VICTORIA KINGHAM

Guitarist Rob Luft has been a regular visitor to Jazz Hastings, having appeared here with his own band and with other musicians celebrated for their originality: Byron Wallen, Corrie Dick, Dave O’Higgins. Luft is in constant demand: his guitar technique is constantly inventive, versatile and original, and he was rightly named ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards for 2025.

In 2017, his path crossed with that of the singer Elina Duni at the Montreux Jazz Festival, marking the inception of a unique project. They have since toured the world, releasing two critically acclaimed albums on ECM Records in a quartet formation with Fred Thomas (drums) and trumpeter Matthieu Michel. For those of you familiar with the ‘ECM sound’, expect a characteristic dreamy ambience, open chords, judicious reverb and a display of excellent musicianship. For this session, they’ll be promoting their new 2026 duo album, Reaching for the Moon, which has already attracted a number of very favourable previews. This performance here is one of only three in the UK; the tour runs through Europe from Italy through Austria and Duni’s adopted country, Switzerland, to Barcelona.

A stripped-back duo effort, the album revisits the essence of their initial meeting. Duni’s voice blends beautifully with Luft’s guitar lines – her singing is intense and intelligent, and her voice softly compelling. Several albums have been released under her own name, as a singer-songwriter with her own quartet. She has also a long-held interest in the folk music of Albania (where she was born) and there is one beautiful solo album, Partir, where she accompanies herself to folk songs that are effortlessly rendered in nine different languages. Don’t miss this performance – it’ll be something very special.

Elina Duni (vocals) and Rob Luft (guitar) Tuesday 5 May, EHSAA, The Stade, Hastings: 8.30 pm.

So, forget serious listening and the appreciation of musical innovation, forget that you think Jazz is only for geeks with beards. This Salsa night was an exception, and while not exactly  a jazz band, Salsadelic is an established and enthusiastic band with a solid repertoire of well-known Latin classics, an ebullient leader on congas, excellent singers (from Peru and Colombia, via Brighton) and a great beat. Coupled with well-loved tunes (Chan Chan, Oye Come Va, Quizas, Quizas, Quizas are familiar to anyone who has come across the Buena Vista Social Club or Santana or indeed Nat King Cole, and there were many others) this is a band which will always appeal. Moreover, the normally close-packed seats in the EHSAA were cleared at the front to make way for dancing, and there was dancing! Not, it’s true, the true partner-based Salsa which, if a couple do it well, is one of the most compelling and beautiful dances to watch. Nevertheless at least a dozen women of all ages (and a few men) got up and danced all night with energy and panache. The gig began promptly and professionally and the audience and dancers thoroughly enjoyed it.

Salsadelic are on facebook at facebook.com/Salsadelic. They played at Jazz Hastings on 5 August. Jazzhastings.co.uk. Next up: the Andy Panayi Quartet, Tuesday 2 September

It’s strange how musical appreciation changes over the course of half a century or more. What sounded to the majority uncompromising, unmelodic, on a first hearing, fifty years later sounds merely – modern. It happens with classical music, though it takes longer – Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Shostakovich were all once greeted with incomprehension and protest. 

It happens with jazz too, though the development trajectory has been much faster. In the very early 60s it was still thought of as ‘popular music’ following from the forties and fifties, the wild post-war dancing, the big-band formations, the cosy American TV shows. In the 1960s however a number of seminal jazz musicians rapidly took the music out of this realm into something serious, innovative, and inventive. Max Roach was one of these musicians, taking the idea of jazz drumming beyond ‘time-keeping’ into something more subtle and instrumental, patterning around melodies, writing, fronting, improvising, transforming the nature of the small jazz combo and enabling modern jazz to emerge as a distinct genre. Roach’s own history reads like an A-Z of American jazz, a lifelong list of collaboration with the best, and you can read it on Wikipedia without me restating it here. 

