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Babel News last updated 2007-09-05



2007-09-24 Billy Jenkins in Stool Pigeon
Read an article on Billy Jenkins here
2007-09-04 Musician Claims Music Has become Impotent
Musician Billy Jenkins, a Visiting Artist at the Royal Academy of Music and an influential performer, composer and polemic on the British jazz scene for over three decades, has declared that “music is ceasing to have the power and spirituality it once had”. more

2007-09-01 Paula Rae Gibson mini site now up and running
A new small site for vocalist/photographer/artist Paula Rae Gibson is now up on the Babel site here. She performs at the Vortex on 3 September to launch a new book and CD.

2007-08-29 New Vortex imprint with Babel - Portico Quartet
The Portico Quartet is the first signing for a new label Vortex within Babel. More information here.

2007-08-24 Christine Tobin live at the Vortex now available online
Earconnector is a website run by London-based jazz musicians Alex Bonney and Hans Koller. It has been building a great library of online recordings from the UK underground jazz scene over the past few years. We urge you to visit the site and choose from nearly 50 exclusive recorded gigs. You can hear Christine Tobin's live gig at the Vortex recorded on 19 May by clicking here

2007-08-24 Christine Tobin at 606 Club on 26 August
Christine takes the stage at the 606 on 90 Lots Road London SW3 this Sunday. For more info and tickets phone 0207 352 5953

2007-08-24 Finn Peters' BBC Jazz Award winning Finntet takes new material out live
This year's BBC Jazz Awards Best Band winner Finn Peters has promised lots of new tunes at three gigs over the next couple of weeks starting on August 27 at Leeds, Big City Jazz. This is followed by two in London on August 31 at The Vortex in Dalston, N16 (Book online here or phone 020 7254 4097 ) and September 9 at Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho (book online here) . The band will be Finn's usual quintet with Finn on flute and sax, Tom Skinner on Drums, Tom Herbert on Bass, Nick Ramm on Piano and Dave Okumu on Guitar. There'll be a couple of changes at two of the gigs: Mathew Yee King will play computers at the Vortex and Zoe Rahman will play piano at Pizza Express. Finn will also be doing a special DJ set with the Basquait Strings who'll be celebrating their recent Mercury nomination on September 1 at The Vortex.


2007-08-15 Led Bib live next week in London, Norwich and Leeds' Big City Jazz Festival
You can catch the band that, according to the Observer Music Monthly, is 'one (no.16) of 25 Live acts you MUST see this summer (that's above the likes of Bjork, The White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys) next Monday 20 August in London at boat Ting on the Thames. Led Bib will be showcasing tracks from their recent Babel release Sizewell Tea at The Yacht Club, Temple Pier, Victoria Embankment, London WC2R with £6/4 concessions, music starting at 8.30pm. You can check out the preview in this week's Time Out here. Other dates coming up over the following Bank Holiday weekend are on the 24 August at Norwich Arts Centre, St. Benedicts Street and on the 27th at the Big City Jazz Festival in Leeds as an evening focussing on Young British Jazz that also includes BBC Best Band award winning Finn Peters and his Finntet. For further details click here

2007-07-13 Finn Peters wins Best Band and Julian Siegel, best instrumentalist at BBC Jazz Awards
Two artists who record for Babel were presented with BBC Jazz Awards last night in the 2007 BBC Jazz Awards ceremony held at the Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars last night. Saxophonist-flautist Finn Peters, whose Su-Ling album was a recent highlight release on Babel , stepped up to receive the award for Best Band while another saxophonist, Julian Siegel, who is co-leader of Babel band Partisans, revieved the award for Best Instrumentalist.

2007-07-11 Fraud CD reviewed in The Times and Glasgow Herald
Reviews have just appeared in The Times Knowledge supplement and the Glasgow Herald for Fraud's new eponymous CD. John Bungey from The Times describes the CD as "...an exhilarating debut." while Rob Adams from the Herald comments "...they combine fine discipline, and periods of quiet wittiness and gentle delicacy, with a wilful ferocity that can be exhilarating, disturbing and seductive". If you'd like to read the reviews in full please click here (Herald) and here (Times).

2007-07-04 Fraud announces live date at the Spitz on Friday 27 July
Nominated for Best Album Fraud and Rising Star (James Allsopp) in this year's BBC Jazz Awards taking place later this month, Fraud have annouced their first live performance for five months to take place at the Spitz in Old Spitalfields Market, E1 on 27th July. Known for their incendiary live performances in 2006 they impressed (and no doubt disturbed) audiences at the Cheltenham Jazz festival as part of the Jerwood Rising Stars Scheme so much, the performance was made the ‘Live Highlight of 2006' by Jazzwise Magazine.The date at the Spitz also features DJs Precise and Olfun. For info/tickets call 020 7392 9032  www.spitz.co.uk Doors 7pm Tickets £7.

