MIDDLETON’S Hotel, Skeldergate, is probably the most comfortable live music venue in York, providing jazz every Thursday with the Mardi Gras Band alternating with Bejazzled (01904 611570).

Tonight it is Mardi Gras, starting at 8.30pm. Band groupies will be disappointed that regular drummer Trevor King has been spirited away by Karl Mullen to play at Churchil’s Hotel, Bootham, with Karl’s trio. Stepping in on the tubs will be the excitingly fragrant Dave Cook.

Two major gigs are in competition tomorrow night, with guitarist Martin Taylor at the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM), Walmgate, York (ncem.co.uk and 01904 658338) and the Snake Davis Band at Fibbers, Stonebow (01904 651250).

The first session of Sunday jazz in York will be at 1pm with John Marley (bass), Paul Smith (drums) and guests at Kennedy’s Café Bar, Little Stonegate (01904 620222). Alec Robinson’s West Coast Project will be on Sunday night at the Phoenix Inn, George Street, playing Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan.

John Marley is busy again on Monday at the Phoenix, organising a charity jam session as a birthday celebration of his indispensable jazzinyork.com website. All players and singers are welcome at 8.30pm and the selected charity is Nordoff Robinson, helping people through music therapy. The regular Phoenix jam session runs on Wednesday at 8pm. Karl Mullen`s second gig next week will be with Encouraging The Loony, Tuesday at the Victoria Vaults at 8.30pm (01904 654307) and the Kier Hall Trio will be at Zizzi`s Restaurant, Lendal, on Wednesday from 7.30pm.

Many York jazzers travel to Wakefield Jazz and tomorrow’s double bill features the Jamil Sheriff Trio and Microscopic, led by trumpeter Richard Iles (01977 680542). Jazz In The Spa has its annual visit from Richard Leach’s Seven Stars of Jazz, playing traditional jazz in the Chicago style (01937 844898).Scarborough Jazz operates every Wednesday at the Cask Inn, Cambridge Terrace, and next week`s guests will be the club`s contribution to the Blues Festival, with the “sizzling` hot R & B combo” The Revolutionaires (01723 500570).

REVIEW

Phronesis, Life To Everything (Edition Records) ****

THIS live album by the Anglo/Scandinavian trio was recorded at the Cockpit, London, as part of the London Jazz Festival inand the whoops and whistles make this the most enthusiastic and noisy audience heard at any jazz gig. In the contemporary mode of a truly democratic trio, rather than a piano backed by bass and drums, each member composed three tunes each of the nine on the album. The notional leader is Jasper Hoiby and his nimble-fingered bass opens the album with Urban Control, composed by drummer Anton Eger, and he switches to a bowed bass intro on his own composition, Wings To The Mind.

Eger provides the fugue-like melody to Dr Black, before the piece moves to headlong up-tempo, propelled by his explosive drumming. Pianist Ivo Neame contributes the slow and meditative Phraternal and the Latin – tinged Song For Lost Nomads. This beautifully recorded album consolidaes Edition as a leading jazz label.