Rod Youngs, a gifted drummer, presented us with an exceptional evening’s music as a tribute and dedication to Max Roach. It was superb. And the long reach of the jazz innovations of the mid-sixties was reinforced. These are not easy tunes – even now, they are not ‘easy listening’ tunes, but they are part of the accumulated heritage of jazz in the way that Pollock and Warhol are part of the heritage of visual art. Youngs’ quintet patently know each other’s music, and they are all highly accomplished enough to make the performance look easy and relaxed. They have evident enjoyment in each other’s achievements, and Youngs’ lead from the drumkit is minimal, but decisive. The sound of the lead saxophone and trumpet, often stating the melody in unison, sometimes in harmony, is joltingly reminiscent of the arrangements of the mid-sixties, yet because each individual musician is skilled and inventive, the music is fresh. 

Tony Kofi is a much respected, assured British alto player who is constantly in demand; Byron Wallen is from a musical family, based in London, which includes his composer sister Errollyn Wallen (and if you haven’t heard her music, you really ought to listen to it immediately – she justly has international status as a composer and singer). His playing is lyrical, original, educated. Bass player Larry Bartley has been a staple of the London jazz scene for some 25 years, performing or recording with major bands. Renato Paris the pianist, aside from his musical closeness, his sensitivity to Rod Youngs’ ideas, turns out also to be an accomplished voice improviser, a scat singer. 

As is often the case, the evening gained momentum and unity towards the end, and the last couple of numbers, Members Don’t Get Weary and Absolutions, were, you might say, the absolute business; every musician took a shining solo, and a very full set ended late into the night, engaging an enthusiastic audience to the end. 

The Rod Youngs Quartet played at Jazz Hastings, EHSAA, on Tuesday 6 August. Next up: Rebecka Edlund’s Virgin Forest Band, Tuesday 3 September. jazzhastings.co.uk/upcoming-gigs

Once a year, at the very special Hastings Fat Tuesday celebrations, a unique event takes place. Beginning quietly and almost unnoticed back in 2018, Reggae Room on Fat Tuesday had a smattering of curious attendees. Having doubled in size each year, it now packs out the EHSAA to the rafters. Young and old from near and far join together, as the hosts Mighty Sounds and Dub Generals Sound System set up an all-evening Reggae Extravaganza. Various special guests join them on the mic, bringing in their own individual flavour. 

Past guests have been Cheshire Cat (from Leftfield), MC Mad-X, Henry Matic Tenyue and Tonbridge Wells-based Jack Curtis. As the event grew so quickly and for many became THE place to be on Fat Tuesday, Mighty Sounds decided to make a film of it. It’s a story of the event, shot by local film-maker Simona Zinevicute, showing how for one night only the genteel EHSAA club became a heaving, pulsing, bass-heavy, Reggae Party!

Due to the success of Reggae Room on Fat Tuesday, Mighty Sounds have decided to do the same thing in the summer. REGGAE ROOM: The Summer Session at EHSAA on Sun 25 August is the first of its kind, so expect more of the same as the winter version but with a sunset! 

And with a cold beer overlooking the beach. Live band, full reggae sound-system, guest DJs and MCs – it’s noisy, it’s busy, it’s vibrant and it’s a lot of fun. EHSAA is a big venue with a balcony, plenty of space, a bar, lots of seating (if you are tired out from dancing), and this time a Caribbean food stall, courtesy of St Leonards-based TT Jerk Hut. Not to be missed. Make sure you can say you were at the first ever Summer Reggae Room!

Film at: youtube.com/watch?v=DMBJ0Yy_fH4

“They never dance, some of them don’t tap their feet, some of them are actually asleep… but still it’s full every month?!” Such is the bewildered response of the Sea Angling Association bartender to the loyal clientele who flock there every cycle of the moon to sample whatever savoury smorgasbord of jazz the committed non-profit community organisers of Jazz Hastings have laid before them. Beneath its somewhat sedate outward aspect, this M&S pastel shades-clad gathering is actually one of the most receptive and open-minded regular crowds the thriving Hastings gig circuit has to offer, and while the admission price of fifteen quid might seem a little steep by local standards, it’s a lot cheaper than Ronnie Scott’s for music of equivalent quality, and you can save a train fare on the bar prices.

