExpress Jazz Club in Soho, for Italian guitarist Antonio Forcione. The Britts seem to have literally fallen for his act. Forcione mainly relies on solid technique, charm and a pleasant melting-pot of styles: a blend of mild yet articulate folkloric playing paired with warm quotations from the Mediterranean, Africa and Brazil. Flamenco and Arabic influences share the stage with Italian Tarantella or Neapolitan folk songs, rearranged for an ensemble in itself op

How strange to listen to Moreira freestylin’ on a hip-hop beat, while being accompanied by his daughter Diana (whose tantalizing voice was revealed to the world with the album ‘Speed of Light’ back in 1995.) While looking at times too much of a commercial exploit, the gig is great. It feels good to have Moreira back at Ronnie Scott’s, promoting his latest fatigue "Life After That" (Narada Records - Virgin / EMI); it feels great to be able to single-out the man and his overflowing energy no ma

The Queen Elizabeth Hall is packed for Denys Baptiste and his London Jazz Festival gig - not even one seat left unsold. His latest release by Dune, ‘Let Freedom Ring!,’ proves captivating for audiences of the most diverse backgrounds (the majority of which of African or Caribbean origin) here to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King’s speech ‘I Have A Dream’. Pupils from various primary/secondary schools in the capital also attend the concert, as part of Baptiste’s commitmen

It is rare to find a gig where so many levels of artistic expression are touched, and with such intelligence. Thus full marks to the Cinematic Orchestra and their Shepherds Bush Empire gig in London; full marks to the visionary choice of tantalizing their audience with scores not only directly inspired by the movie image, but in actual fact blurred within it. The orchestra plays a live soundtrack to the 1929 Dziga Vertov silent movie masterpiece ‘Man With A Movie Camera,’ which suggested the

The Zawinul Syndicate’s one-off gig in Europe was welcomed in Paris at La Villette (a truly amazing venue, an absolute miracle of post-industrial architecture consisting of a series of late 19th/early 20th century buildings restructured primarily for hosting concerts the so-called ‘Citè de la Musique’, The City of Music). Naturally, the concert was greeted by a full-house (around 1,200 people.) Manolo Badrena, on whose hands rests the only ‘trait d’union’ with Weather Report (apart from Z