AFTER 20 years of happy union between the Old White Swan, Goodramgate, and the Mardi Gras Band, a divorce was agreed this week.

Although the pub cut the jazz to once a month last June, the final parting was amicable. Happily, Middleton’s Hotel stepped in last year and took on the band, plus Bejazzled, alternating every Thursday. You will find the Mardi Gras Band at Middleton’s tonight at 8pm (01904 611570).

Sunday jazz in York begins at 1pm with John Marley and friends at Kennedy’s Café Bar, Little Stonegate (01904 620222) and continues at 7pm with Karl Mullen (piano) and vocalist Jen Low at the Rook and Gaskill, Lawrence Street (01904 652050). Round the day off in style at 8pm with the Ian Chalk Quartet at the Phoenix Inn, George Street (0104 656401).

The following night at the Phoenix, the Kate Peters Quartet will be in residence at 8.30pm and the jazz jam will be on Wednesday at 8pm.

A new jazz jam has begun at the University of York, based in Vanbrugh College at 8.30pm on Monday, bringing the number of regular weekly sessions in York to seven. See John Marley’s invaluable website jazzinyork.com for all info on local jazz happenings.

Zizzi’s Restaurant, Lendal, hosts the Kier Hall Jazz Band on Wednesday nights. Bejazzled will be at Middleton’s next Thursday, February 20, and on the same night, Bob Smeaton’s wonderfully named organ quintet, One Foot In The Groove, will be at the Victoria Vaults, Nunnery Lane. (01904 654307).

Outside of York, Wakefield Jazz tonight has the Damon Brown/Martin Zenker Group (01977 680542), and tomorrow night the Spirit of New Orleans play Jazz in the Spa (01937 844898) at Boston Spa.

Scarborough Jazz runs every Wednesday at the Cask Inn and next week’s guest will be saxophonist Toby Green Wood (01723 500570).

Crowdfunding allows bands to finance a new recording. Saxophonist Matt Anderson’s Wild Flower Sextet has launched a campaign to support the making of their debut. You can find more at sponsume.com/project/wild-flower-sextet-album


REVIEW

Get The Blessing, Lope And Antelope (Naim Jazz) **** 

THE Bristol band’s original name, The Blessing, came from an Ornette Coleman tune and traces of Coleman remain.

However, a closer link is with fellow Bristolians Massive Attack and Portishead, of which drummer Clive Deamer and bass player Jim Barr are members, as is guitarist Adrian Uttley.

Recorded in a disused factory, the album is largely improvised against ambient effects, tape-loops and trance-like rhythms. Uttley plays baritone guitar on some tracks, perhaps on Antilope and Numbers, but hard to say, given the playful distortion.

Track one sets the scene, with siren/car-horn sounds and a mischievously wobbly, distorted alto saxophone solo swooping over the rhythmic pulse. The trumpeter grabs the distortion pedal for Trope and the electronic effects go industrial strength on Viking Death Moped.

Corniche features densely interweaving lines of rhythm/melody against bass and drums funking up in James Brown/Parliament mode. This as a delightfully quirky ear-worm of an album, jazz perhaps not as we know it, but leading to some free-form idiot dancing when no one is looking. Ron Burnett