Ben Davis

Breakthrough

By Erik Jekabson

Label: Wide Hive Records
Released: 2025
Track listing: Jane Wants to Tell You Something (Pt. 1); Jane Wants to Tell You Something (Pt. 2); The Whisperer; A Centered Vibe; Speedway Meadow; Sun on the Keys; Above the Clouds; El Don; Washington as a Surveyor; Into the Jungle (Pt. 1); Into the Jungle (Pt. 2); Into the Jungle (Pt. 3); Sunset on the Keys

Material Tropes

By Zac Gvi

Label: NONID Label
Released: 2023
Track listing: One (Many); White Collared Criminals; Flight; Ocean's End; Untouchables; NOW; The Spectacle; Fire In The Sky; Bijoulacra; Many (One)

Matthew Jacobson: Rituals Of Sound And Time

by Ian Patterson
May 19, 2020

For someone whose livelihood and lifeblood are all about rhythms, the COVID-19 lockdown, with its very different rhythms, must be extremely frustrating. Especially when, as is the case with Matthew Jacobson, renowned drummer, composer, promotor and record label manager, there is no drum kit in his Dublin apartment. “I've been doing more work on ...

Diatribe Records: Heart and Soul of the Music

by Ian Patterson
January 16, 2013

Whilst Ireland has long produced music of world renown, this tiny, most Westerly European nation has never been quite so famous for producing cutting edge jazz. However, as European jazz has gradually let slip the American accent--an evolution that perhaps gathered its greatest momentum with the birth of the ECM label--so, too, in Ireland, a new ...

And So It Goes...

By Emilia Martensson

Label: Babel Label
Released: 2012
Track listing: IF YOU GO AWAY; I WON'T REGRET; SOMETHING IN THE WAY SHE MOVES; DIENDA; WASHING OF THE WATER; ME AND JULIO DOWN BY THE SCHOOLYARD; V?REN KOM I ?R; PALHACO; WALTZ FOR THE LONELY ONES; THE BEST MAN; AND SO IT GOES....

Laura Jurd: Landing Ground

by Bruce Lindsay
November 15, 2012

Laura Jurd calls her debut Landing Ground, but it's the references to flight and cross-Atlantic antics in her song titles that seem a more appropriate reflection of the young composer/trumpeter's musical vision. Still a student at London's Trinity College Of Music and just 21 at the time of its recording, Jurd has already won major awards ...

Oriole: Every New Day

by Bruce Lindsay
April 29, 2012

There's a stark beauty to Every New Day, the third album from Oriole, that speaks of the majesty of vast open spaces. For the most part, the warmth and splendor of these spaces gives the music a positivity and optimism, but there are also times when it takes on a more downbeat and reflective quality. The ...

Oriole: Every New Day

by Chris May
April 24, 2012

OrioleEvery New DayF-IRE2012Oriole's third album of sonorous South American and Iberian-flavored jazz has been some time coming. The London group, led by guitarist and composer Jonny Phillips, debuted with Song For The Sleeping in 2005 and followed up a year later with Migration (both F-IRE). There has been ...

The Man Who Laughs: Deep Song

by Chris May
October 18, 2010

On Deep Song, London based singer Fumi Okiji and looped up guitarist Stefano Kalonaris--recording under the auspices of the experimentally inclined, but historically literate, musicians' collective F-IRE--offer a noir-ish, digital-age spin on jazz standards and the Great American Songbook. Okiji has explored similar material with the Portrait Bellevue trio featuring cellist Ben Davis and pianist Zac ...