JUNE 2025 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the June 2025 issue – OUT NOW!
OUTSIDE
Here is a funny story of jazz larceny. It’s not grand and may cost you nothing more than a chuckle. Anyway, pianist Matt Cooper finds it hard to suppress laughter as he recalls an incident that took place many moons ago when he was a member of trumpeter Byron Wallen’s Sound Advice. The band was booked at a pivotal venue in north London.
“We had a gig at the Jazz Café… must have been 1992, maybe 1991,” he says. “I went to pick him up because I was driving with all my keyboards. And he saw a sign on the street that said ‘Ramp’, and because his motto was ‘Realistic Alternative Messages To Pessimism’ he was like ‘Matt! Can we steal this? But we’ll bring it back after the gig?’ I was like ‘Alright, fuck it! Let’s do it’. So he had this R.A.M.P. prop on the stage.”
CIMARONS
There’s footage of The Cimarons playing at the Freedom Sounds Festival earlier this year where lead vocalist Michael Arkk misses his cue as the group launch into Morning Sun. “I just love how them a do it,” he says, laughing. He’d been momentarily carried away by the band’s playing and was honest enough to admit it. But then, his admiration was self-evident.
When it comes to The Cimarons, we really shouldn’t be surprised. Led by founder members Locksley Gichie and Franklyn Dunn, these elder statemen of UK reggae have been playing ska, rocksteady and reggae since the late sixties. That music is a part of them. They embody it just as surely as any veteran from Jamaica and have done so from the beginning, which is why Bob Marley recruited them to play on the original Catch A Fire, and every visiting Jamaican artist of note hired them as their backing band when touring the UK
JESS EDIE
When rising Manchester-born soul singer Jess Edie was just seven years old, one of her teachers put her name down to perform in the school’s Christmas concert. It seems said teacher, who frequently sat near her in morning assembly, had been impressed with what she’d heard and wanted to give Jess a little push in the right direction. It worked out. Reflects Jess now, with more than a touch of amusement:
“I hadn’t even thought about doing it and suddenly I’m being sent to the Year 6 classroom to do an audition! I was the youngest out of all the people there too, but I sang in front of them all and I got the part – which annoyed a few, people, because they just thought I’d won it by accident…
LADY WRAY
20 QUESTIONS
FOR US, LADY WRAY ALWAYS BRINGS THE SOUL TO ANY OF HER RECORDINGS: GUESS YOU WERE JUST LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE BORN THIS WAY, HUH?
Ha!! It’s in my blood!! My ancestors gave it to me; it’s my generational birth right.
TWO DIFFERENT VIBES ON THE SINGLE THOUGH – ONE MORE UPBEAT, THE OTHER REFLECTIVE/INTROSPECTIVE. HOW MUCH OF YOUR OWN REAL LIFE GOES INTO YOUR SONGS?
100% of my life goes into my songs. Being a wife, a mother, a friend… and having the same life experiences everyone else has.