The London Jazz Festival programme is known to regularly extend well beyond the realm of jazz, a genre itself subject to wide open interpretation. For its 2010 edition, the festival organisers have invited Mexican electronic artist Murcof to perform at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, on the South Bank, two years on from his LJF debut in the Purcell Room next door, where he performed with Spanish ensemble BCN216.

For this evening’s performance, Murcof rekindled his long-running partnership with Francesco Tristano, began a few years ago when Fernando Corona produced Tristano’s debut solo record, Not For Piano, released in 2007, and which consequently developed into a full live collaboration. Continue Reading »

It was a Royal Festival Hall packed to the rafters that welcomed Joanna Newsom on the second of her two London dates this Wednesday evening. She had managed to convince her musical hero, Roy Harper, to open for her for these two shows, as she had a few years ago at the Royal Albert Hall. Harper, who was performing live for only the second time following a three year break, played a selection of songs, most of them dating back to the late sixties and early seventies (The Green Man, Another Day or Me And My Woman to name but a few), his voice, strong, with rich overtones and deep reaches, effortlessly filling the RFH, while he alternated between two electro-acoustic guitars, at times so utterly fragile and ephemeral, at other incredibly gritty and violent. Continue Reading »