2007-07-04 Billy Jenkins at Glasgow Jazz Fest reviewed in The Herald
Billy was in fine fettle at the Glasgow International Jazz Festival (performing at the Regal Social Club) by the sound of the following review written by Rob Adams and published in The Herald:
"Let's hope that someone was recording this, because for a blues singer to be live at the Regal, as B B King was famously captured, has to be poetic programming. Billy Jenkins is no B B King, of course, but then the reverse statement could equally be applied. It would be hard to imagine the great Blues Boy responding to his surroundings by incorporating a dig about a walk of a certain colour delaying his arrival at the venue or making impromptu - and loud - use of a bass drum and piano that happen to be onstage. Jenkins's way of telling it like it is is a deal less romantic than the accepted blues language. Not for him the "she's got one foot on the platform and the other on the train" scenario, because Jenkins being a British train traveller, the train hasn't turned up. And when he pleads for someone, anyone, to look him up, it's not loneliness it's "because I'm a sad b-a-s-t " Later he actually sings Percy Mayfield's Please Send Me Someone to Love and sings it with a rough-hewn feeling that reminds us that, underneath the malarkey, there's a serious talent at work. His guitar playing, though it can veer off into derangement, can also be scorchingly effective. It also takes talent, as well as comic timing, to render Hoagy Carmichael's Old Rockin' Chair as if heard on a radio whose dial keeps slipping. As with the best bluesmen, though, Jenkins may well have the blues - but his audience doesn't".

2007-06-22 Led Bib announces full tour dates schedule for 2007
Led Bib is, according to the Observer Music Monthly, 'one (no.16) of 25 Live acts you MUST see this summer - that's above the likes of Bjork, The White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys. So Here's your chance to catch them in their element, showcasing their new Babel album Sizewell Tea in a tour around the country through 2007. Starting in two days on Sunday at the Chelsea Festival (a free event from 1pm-3pm at Duke of York Square, SW3) the incendiary jazzers Led Bib embark on some tour dates around the country as follows:
24th June - Chelsea Festival, London
20th July -  Notting Hill Arts Club, London
2nd August - Pizza Express Dean St., London
20th August - Boat Ting, Battersea, London
24th August - Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
20th September - Vortex Jazz Club, London
4th October - Matt and Phreds, Manchester
2nd March 2008 - Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester

2007-06-08 Babel artists announced as nominations in BBC Jazz Awards
Babel and the jazz musicians based around the Vortex Jazz Club have been very well represented in this year's BBC Jazz Awards. The list of nominations involving Babel artists are as follows:

Best instrumentalist:
Julian Siegel ( co-leader Partisans)
Liam Noble ( plays on albums by Christine Tobin and recently in duo with Ingrid Laubrock on Let's Call This);

Rising Star:
Tom Arthurs (Centripede , Squash Recipe and upcoming release Mesmer with Richard Fairhurst)
James Allsopp ( Fraud)

Best album:
Fraud - Fraud
Tom Cawley - Curios (plays keys with Acoustic Ladyland)

Best group:
Finn Peters Finntet (last year's album Su-Ling )

2007-05-21 Led Bib - "one of 25 acts not to be missed this summer" according to Observer Music Magazine. Above Arctic Monkeys, Bjork, Aerosmith....
1. Prince
2. The Good, the Bad & The Queen
3. The Jesus & Mary Chain
4. Klaxons
5. Muse
6. Cajun Dance Party
7. Dizzee Rascal
8. Gallows
9. Beastie Boys
10. Bonde do Role
11. George Michael
12. Black Lips
13. Fairport Convention
14. Gogol Bordello
15. Melanie
16. Led Bib
Tapping into the spirit of '79 and the punk legacy of bands like the Clash, Led Bib have recycled the vibrancy and multiculturalism of their east London postcode, and spiced it with some wild jazz improvising and raw electronics. Energised by the drumming of leader Mark Holub, they leap into the musical space opened up by Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland for unlikely indie rock bands or maverick jazz bands. We need bands like Led Bib to make the world safe for dangerous music.
Stuart Nicholson

17. Arctic Monkeys
18. Chemical Brothers
19. The White Stripes
20. Bjork
21. Tinariwen
22. Aerosmith
23. North Sea Radio Orchestra
24. Battles
25. Spinal Tap

2007-06-08 Richard Fairhurst. Tom Arthurs CD launch at Soho Pizza Express
There's a special Babel double duo bill at the Soho Pizza Express next Tuesday 12 June: new 2007 BBC Nominated Rising Star Tom Arthurs and ex-BBC Jazz Award winner Richard Fairhurst will officially launch their new album Mesmer while the duo of pianist Huw Warren and virtuoso Austrian double bassist Peter Herbert, who together recorded Everything We Love and More on Babel last year will also be on the same bill. For tickets and more info please call 020 7734 3220.