08 December 2025Pianist John Donegan revisits the trio format with Interfuse
Following a successful run of four sextet recordings, Cork-born, Hertfordshire-based pianist John Donegan changes direction with a return to the jazz piano trio tradition on his latest album, Interfuse.
“I loved working with the sextet – I still do – but I wanted to shake things up a bit and revisit the trio format,” says Donegan whose piano influences include Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Hampton Hawes, Bud Powell, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Kenny Barron.
The trio recordings of Bill Evans are particular favourites of Donegan’s and they inspired him to explore the tradition again. He had also been struck by saxophonist Richie Buckley’s lyrical side and improvising strengths while leading the Irish Sextet that has made three enthusiastically received albums. So the trio becomes a quartet on tracks including the energetic opener, Blues Jive, which also pays homage to Thelonious Monk with its edgy attack.
Blues Jive is one of two new compositions – the other being the heartfelt ballad A Resolute Rose dedicated to Donegan’s young grand-daughter – on the album. A prolific composer, Donegan also likes to reinterpret previous work, finding new meaning and new inspiration when taking a different approach.
The album’s title track, Interfuse, which originally appeared on the sextet album A Kite for Kate, returns as a quartet piece here and the idiosyncratic Funny Isn’t It, which Donegan first recorded as a solo piano piece, is updated in the trio format.
Donegan is joined in the trio by two longstanding colleagues. Drummer John Daly has provided the swing, drive and detail on Donegan’s three Irish Sextet albums and bassist Bernard O’Neill, who has acted as producer on eight of Donegan’s nine previous albums, takes up a dual role as producer and Daly’s rhythm section partner.
Alongside the trio and quartet tracks there is a solo piano performance of A Song for Ciara, a tender dedication to Donegan’s eldest daughter which first appeared on the pianist’s 1997 album of the same name.
A musician of huge experience – he has played with jazz luminaries Art Blakey, Art Farmer, Barney Kessel and Greg Abate as well as the world class Irish guitarist Louis Stewart – Donegan is constantly driven by the desire to explore music, both his own and other musicians’.
“I love to listen almost as much as I love to play,” he says. “Above all, though, what I want to do is keep my own music interesting, for me and for the listener. I feel we’ve done that with these nine tracks and I couldn’t have asked for better recording partners than John, Bernard and Richie.”
Interfuse was recorded at Camden Studios, Dublin on 28th and 29th May 2025 and 28th August 2025. It's released on Jayde Records.
08 December 2025Harper Karen Marshalsay releases Christmas single
as a digital single on Monday 1st December to celebrate Christmas and
share the exciting news that her latest album, Eadarainn a’ Chruit ;
Between Us the Harp will feature in a concert at Celtic Connections in
Glasgow in January.
The opening track from Eadarainn a’ Chruit : Between Us the Harp, the Yule Log Polka was written during Lockdown for a Winter Solstice concert live from Karen’s kitchen. “I love the idea of the Yule Log burning down, bringing merriment and light and laughter to the dark nights of winter and symbolising the return of the sun,” says Karen. “And the modern chocolate cake version is pretty good too!”
Irish music legend and the sole surviving founding-member of the world-renowned Boys of the Lough, singer and flautist Cathal McConnell, Scottish harp doyenne Alison Kinnaird, master piper and Gaelic singer Allan MacDonald and fiddler-violist Kathryn Nicoll all feature on the album and will appear with Karen at the Celtic Connections concert at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow on Saturday 31st January.
The follow-up to Karen’s 2019 release, The Road to Kennaicraig, Eadarainn a’ Chruit : Between Us the Harp has been described as “a statement of tradition” (Music News Scotland).
Comprised of traditional tunes and songs and original tunes composed in the traditional style, it also showcases the three distinctly different harps associated with Scottish music: the modern lever harp, the wire-strung clarsach of the Gaels and the buzzing bray harp from the renaissance and baroque periods.
“Having recorded a solo album in The Road to Kennacraig, I wanted the second one to reinforce the musical partnerships that have been such an important part of my musical journey,” says Karen. “I’ve always enjoyed playing with Alison, Allan, Cathal and Kathryn, as well as playing solo concerts, and their contributions enrich the music on the album just as their friendship and musicality have enriched my experience.”
The Yule Log Polka is paired with Planxty Luchóg Beag, a tune that Karen wrote for a mouse that appeared at a harpmaker’s exhibition where she was trying out what became her new main instrument, a Harrington harp.
“It kept scurrying out to see what was going on, have a wee dance and disappear again,” says Karen. “So I thought it deserved a tune and Planxty Luchóg Beag seemed to sit well with the Yule Log Polka.”
