Keep Music Live

Toumani Diabate playing the kora is thrilling enough – with a bass, guitar and drums as well it’s just extraordinary. He played at the Leeds West Indian Centre twenty years ago and I got a free LP to play on my jazz show on the Chapeltown pirate (sorry ‘community’) radio. But I’d never seen him [...]

Talking

Saturday 15th October 2011: I will be  interviewing Colin Grant, author of the wonderful The Natural Mystics – Marley, Tosh and Wailer at the Ilkley Literature Festival.  So many great things about this book: it’s a cultural history of Jamaica, as well as an account of the Wailers’ long and troubled ascent to greatness (and Tosh and [...]

Light Night in Leeds

Light Night in Leeds

Wandering through the city of Leeds bumping into art and culture, or going to the things you’ve heard about via Facebook or the brochure, reminds you of what a city could be like, if only . . . My night went like this: Half an hour with my friends who are organising the Leeds Summat on [...]