Category: Features
October 21, 2020 / Features - Archive

John Martyn springs from the page to be larger than life

Graeme Thompson SMALL HOURS – THE LONG NIGHT OF JOHN MARTYN (Omnibus) 8.5/10 Samuel Taylor Coleridge described the performances of great early-19th-century actor Edmund Kean as “like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning”. Something similar could be said of listening to John Martyn’s most compelling music, with his lyrics carrying…

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October 19, 2020 / Features - Archive

Long-buried Monk bops out of box

You’re 16 years old and a wannabe concert promoter. Amid extreme racial tensions in 1968, the year both Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, you’ve booked the Thelonious Monk Quartet to play at your very white Californian high school, with two local black support acts. But tickets…

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October 5, 2020 / Features - Archive

Charles Lloyd: Sharing a gift with a Greek goddess

As a child growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, Charles Lloyd used to put his radio under his pillow so Billie Holiday could sing him to sleep. Always a dreamer, he determined that he would find this beautiful woman, and take her away from all the misery and heartache that filled…

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