Eadarainn a’ Chruit : Between Us the Harp is released on Cramasie Records and is available from Bandcamp.
07 December 2025Scottish Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes releases Christmas single
Internationally admired Scottish Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes has released a Christmas single, Santa Take Me Home. Written during a real-life travel nightmare, the song transforms a frantic, snow-stranded Christmas Eve into a warm, nostalgic and all too relatable festive story.
In December 2023, Kathleen was performing as the singer in the band of Max Webster’s acclaimed London West End production of Macbeth, starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo. When the show finished on Christmas Eve, the Scottish cast and band faced a desperate, chaotic rush to get home, battling heavy snow, ice, flight cancellations and even a London cab strike.
Kathleen composed Santa Take Me Home spontaneously that same night. It combines the urgency of trying to make it home for Christmas with memories of past festive seasons alongside the central plea: a call to the busiest man on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus, to help bring her safely back to Scotland.
Produced by Edinburgh-based composer, arranger and sound artist Alan Penman, the single showcases Kathleen’s unmistakable Hebridean voice. It also features Edinburgh musician Luisa Brown on fiddle.
“This song came straight from that chaotic Christmas Eve, equal parts panic, hope and longing to be home with my family,” says Kathleen. “It’s a moment so many people will recognise, that pull to get back to the people and places you love most at Christmas.”
Santa Take Me Home is available on all major streaming and download platforms.
10 November 2025Leading NZ jazz musicians release new quintet recording
Wellington-based Scottish drummer John Rae and New Zealand-born pianist Ben Wilcock follow their internationally acclaimed Splendid Isolation album with March of the Octopus, a suite of original compositions ranging from reflective solo piano pieces to quintet explorations, on Friday 28th November.
Recorded in Neil Finn of Crowded House’s Roundhead Studios, the album features Rae and Wilcock with NZ jazz stalwarts, bassist Patrick Bleakley and tenor saxophonist Roger Manins, plus emerging guitarist Theo Thompson.
Long-time collaborators and co-founders of Thick Records NZ, Rae and Wilcock brought their shared vision to life in the studio, reflecting their own ideas while also creating an open canvas for the quintet’s distinctive improvisational voices.
“Our years of performing together have shaped an organic, conversational interplay,” says Wilcock. “It’s music that - for us - feels at once deeply personal and effortlessly collective. It was also great to bring in Theo Thompson, whose fresh sound expands the ensemble’s tonal palette.”
The album comprises nine tracks, utilising eight compositions, with the writing credits split equally between Rae and Wilcock. Rae’s opening What’s in a Name, a solo piano feature for Wilcock, returns later as The Fox, arranged for the quintet. The piece has also featured as a big band arrangement for the inaugural concert by the Aotearoa Jazz Orchestra, the national jazz orchestra of New Zealand of which Rae is the musical director.
Inspiration for the music included family members, including Rae’s wife, Suzy, and a sniffy request from an audience member that Wilcock wittily transformed into a composition with a coded title.
“We really enjoyed the process of putting the music together and then recording at the now legendary Roundhead Studios,” says Wilcock. “We hope that enjoyment passes on to the listener and having premiered this material at Wellington Jazz Festival 2025 we’re looking forward to taking it out to more audiences.”
March of the Octopus was engineered and mixed by De Stevens and mastered in Scotland by Scottish guitarist Kevin Murray. It's released on Thick Records NZ.
26 October 2025Pianist-composer Euan Stevenson launches new partnership
Scottish pianist-composer Euan Stevenson launches a new collaboration with internationally acclaimed soprano Julia Doyle with his latest single, Kyrie on 7th November.
Recorded in London’s Temple Church, Kyrie is Stevenson’s setting of the ancient Kyrie eleison text from his choral work Missa Brevis. It features Doyle accompanied by cellist Peter Gregson, organist Roger Sayer and Stevenson’s partner in the New Focus jazz-classical duo, saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski.
“Finding fresh musical ideas to marry with an ancient yet eternally profound text was the creative stimulus for writing this music,” says Stevenson, whose Missa Brevis also includes settings of the Gloria and Agnus Dei. “With the ‘Kyrie’ text, the sound of the words alone is so beautiful that, as a composer, you cannot help but be inspired. There is also a steadfastness inherent in the text that is a comfort in these turbulent times.”
Stevenson, whose commissions include arrangements for the English Chamber Orchestra with international violin soloist Pinchas Zukerman and accompaniments for supermodel Naomi Campbell during London Fashion Week, is also the songwriting partner and musical director for Jazz FM favourite, singer Georgia Cecile.
