News featuring Charlie Parker

Sunday 28th April

• “George Shearing: At Home – review”

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Monday 22nd April

• “Ethan Iverson – review”

  Vortex, London

  "The theme of the evening is playing tunes at least one of us knows," was Ethan Iverson's straightfaced explanation of this impromptu encounter with two local partners, rather than the American pianist's regular sidekicks in the Bad Plus. It gave him a chance to exercise enthusiasms usually surplus to such Bad Plus requirements as classic-pop deconstruction, morphed classical music, or free-improv wrestlings with avant-funk. With London-based New York drummer Jeff Williams and young former Trinity College bassist Sam Lasserson, he played the daylights out of a programme of jazz standards – exhibiting a hard-driving resourcefulness over long solos to rival some of the world's best-known postbop practitioners. If the recording equipment had been running, Ethan Iverson Live at the Vortex would already be on its journey to becoming a cult jazz classic.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Wednesday 13th March

• “Jonathan Kreisberg – review”

  Pizza Express Jazz Club, London

  The New York guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg has been a powerful presence in contemporary jazz since the late 1990s, yet he always seems like a newcomer. It's a double-take that might be down to his patiently personal evolution in improv and composing – every new phase of his work feels different. In his sparing use of guitar synths and compatibility with edgy drummers, such as Ari Hoenig and this trip's Colin Stranahan, Kreisberg sounds like a contemporary artist. But in his deep jazz knowledge, cool swing, and Pat Methenyesque song-rooted lyricism, he can also suggest a host of jazz guitarists of earlier eras.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Sunday 10th March

• “Armando Trovajoli obituary”

  Italian composer of film scores and musicals

  Armando Trovajoli, who has died aged 95, was a prolific composer for Italian films and stage musicals. He worked with many of Italy's leading directors, including Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Vittorio De Sica, for whom he composed music for La Ciociara (Two Women, 1960) and Matrimonio all'Italiana (Marriage Italian Style, 1964), both of which starred Sophia Loren, who became a friend. When Loren was going to Hollywood for the first time in the mid-1950s, Trovajoli composed and recorded with his orchestra a song in Neapolitan for her, Che M'è Mparato a Ffà (What Did You Teach Me to Do?), which did much to launch her in the US.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Tuesday 18th December

• “Take Five 2012: John Fordham's year in jazz”

  In the last Take Five of 2012, John Fordham picks his musical milestones of the year – and salutes the late jazz giant Dave Brubeck whose work gave this column its name. Tell us in the comments section below about your favourite jazz moments of the year, plus what you'd like to see John covering next month

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  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Thursday 13th December

• “Best jazz albums of 2012”

  Freewheeling Django Bates produced one of the year's best releases, along with a Keith Jarrett live recording from the 1970s

  5 Sleeper

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Monday 19th November

• “Listen now to Bryan Ferry's Jazz Age”

  The Roxy Music man has rerecorded some of his biggest hits in a 20s jazz style with the Bryan Ferry Orchestra

  Fans of Bryan Ferry well know that while he's often looked like a vision from the future – and sounded like it too, especially with Roxy Music – he's also long had a fondness for the past. We know he wears a mean tuxedo, and we've always loved his 1999 album As Time Goes By, which saw him singing Cole Porter and much else besides.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Monday 12th November

• “London jazz festival: opening highlights”

  For the first in a series of festival reports, John L Walters discusses the artists on the frontline of contemporary jazz

  Given the modest scale of the jazz economy, it's a source of wonder that so many young musicians are prepared to put in the 10,000 hours of practice and attempt to forge a career in the music. Many have to play with many different genres to survive, but this is also a factor that keeps jazz musicians admirably grounded. Musicians Corey Mwamba and Alexander Hawkins touched on the economics of jazz in their entertaining history session The Way in to the Way Out, free at the QEH Front Room on the Southbank.

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Wednesday 7th November

• “What to see at the London jazz festival”

  The London jazz festival starts on Friday 9 November, and here are our critics' picks of what to see – plus suggestions from performers including Robert Glasper and Gwyneth Herbert

  Guy Barker's Jazz Voices: Celebrating a Century of Song

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk

Tuesday 6th November

• “'Coltrane was a very greedy man'”

  To mark the London jazz festival, here is an NME encounter with the great trumpeter in 1985 courtesy of Rock's Backpages, the world's leading archive of vintage music journalism

  "Man," says Miles Davis, "I haven't been sketching in so long. Maybe two, three weeks. Usually when I get to sketching – I get so involved I stop practising my horn. So when I get a job, I can't touch it. Hey David!" Miles calls over to his genial manager. "Gimme that horn case out of the other room! If I don't have my horn next to me I feel like I'm not …"

  Read the complete article at www.guardian.co.uk