A strange year, wasn’t it? Much of it has felt like ‘ticking over’, waiting for a vaccine or something approaching normal – and being exasperated with the poor decision-making of various authorities, often crushing butterflies on wheels. Belfast City Council taking away all 12 of their picnic tables in CS …
After the good vibes of September 2019’s ‘Warehouse Remembered’ charity event – reuniting various acts associated with the mid-90s ‘golden age’ of live music in Belfast, which coincided with the 18-month existence of the Warehouse as a venue – there was demand to run another. Luckily, it happened just before …
A brief scribble to say that my EP with the Legends of Tomorrow, Don’t Go to Nashville, is now ‘out’, available on iTunes and elsewhere. The ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ moniker has arisen periodically since 1995 as a quasi-imaginary band name for recordings gathering many musical friends together. Here’s the iTunes …
A now rare appearance of a CH feature in a magazine last month – a piece in ‘Record Collector’ on John Renbourn and Dorris Henderson’s 1960s recordings, on the back of Cherry Red’s 6CD set Unpentangled: The Sixties Albums containing the 1965–68 work of both, which I compiled and provided …
So, did the Mike Gibbs 3CD set I mentioned last time come to be? Yes. It’s called Festival 69 (Turtle Records) and boasts two concerts from that year, one recorded at the Belfast Festival (deduced after a lot of period music press research and then confirmed by a visit to …
I’ve been digitising a number of reels by British progressive jazz legend Michael Gibbs recently and two concerts by his big band, both from 1969 and one featuring Gary Burton and his Quartet, will comprise a 3CD set on the Turtle imprint in September. Looks like I’m writing the notes …
Well, it seems my second book on John McLaughlin has been rather more popular than I thought. As explained in previous posts, Echoes From Then: Glimpses of John McLaughlin 1959-75 was conceived as a limited-edition companion to Bathed In Lightning: John McLaughlin, the 60s and the Emerald Beyond (Jawbone, 2014). …
At the time of writing, I expect to take delivery of 200 copies – the complete first print run – of my new book Echoes From Then: Glimpses of John McLaughlin 1959–75. (See previous update for content details.) Copies will be available exclusively from Amazon (UK) for £19.95 + P&P …
‘Every week now, a new jazz book arrives on my desk. Biography, autobiography, discography, miscellany, anthology and fiction – they come streaming off the presses… Now, such is the spate of commentary and research, there will soon be nothing left to write about.’ Humphrey Lyttelton, 1960 In 2014 my …
A quick update this time… My 2010 under-the-radar album Titanium Flag will be reissued nationally in expanded and remastered form by Market Square Records, run with exquisite taste and aplomb by bon viveur, renaissance man, public relations guru and all round good fellow Peter Muir. This new edition exists because …