Kyrie is released by iOcco Classical and will be available for streaming from 7th November. Stevenson and Wiszniewski bring their New Focus: The Classical Connection to The Bridge in Dumfries also on 7th November.
16 October 2025Dublin label makes two more albums by guitarist Louis Stewart available again
The relaunched Livia Records continues to reactivate the great Irish guitarist Louis Stewart's back catalogue with two releases.
Due on 14th November, Alone Together features Stewart with flute virtuoso Brian Dunning in a set of ten duets from 1979. Alongside familiar tunes including There Will Never Be Another You, Chick Corea's Windows and Joe Henderson's Inner Urge tracks include Definitely Doctored, co-written by Stewart and Dunning and showing their wit and accomplishment.
The second release is the reactivated Tunes, from 2013, which features Stewart with his great friend, pianist Jim Doherty, who discovered a teenage Stewart in 1960 and set him on course to become Ireland's first world class jazz musician. They recorded Doherty's Spondance in 1986, which Livia reissued earlier this year, and by 2013 they were so comfortable in each other's company that Tunes might be considered a series of intimate conversations based on some of their favourite standards.
09 October 2025New harp duo showcases three harp styles
The Meeting of Friends, the first recording by a new harp partnership, is released on Tuesday 7th October.
Leading Scottish harper Karen Marshalsay met Cheshire-based composer/harpist Lauren Scott through online harp ceilidhs during lockdown designed to keep harp players from across the world in touch with each other and playing together to rase their spirits in a difficult time. What started as a means for harpists to meet online and play during Lockdown quickly became a way to support each other during Covid times through the joy of shared music.
Their friendship has continued and they recorded together for the first time a few weeks ago.
Composed by Lauren during the summer of 2024, The Meeting of Friends features Karen playing the wire-strung clarsach from the Gaelic tradition and the distinctive-toned bray harp of the lowlands together with Lauren playing the modern lever harp, creating an intriguing blend of sounds and musical styles.
It was recorded by Rob Buckland in Cheshire just before both players released new solo CDs, with Lauren’s Night Lotus coming out on 29th August and Karen’s Eadarainn a’ Chruit : Between Us the Harp following on 5th September.
“We had a great time recording the music,” says Karen. “It’s had some early radio plays. The response has been really encouraging and we’re hoping to work together again soon when our respective schedules allow.”
04 October 2025Tommy Smith and Gwilym Simcock release concert recording
Saxophonist Tommy Smith and pianist Gwilym Simcock release their first recording together, Eternal Light on Friday 3 October 2025 exclusively via Bandcamp.
A live album recorded direct to 2-track at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 11 September 2025, Eternal Light captures Smith and Simcock in concert at Scotland’s flagship jazz venue. It features seven original compositions – two new works by Simcock, Weathered and Old Husbands’ Tale, alongside five of Smith’s recent compositions: Eternal Light, Land Between the Rivers, Body or Soul, Harlequin, and El Niño.
The music highlights the deep rapport between two of Europe’s most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz, weaving lyrical interplay, improvisational risk, and a profound sense of storytelling.
Smith has enjoyed an international career spanning collaborations with Gary Burton, Chick Corea, John Scofield, and Arild Andersen. Simcock, one of the most versatile pianists of his generation, has built an international reputation through collaborations with Pat Metheny, Bill Bruford, and the Impossible Gentlemen. Their duo partnership has been described as “a conversation that can go anywhere — from whisper to roar, from abstraction to melody” and Eternal Light reflects the pair’s commitment to risk-taking and reinvention, presenting a body of work that is both grounded and exploratory.
“The duo is the most intimate and exposed of formats,” says Smith. “There is nowhere to hide, although the solo saxophone is even more transparent, but that is also where the beauty lies. The saxophone and piano have such complementary voices. The piano offers harmony, rhythm, and colour, while the saxophone can be a pure line, like a singer.”
Smith and Simcock met while performing with different groups at festivals and it was Smith’s long-time duo partner, the late Brian Kellock who suggested that Smith and Simcock would work well together.
“It felt natural right from the start,” says Smith. “It was as if we were already speaking the same musical language. Over time, we discovered that we share a similar appetite for risk and lyricism, and the duo developed organically. It has become one of the most rewarding partnerships of my career.”
The album is being supported by concerts at Watermill Jazz in Dorking on Tuesday 14th October and the Concorde Club in Eastleigh, near Southampton, on Wednesday 15th October.