DECEMBER 2025 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the December 2025 issue – OUT NOW!
RITA SATCH
To Citypoint, just around the corner from Moorgate underground station, where the 2025 EFG London Jazz Festival has commandeered a small bar facility for its series of Jazz Socials – essentially a free-to-enjoy series of small-scale live appearances by some of the non-headline acts associated with this year’s season of events. Today’s tasty little morsel is an hour-long, intimate showcase by the artist who created my favourite album this past year: Rita Satch. Here on this side of the world because she’s touring with Gary Bartz – by the time you read this they’ll have both played live at Islington’s Union Chapel and Rita will have made her Ronnie Scott’s debut – Satch is today accompanied only by her husband Daniel Mougerman at the piano…
NAYA ROCKERS
Naya Rockers’ album Higher Education is one of the year’s best roots reggae albums and the story behind it is unlike that of any other. It’s different because that title is a mission statement of sorts, with their partners Floki Studios donating proceeds from the album to the Alpha School of Music in Jamaica.
Nathan Sabanayagam, the guiding spirit behind Naya Rockers, is an associate professor at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where he teaches ensemble and a class on the music and life on Bob Marley. His wife Sarah, who co-wrote some of the songs on the album including Stephen Marley’s The Right Path, is also a professor at Berklee. Unsurprisingly, the pair surround themselves with skilled musicians who share their ideals of producing music that affects people’s lives in a positive way. They’re only too aware of the impact that education can have on a person’s outlook and future prospects, and so it’s no mistake that every track on Higher Education has this as its core subject
MIKE ÄPT
“I grew up in a musical family. Music was always around, church songs, soul records, people singing in the house. Even when life was chaotic, music felt stable and spiritual. My mom taught me piano, and my dad taught me guitar, so music was and has always been a part of my life. It taught me early on that music is supposed to feel like something, not just sound good.”
JAZZ 2025
‘A change is gonna come’ once sang a brave man who died too young. But the question remains, ‘When?’ Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite addressed racial inequality and social justice in1960, and their stand is still relevant today. The struggle continues.
Fittingly, Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell re-imagined the aforesaid work to create We Insist! Freedom Now Suite 2025, [Candid], the standout jazz album of the year. This is a hugely important record for both musical as well as political reasons. On one hand, Carrington has come into her own as a drummer, composer and bandleader with the skill and vision for a project of this magnitude. Roach-Lincoln originals such as Driva Man, a vivid evocation of the back-breaking hardship of plantation life for slaves, are such powerful statements that they need to be treated with a certain boldness – as well as respect – to avoid any pastiche. Dashiell, the latter a gifted young vocalist who has also excelled in Javier Nero’s orchestra and as a member of the Black Lives collective, proves to be a compatible creative partner…