This month’s guest quartet Pigfoot Play Ellington belonged in the very highest echelon of Jazz Hastings nights, alongside such stellar previous visitors as the great South African drummer Louis Moholo and South London compositional visionary Byron Wallen, the only man to write a jazz concept album about Woolwich. For those with limited knowledge of Duke Ellington, perhaps perceiving him only vaguely as a suave old guy playing the piano with a big band, this show offered an exhilarating crash course in the oeuvre of a man who was, as a matter of informed consensus, one of the ten most significant and radical artists to have graced the 20th century. 

Given the under-celebrated fact – local pub quizmasters pay attention here – that Duke Ellington played the last show of his extraordinary career just down the A259 in the unlikely jazz hotspot of Eastbourne, it was especially joyous to hear his music brought to such exuberant life here by an ensemble (James Allsopp on baritone sax and bass clarinet, Chris Batchelor on trumpet and Paul Clarvis on drums) which walked fearlessly in the footsteps of such storied Ellington sidemen as Harry Carney, Sonny Greer and Cootie Williams. The player in the real hot-seat was pianist Liam Noble, who, perhaps acknowledging the impossibility of precisely matching Ellington’s elegant interventions, threw a shopping trolley into the canal of collective memory by supplementing his fluid right-hand upright piano chord clusters with a left hand somehow picking out Zapp Band-tinged basslines on a farty Novation Bass Station synth.

To understand the level of technical challenge being undertaken here, readers are advised to pat the top of their hand with one hand and rub their stomach in a circular fashion with the other, while making themselves a cup of tea with their right foot. There were occasional moments – such as a version of “African Flower” (the sublime standout track on Money Jungle, Ellington’s great trio album with Max Roach and Charlie Mingus) which flirted with outright travesty – where Noble’s heroic efforts seemed to invite one of Samuel Johnson’s most celebrated retorts: “Difficult do you call it, sir? I wish it were impossible”. But overall his fearless jeu d’esprit was the key to accessing the unmatched scope of Ellington’s legacy, from the jaunty 1926 floor-filler “East St Louis Toodle-oo” through the Shakespeare suite with which he effortlessly overturned colonialist hierarchies of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, to the adventures in exotica undertaken on government-sponsored travels which were one of the most persuasive manifestations of American soft power (“Blue Pepper” from Ellington’s Far East Suite was a particular highlight tonight).

Now moving into their second decade, Pigfoot’s mischievous approach (previous touring shows have been dedicated to 1920s New Orleans jazz, the music of Elvis Presley and the sounds of 1972 – apparently the Dolly Parton segue was sensational) sidesteps the solemnity of illustrious reputations to access the playful spirit of the initial creative impulse. More power to their collective elbow.

Next month’s Jazz Hastings event is the Darius Brubeck Quartet on 12 /December. 

Ok, so I’m going to do something I said I’d never do, and compare artists working in separate genres. The exercise might raise more questions than answers, but hey.

Katie Melua was born in Georgia, raised in Belfast then London – a slightly exotic but nevertheless very British background. Her voice and presence carry a warm, personal quality. Her songs are heartfelt and empathetic, decidedly middle-of-the-road, ‘easy’ on the ear, making few auditory ‘demands’. Her band (with guitarist brother Zurab) and stage presentation are smoothly professional. She is 43, talked about, adulated, in the ‘established celebrity’ bracket. 

A successful product

She is also, like many good and popular musicians, clearly a product of the ‘star-maker machinery behind the popular song’. Spotted’ at the age of 19 by super-supremo Mike Batt (don’t mention the Wombles) and mentored by him ever since, Melua and her recorded successes therefore follow in the wake of Bright Eyes, All Around My Hat, Please Don’t Fall in Love, and Elkie Brooks’ Lilac Wine. The evening’s presentation included the song Melua admits changed her life, Nine Million Bicycles. Her words are clear, her presentation accessible, her voice melodious, and she owns every song. She is also undeniably beautiful.

Still striving

Winstone is a legend (‘I’m old’ she said, ‘you aren’t a legend unless you’re old’) of the British jazz scene, with hundreds of appearances, songs, workshops, various bands, styles, countless venues, behind her accomplishment. She has received numerous awards from British and European musical performance organisations, and her fifty-year, four-octave career has encountered hundreds of different collaborations with the main protagonists of the British jazz scene. Listen to her extraordinary album Edge of Time –  produced in 1972, it is experimental and weirdly beautiful, and sounds as contemporary and interesting now as it did then. 

