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Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
‘Jazz has always been a music of resistance in the way it reacts to the turbulence of its times’
CHRIS SEARLE in conversation with jazz guitar maestro Rob Luft
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
ROB LUFT is a brilliant young Sidcup-born jazz guitarist who proudly told me: “I share my birthday with Jimi Hendrix!” He began learning guitar at six and as a boy was immersed in an eclectic storm of music. “I loved the 1990s grunge rock bands like Nirvana, yet very early on I was playing the blues of Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker.”
His guitar teacher took him to hear his first jazz gig, with the Allan Holdsworth Trio: “I'll never forget hearing Holdsworth's virtuosity right up close at such a young age,” he remembered.
More from this author
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer Steve Noble
CHRIS SEARLE interviews saxophonist Chris Williams about the extraordinary electro-acoustic album LEDLEY - a bold fusion of Jazz, football, and community spirit
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Rwanda-born jazz vocalist INEZA
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ghanaian trumpeter PETER SOMUAH
