Since Ahmad al-Sharaa came to power in Syria, the Damascus government has been given carte blanche to use maximum force against any threat to its continued rule, writes VIJAY PRASHAD
A jazzman of precious unity's beautiful saxophone songs
John Tchicai performs at the Munster Jazz Festival in 1987
[Jazzenthusiast/Creative Commons] 
Keir Starmer’s hiring Tim Allan from Tory-led Strand Partners is another illustration of Labour’s corporate-influence world where party differences matter less than business connections, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
Britain’s proud asylum history, from sheltering the Kindertransport escaping Hitler to Basque children fleeing fascist Spain, required tireless campaigning against persistent opposition — and it’s up to all of us to do our part today, writes SABINA PRICE
The truth will out: we are here to unveil the full scale of the government’s complicity in genocide and to hold it to account for the monstrous bloodshed in Palestine, writes JEREMY CORBYN
As the Alliance of Sahel States and southern African nations advance pan-African goals, the African Union must listen and learn rather than parroting the Western line on these positive developments, writes ROGER McKENZIE
KEITH BENNETT reflects on witnessing the grand parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of China’s Victory Day, which impressively showcased advanced military technology
Christopher Dell, Jonas Westergaard, Christian Lillinger and John Tchicai
Dell, Westergaard, Lillinger featuring John Tchicai
(jazzwerkstatt 128)
THE tenor saxophonist John Tchicai was born in Copenhagen in 1936 to a Danish mother and Congolese father, who had met when they were both waiters at the city’s Aarhus Pleasure Gardens.
He studied at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory, heard the touring avant-garde jazzmen Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon at a festival in Helsinki and pursued them to New York, where he played alongside them as a member of New York Contemporary Five. In 1965 he played with John Coltrane on the epochal Ascension album session. He also recorded with Albert Ayler, and in 1969 found himself in Cambridge, performing and recording with John Lennon and Yoko Ono: altogether, a beginning in professional music of many dreams.
During the next two decades, Tchicai spent much of his career in Europe, teaching full time. In 1982 he joined Pierre Dorge’s New Jungle Orchestra in Copenhagen and made some powerful records with them. In the ’90s he returned Stateside to southern California, but kept a presence too in France. Always a free spirit who bonded closely with young musicians, he died in October 2012.
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