ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Jazz album reviews with Chris Searle: February 17, 2025
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Jim Mullen Quartet
For Heaven’s Sake
(Stunt Records)
★★★★
THE veteran Glaswegian guitarist Jim Mullen is on swinging form here. Recorded in Copenhagen with an organ trio, he plays an eclectic range of tunes from The Touch of Your Lips, Ellington’s Caravan and Bobby Timmons’ This Here, to unlikely versions of Swanee River and When in Rome.
Accompanied by Ben Paterson’s organ, Kristian Leth’s drums and the Paul Gonsalves-inspired tenor saxophone of Jan Harbeck, Mullen’s appetite for melody and lyricism is in full fettle.
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