Ten great jazz gigs

I thought it might be fun to include my ten favourite jazz gigs. In no particular order (apart from the first):

Pharaoh Sanders – Dingwalls 1993

I think I have said enough about this in previous blogs. The best musical experience of my life.


Miles Davis – Royal Festival Hall 1991

The gig wasn’t that great. But it was him. And he mattered. And he was dead six weeks later.


John Etheridge – The Bass Clef, 1991

I was one of the four in the audience for this! A cold bleak Sunday night. He turned it into a play, improv session for us and we chatted with him between pieces. His playing was remarkable. I have seen him play live many times (and he is second only to John McLaughlin among British guitarists in my opinion) and this was the best. And what a pro for doing the gig with his full band. I left the gig to find my bike had been nicked.


Pat Metheney – Hammersmith Odeon, 1992

I surprise myself by including this but he had his full band (about 12 of them) and he was fabulous. A bit bland for me on record but live he is right on the spot. The show stopper was ‘Are you going with me’. And we were.


Talvin Singh – Barbican 1999

TS played with Sun Ra when he was 16 and is a musical master from the east end of London. He left jazz years ago and probably got off after this gig. It was the Mercury Music Prize celebratory gig and included Bill Laswell playing the loudest bass I have ever heard, Sakamoto on keyboards and the underrated Cleveland Watkiss on vocals plus various Indian percussion maestros. This was him at his best with a great band.


John Surman – Purcell Room 1996

A solo concert from a musical genius. Highly pastoral and a gig laced with anecdote, Thomas Hardy references and of course brilliant multi-instrumentation. I remember someone coughed and he said ‘count yourself lucky you’re not at a Keith Jarrett concert’ (Jarrett is known for admonishing audience members who cough, play with sweet wrappers etc.)


Eberhard Weber – Queen Elizabeth Hall 1997

One of ECM’s greatest did a solo bass show and I must admit I wondered if the bass could sustain a 2 hour slot. If I had shut my eyes I would have imagined there were five musicians on the stage and I could have listened to him for two hours more. A great musician and a great, humourous guy.


John Scofield – Monkey’s, Brentwood, Essex 1990

I blogged on this the other day. A muscular, tight performance from a great, great trio. I remember I had just bought his acclaimed ‘Time on my hands’ album and didn’t rate it at all (I still don’t) but this gig was another world entirely.


Jan Garbarek – Royal Festival Hall 1994

The first time I saw him and the only time I have cried at a concert. The music was magisterial and very beautiful. And what a band – Bruninghaus, Weber and Marilyn Mazur


Sonny Rollins – Theatre Royal 1995

This was just one of the happiest shows I have been to. He was in full calypso mode with an excellent Bob Cranshaw on bass. He was around 65 then and his lung power was something else. I still think his ignored ‘Next Album’ is one of the best straight jazz albums I have heard.



Gil Scot-Heron – Jazz Café 1991

This blew me away completely. Gil still had it together then before the drugs got hold of him. He is currently a crack addict, HIV positive and in jail. He was poignant, assertive and had a fabulous band with Gil himself playing lovely chords on the Fender-Rhodes. I spent the evening calling for him to play ‘Beginnings’ – one of my favourite Gil tunes. He didn’t of course but I still loved every second of this.

Other great ones – Arild Anderson, Vinicius Cantuaria, Shakti, Egberto Gismonti, Terje Rydal. The Rydal got very, very close to being included. Anouar Brahem – my current musical hero – probably would have been in there but I was, to my shame a little too drunk at his concert and didn’t enjoy it to the full – a shame really because he had Dave Holland and John Surman in his trio. Anyway I shall be seeing him live in Montpellier next month playing his new (and absolutely brilliant album) ‘Le Voyage De Sahar’.

People who I haven’t seen and would like to: Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard (sadly his chops have gone), Charlie Mariano.

And of course there are many whom I would have loved to have seen but will not now do so! Dolphy (dead just before I was born), Coltrane (dead just after I was born), Clifford Brown, Freddie Webster (whom Miles thought one of the best), Albert Ayler, Art Pepper. I would really liked to have seen Collin Walcott and Don Cherry together as well. I would like to have seen Britain’s very own Joe Harriot around 1961 to see if he was as good as everyone says. Certainly “free-form’ from 1961 is right up there with the best of American modern jazz from that era. We didn’t know what we had!

It’s perhaps not fair to include the missable ones but Miroslav Vitous trying to do a duet acoustic bass concert with his brother at the Jazz Café when there was an MTV party going on inside takes some beating. I still love him for ‘New York City’ his 1976 disco piece though. Where did that come from?

Perhaps a blog soon on other great non-jazz gigs. Nacao Zumbi (great, great, great), John Martyn, Santana. I really enjoyed The Gotan Project too at Somerset House in 2003.