Happily, in jazz there is a regular youthful incursion, as there has been over recent months with the rise of Clare Teal, Jamie Cullum and others.

The City of York is blessed with many youthful jazzers, such as the brilliant Andy Hillier's various bands and the training school of jam sessions at the Black Swan, Peasholme Green, on Sunday and Wednesday nights.

Pianist Karl Mullen is one of the movers and shakers of the jam sessions, mover being the operative word, because he takes the music to places where no music has gone before.

Tomorrow (14th), Karl will be playing solo piano at Mowbray's Caf in Stonegate, a venue which is soon to become York Brewery's latest pub.

Karl and partner Nina Zagorsky will then move to one of York's smartest new watering holes, the Living Room, by Ouse Bridge on Wednesday (18th). Later in the month, they will be entertaining at a new restaurant, Anastasia's, previously Partners Restaurant in High Ousegate.

Karl's fame has spread far beyond York and a new restaurant in Otley, Kork's, has enlisted his help in finding a good grand piano for the venue. This is refreshing news, which bodes well for the music policy of the restaurant. Musicians are more accustomed to hearing that the piano is in great shape, because "it has just been painted".

Tickets for the Scarborough Jazz Festival 2004 (September 17-19) are on sale now. An additional event at the festival will be a first-ever Jazz Forum organized by JazzYorkshire, a new body funded by Arts Council England. The forum will open in the Spa Complex at 2pm on Friday September 17 and the event will be followed by a free-entry concert by the high-powered Dave Tyas Quartet. For full details of this exciting local festival, call the box office 01723 376774 or go to www.scarboroughjazzfestival.com

On Tuesday, Scarborough Jazz at Scholars Bar will welcome special guest Pat McCarthy, a sublime guitarist based in North Lincolnshire. Pat has forged a national reputation for himself and his various bands and his new project will be premiered at the Cleethorpes Beachcomber Festival, which runs the weekend before Scarborough's, from September 10-12. Call 01472 323382 for more details or go to www.cleethorpesjazz.co.uk

Tomorrow night, Jazz in the Spa (Boston Spa this time) will present a charity evening in aid of Harrogate Samaritans. The featured band will be the Harlem Hot Stompers from the North East, call 01937 842544 for details.

Listening to a new CD re-release of Roland Kirk, Kirk In Copenhagen, the band would have benefited from Karl Mullen's piano-finding skills. The dynamic young Spaniard, Tete Montoliu, battles with a tinny, out of tune piano in this 1963 concert recording and he does valiant work.

As for Roland, this is typical of his exuberant playing of several instruments, often simultaneously and is a fantastic spur to any musicians lucky enough to play with him. Apart from tenor saxophone and flute, many of his instruments are none-standard. In the basement of a music shop he found the makings of what were to become the manzello (near to soprano saxophone in pitch) and the stritch (near to the alto saxophone).

He plays the tenor, manzello and stritch simultaneously, in harmony, on Ellington's Mood Indigo and at various times moves to flute, nose flute and siren.

Stritch and manzello are featured on Cabin In The Sky. Kirk includes his trademark flute/vocalizing effect for On The Corner Of King And Scott Streets, a tribute to the famous London jazz club. Two bass players are credited, one being Neils Henning Orsted Pederson, later to achieve fame with the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Kirk In Copenhagen is a great addition to any collection.

Updated: 08:56 Friday, August 13, 2004