Soweto Kinch

British saxophonist Soweto Kinch, who is partly of Jamaican parentage, won two trophies in this year's renewal of the prestigious BBC Radio 3 Jazz Awards. Kinch won for Best Instrumentalist as well as Best Band, when the awards were announced recently.

Kinch previously won the BBC Jazz Rising Star award (2002) and also won the White Foundation International Saxophone Competition, presented via the renowned Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. His talent has earned him favourable comparisons to several of the great players, including the late Jamaican master Joe Harriott and the American Ornette Coleman.

Born in London in 1978 to a Barbadian father and a British-Jamaican mother, Kinch became interested in music at an early age, taking up the clarinet while in primary school. He soon expressed a fondness for the alto saxophone and at age nine, was given his first instrument.

He came to the attention of two other noted jazz players in the Anglo-West Indian community, saxophonist Courtney Pine and double bassist Gary Crosby (a nephew of guitar great Ernie Ranglin).

Louis Armstrong

Kinch, who has added soprano, tenor and baritone sax as well as rapping to his repertoire, also fills duties with Crosby's Jazz Jamaica All-Stars, who are currently touring with the great South African trumpeter, Hugh Masakela.

Kinch's debut album as a leader, Conversations With The Unseen, was released on Dune Records (founded by Crosby) in 2003 to immediate acclaim, going on to win the Mercury Music Prize for Album of the Year and earning Kinch the Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Award for Best Jazz Act 2003.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SATCHMO

August 4 marked the 103rd anniversary of the birth of one of the seminal figures in jazz. He revolutionised the trumpet, took the then nascent jazz art form from regional to national and then international popularity, was a tireless cultural ambassador for the US and an advocate for equality and justice.

Louis Armstrong was born in 1901 in a poor section of New Orleans known as 'The Battlefield'. By the age of six, he had formed a street-corner vocal quartet with other local boys, and later bought his first trumpet with money loaned him by a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, who had hired young Louis to work on their junk wagon.

By 1918, Louis had already married and had taken the place of Joe Oliver, his early mentor, in the Kid Ory band, a leading New Orleans combo of the day. Less than five years later, Louis would reunite with Oliver, now known as King Oliver, and in 1923, made his first recordings. He acquired the nickname "Satchelmouth" for his trademark mile-wide grin and this was later abbreviated to "Satchmo" the name by which he became known worldwide.

Having separated from his first wife, Louis proceeded to marry Lillian Hardin, the pianist in Oliver's band and also began to establish himself as one of the most sought-after players on the then exploding jazz scene. He recorded with a number of celebrated players and singers, including Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith and Clarence Williams.

His first recording as a leader of his own group, The Hot Five, is among a body of records that most critics consider unassailable as hallmarks of jazz improvisation. The Hot Fives and subsequent Hot Seven recordings are frequently referred to as among the greatest in the history of the art form.

In 1929, he moved to New York City, beginning a long association with the 'Big Apple' and essentially launching the international portion of his illustrious career. He also entered the motion picture arena around this time (his first film was titled Ex-Flame) and would eventually make more than 40 films, the best known being Hello Dolly which also featured Barbra Streisand, in 1968.

He would divorce Lil Hardin and marry twice more, the last time to Lucille Wilson. Armstrong's tempestuous personal life, however, never overshadowed his tremendous musical and creative achievements. His trumpet and vocal phrasings are still imitated, studied and commented on worldwide today.

The home that he and Lucille shared in the Corona district of Queens, New York is today a national historic site and attracts scores of visitors.

Louis Armstrong died in his sleep on July 6, 1971.

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