Amy: Pure Jazz

AMY WINEHOUSE by Johnny Bull

Years ago, I made a series of drawings of jazz icons including Miles, Sarah Vaughan and Pee Wee Russell among others. 

Someone suggested I should attempt one of Amy Winehouse. So here she is in full bloom. She was a fantastic singer; my favourite since Billie Holiday (who was Frank Sinatra's choice). There's no question; she was the real deal. Thanks to Richard Grosse for some timely intervention!

So she'll be up with my heroes at the Jazz Metrospective at Ashley Wood in July.

Missing her already.

(See post below http://j.mp/M2xnYd for details).

Art of darkness: Cover design for The Message

SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

Tariq Goddard's fifth novel, The Message is his best yet; he gave me the manuscript to read after very kindly suggesting I have a go at the cover. It's a fast, rich and violent story set in an African country that's going off the rails and sliding into bloody mayhem. So it's pretty topical.

Commission for Keith Jarrett poster

The last time I saw Keith Jarrett, he spent quite a lot of the time looking distracted, and then, as if too annoyed to continue playing (it was a Miles Tribute at the QEH with his Standards Trio) he strode to front of the stage and pleaded with whoever was videotaping the gig – he could see the red camera light – to discontinue, or there was the strong possibility that he might if things carried on this way.


As it turned out, (I remember a nervy hand-wringing attendant gave him the embarrassing news) the object of his ire was a security camera, parked just above the exit, unblinkingly recording Basin Street Blues, Summertime and all of that night,

Mike Westbrook - The Piano in the Room

I just found this as a link from an email to advertise Mike's 75th birthday gig  in London in April http://tinyurl.com/6bljy6c which will be more than just a concert, but a celebration of lots of things, but mostly for me, it will remind me, whenever I see him, and I've been seeing him play live since he was a nipper of thirty six, but already a jazz star, up there with the finest, most satisfying British experimental music of the early 70s: Soft Machine, Keith Tippett, John McLaughlin, Mike Gibbs, Nucleus, Terry Riley. I think I spent a good proportion of my first weekly wedge as a designer seeing Mike Westbrook's Solid Gold Cadillac playing downstairs at a pub in Cavendish Square,