Now 82, Winstone returned some time ago to singing jazz standards; definitively on her own terms. She can still sing a saxophone impro, and at various points in the evening she and saxophonist Stan Sulzmann (another legend) swung melodies in glorious unison. We appreciate a particular number on the combination of her voice, her presence, her interpretation, and the lasting quality of the song itself. She still strives for jazz difference, for the re-birth of a song in each performance.

Inhabiting a song

She and Melua obviously aim at thoroughly distinct end results. As great singers, both inhabit a song. They do this variously through talent, intellect, commitment, dramatic ability, stage presence, and audience communication. This thorough occupancy of a number is perhaps something the two have in common, though the musical routes they have travelled could hardly be more divergent. 

So What?

Nothing, yet, but watch this space. What makes listening ‘easy’, and why should it be? What brings audiences in? How do they make a choice? International star Melua filled a thousand eager seats at the De La Warr. There were maybe a hundred people to see Winstone, whose audience is largely in the UK and Europe. What is it about commercially popular artists that gives them such guaranteed admiration? The production, the orchestration, the glitz, the mere familiarity of the arrangements? Clearly, Mike Batt knows the answer. 

Traditionally in a review, one is assumed to make rational judgements, to not throw out superlatives like genius, innovator, unique, powerful, beautiful, as to overuse these kinds of words, it is possibly to undervalue their meaning. It was, however, difficult to watch someone like Xhosa Cole, who in the few years since he won the Young Musician of the Year competition has deservedly become one of the leading figures in the international jazz scene, and not use these words. 

From the outset, it was clear that we were not going to watch any kind of formulaic, age-old modern jazz. For one thing, he incorporated a tap-dancer, Liberty Styles, as his percussion instrument. She could not only dance, but could understood the musical effect and value of her percussive footwork – in every sense. A simple idea, perhaps, but never having seen a dancer deployed in precisely this way, you then think, “Well, why not?” 

As a tenor player, Cole has developed a most mature tone, style, and technical prowess, and has the capacity of the gifted to look as though he was born with the instrument hanging round his neck. Beginning with an a capella passage that developed into a kind of upside-down blues, we were led into a Cole original, Andy’s Shuffle, then a series of (mostly) Thelonius Monk tunes, uniquely presented and (dare I say it?) ennobled. 

Xhosa is clearly a master musician and has very quickly developed the assuredness and the modesty of all great soloists and ensemble leaders (and in fact great orchestral conductors): that he knows what he wants to achieve, his musicians know what he wants to achieve. And he then gives them the musical space and respect to do it, physically removing himself from the stage while they perform, but leading all the same with a lift of the wrist, a look, a nod of the head. 

As an improviser, Cole takes inventive harmonic risks while always respecting the melody; perfect then that the band should present Ugly Beauty, one of Monk’s more haunting tunes, and segue into Epistrophy. Creating something new out of these, the essence of pure jazz, must always be a musical challenge, but this version paid homage to Monk, simultaneously giving a brilliant performance (notably on bass, by Josh Varvello). It created something entirely innovative out of what is already great. We were led through Criss Cross and Stuffy Turkey in the same bold, pure, adventurous way, equal space being accorded to Steve Saunders on electric guitar and Nathan England-Jones on drumkit, Varvello’s bass winding through, sometimes leading. 

The audience listened spellbound through the second half, through to the classic Straight No Chaser featuring a notable solo break by Saunders, and ending on an encore with a daring, fabulous, fully-realised version of Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday – and the foot-tapped percussion and the spare inventive drums underpinning and enabling the melodies.

So again, I have to re-assess the limits of what jazz can do. This isn’t the ambient dance-club jazz we talked about in our last reviews, neither is it the tired, formulaic performance of the jazz workshop tradition. This is a musician who has already absorbed oceans of music, making out of that reservoir something highly accomplished and totally original. I kind of wished Monk and Ellington were there to hear them perform, to watch an already-great leader and musician respect, and yet remake, their traditions.