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Thursday 14th January was trumpeter Kenny Wheeler’s 80th birthday. John Fordham in the Grauniad offers a review of the Birthday Concert that was held this week at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Image: Juan Carlos Hernandez

It sounds like it was a predictably wonderful evening – with a monster band assembled to pay tribute to this most modest of master musicians: including Dave Holland, Evan Parker, John Taylor, Stan Sulzmann and Norma Winstone… all players with long histories of fruitful collaboration with Wheeler.

To catch some of the atmosphere, try out these recordings of Kenny Wheeler with the Colours Jazz Orchestra, recorded in Verona, Italy in February 2006.

As far as I know, the Verona date has never been released commercially, but you can pick up the superb Nineteen Plus One (recorded with the same orchestra) if you like what you hear.

Happy Birthday K.W.!

(Edit: for those of you who don’t want to download, Yann sent me the link to Kenny Wheeler on Deezer)

Nikolai Kapustin – Scherzo: Allegro Assai from Sonata No.2 Op. 54
Performed by Marc-André Hamelin
From In A State of Jazz: Hyperion [Buy]

It happens almost every birthday – my aunt gives me a CD of music I’ve never heard of and I really really like it. This year it was a new album by Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin, playing solo piano music written by “classical” composers who were inspired by jazz.

The music on this album is remarkable because although it is all through-composed, it sounds very spontaneous and highly idiomatic. In Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin‘s Sonata No.2 there are passages that would fit easily into a Keith Jarrett solo performance or a 78rpm by Earl Hines.

This disc also contains six arrangements of Charles Trenet songs by the pianist Alexis Weissenberg, originally released as anonymous 45′s in 1950, and transcribed half a century later by Hamelin for this album. The arrangements catch the humour and bawdy double entendres of songs such as Vous oubliez votre cheval and Boum!… all delivered with a lightness of touch that few jazz players could achieve.

Finally, George Antheil‘s Jazz Sonata, clocking in at just 90 seconds sounds like Spike Jones and Stravinsky holding an orgy inside a Steinway – not only hilarious but a challenge for any virtuoso. Pure Joy.