XL Recordings

Do singers - or lyrics for that matter - mean much to jazzers? And should they? As a quick scan of the current London Jazz festival's packed programme reveals, jazz remains a
predominantly instrumental music, despite the fact that when it makes its rare incursions into the world of chart hits or mainstream acclaim, it's usually because a singer has taken it there. After all, you don't have to be one of the cognoscenti to have heard of Jamie Cullum, Norah Jones or Diana Krall - or their giant predecessors Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan.

In general, however, singers have mostly been peripheral to a music dominated by the sax sounds of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, the trumpets of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or the pianos of Thelonious Monk and Keith Jarrett. The message seems to be that these artists have said more by those means than words ever could.

It's not a simple issue, however. The imaginative British
saxophonist Iain Ballamy was one of the jazz musicians invited to participate in the Guardian's Radiohead-cover project, and in discussing the venture afterwards, he rather unexpectedly revealed that when he improvises on a familiar song, he likes to bear the lyrics in mind, and to avoid sax-phrasing that scrambles the meanings, or the way the words would have been sung. Even the members of the edgy free-improv ensemble Trio VD thought about the moods suggested by...

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Photo by Kirstie Shanley

That one band Radiohead has been trickling out 2009 dates for a minute now, at roughly the rate of one new confirmation per week. Today the number of official gigs rose to three, which seems a magic enough quantity to warrant a news story and a few lame jokes on the matter, no?

So there you have it: Radiohead, rather good band, will make their way to Mexico and South America in March of 2009. The three confirmed dates right now include two in Mexico City and one in Santiago, Chile (their first performance in the country), with engagements in Argentina and Brazil planned but not yet finalized. At Ease points us to another fansite report that suggests a third Mexico City date (March 17) may arise as well.

In other news, Radiohead members Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway are due to turn up on Neil Finn's new record, while Thom Yorke can be heard on Björk's good cause-boosting "Náttúra" single, out now.

Oh right, lame joke. Uh, here's a good one.

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Radiohead's Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway are set to team up once again with Neil Finn for the follow-up to 2001's 'Worlds Collide' album to raise money for Oxfam.