News

Dexter Fletcher tells Jason Solomons about his forthcoming cockney western

Wild Bill team go west

Following the success of his directing debut, Wild Bill, former child actor Dexter Fletcher is making a full-blown western, set in Arizona. However, he tells me, Provenance will still be made up of Londoners, this time seeking their fortune in the frontier towns of the American west. "I've always loved westerns but have never been able to be in one," Dexter says. "I tried to work a lot western ideas into Wild Bill and I feel really lucky to be able to actually get to make one of my own, in real western country." BBC Films is backing the film and Mark Strong is set to star, alongside Sammy Williams, the kid in Wild Bill who also featured in Joe Cornish's Attack the Block. The rest of the cast has yet to be confirmed...

Gil Evans, perhaps the second-greatest arranger in jazz after Duke Ellington, was born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green on May 13, 1912 in Toronto, Canada (Evans was his stepfather's name). Though best known for his collaborations with Miles Davis, Evans released many great albums as a bandleader and created a highly influential style that changed the course of jazz history.

Though self-taught, by age 21 Evans was leading a big band that became the house group at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach. Eventually it was fronted and then led by singer Skinnay Ennis, and Claude Thornhill joined Evans in providing arrangements for them. Thornhill then moved to New York to start his own band, and in 1941 invited Evans to New York to write arrangements. Soon Evans's arrangements with their lush, hazy, floating textures defined the Thornhill style.

Though theoretically a swing band, the Thornhill ensemble was one of the most progressive big bands of its time,...

This is the point at which I'm supposed to ponder the immediate present and near future of jazz and improvised music. Not gonna do it. No matter how dire the straits of the music industry, changing distribution and presentation, etc., this music will continue to be made because it has to be made, and artists feel compelled to keep it going despite travails. It's all about the music and its amazing power for catharsis, its ability to lift us and inspire us. So without further ado, here's what inspired me most in 2011.

1. Richie Beirach: Impressions of Tokyo (Outnote)

I was going to call this a comeback, but Beirach (above) hasn't exactly been gone, certainly not as far as recordings are concerned -- he's had 18 released under his name in the past 11 years, plus collaborations (one of those appears further down this list). I guess I think of it as a...