Neil Cowley Trio | The Midsummer Marriage | Beacons festival | Childhood | Keith Tippett | Visions festival
*Neil Cowley Trio, London*
Uncut magazine has called Neil Cowley's tunes "the greatest stadium-filling anthems that Coldplay never wrote", and that rousing material has been the secret of a remarkable success story. The former Brand New Heavies pianist is a maverick who for the past decade has been setting audiences hopping to a splicing of punchy themes, jazzy improv, and chord-belting, rock-piano climaxes. With last year's The Face Of Mount Molehill, this highly entertaining artist stepped his musical ambitions up a gear. With the help of a classical-strings group and Eno-collaborating effects guitarist Leo Abrahams he kept his knack for catchy hooks and for building deceptively laid-back motifs and looping systems-music patterns to thundering finales. This show (Cowley's only London appearance of 2013) features his long-standing trio with bassist Rex Horan and drummer Evan Jenkins, playing a full range of his work.
*Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, NW1, Sun*
JF
*The Midsummer Marriage, London*
Michael Tippett died 15 years ago, and since then many of works, his operas particularly, have faded from view. But the BBC Symphony has done its best to keep Tippett's music in the repertoire. All his symphonies and concertos were included in the orchestra's concerts at the Barbican last season, and now it's giving a concert performance of his first and greatest opera, The Midsummer Marriage, at the Proms. They've even invited back the former chief conductor of the BBC SO, Andrew Davis, to take charge. The opera's blend of myth, magic and ritual – mixing elements of Mozart's Magic Flute with ancient British fertility symbolism – is typical of Tippett at his playful best.
*Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Fri*
AC
*Beacons festival, Skipton*
As much as east London might dispute it, cool is not a quality exclusively held within E8. Beacons, now in its second year, provides solid evidence for the notion. The eventis small (sorry, "boutique") and in a beautiful Yorkshire Dales location, but most persuasively, it is tightly programmed enough to have found a wormhole of its own in the over-subscribed festival universe. It's built on the semantic lodestone where indie-dance meets dancey indie, with the Radiohead-favoured electronica of James Holden and melodic guitar pop of Django Django representing both camps. It also branches out into some interesting directions, including the lachrymose folk of Malcolm Middleton, Wire's modernist punk, and the rapid rhyming of Danny Brown.
*Funkirk Estate, Fri to 18 Aug*
JR
*Childhood, On tour*
There's nothing so appealing as a band who don't seem to crave attention. It's a trick that Childhood, a four-piece from London via Nottingham Uni, are pulling off nicely. Rather than a defiant blast of self-belief, debut single Blue Velvet trotted along as if wrapped up in its own thoughts, redolent of music from a pre-Britpop time. Already compared to the Stone Roses, they seem less interested in being adored, and more in developing a low-key sound of their own.
*Visions festival, E8, Sat; Broadcast, Glasgow, Mon; Soup Kitchen, Manchester, Wed; Beacons festival, Skipton, 17 Aug*
JR
*Keith Tippett, London*
A genre-crossing star on the British jazz and rock scenes of the 1970s, Keith Tippett, with his intense, jagged runs, tightly clustered harmonies and percussive attack, is still as potent as ever. After early years in which he played with art-rock outfit King Crimson and led free-jazz-to-fusion groups, Tippett's unflinching originality brought him a higher profile in Europe than in his homeland. Now The Vortex is paying Tippett's remarkable breadth and vision the respect it deserves with a three-day residency. The performances will feature Tippett's compositions for classical string quartets (Thu); the world premiere of The Nine Dances Of Patrick O'Gonogon for a powerful jazz octet (Fri); and a "spontaneous composition" night (17 Aug) featuring the leader's imaginative vocalist-poet wife Julie Tippett (formerly the 60s R&B diva Julie Driscoll) and members of the Elysian string quartet.
*The Vortex, N16, Thu to 17 Aug*
JF
*Visions festival, London*
It's early days but the debut of this one-day festival spread over three venues makes programming an eclectic yet coherent event look pretty easy. At The Brewhouse, quirky indie predominates in an event headlined by alt-folk hero Jeffrey Lewis and featuring Spectrals, Molly Nilsson and East India Youth. Dance, in a broad-church sense, holds court at Oval Space with !!! and Haxan Cloak. At Netil House, meanwhile, things get louder as the day goes on, with Danish punks Iceage giving way to the Steve Albini-produced Cloud Nothings, and concluding with the epic Canadian hardcore of Fucked Up.
*The Brewhouse and Oval Space, E2; Netil House, E8, Sat*
JR Reported by guardian.co.uk 9 hours ago.
*Neil Cowley Trio, London*
Uncut magazine has called Neil Cowley's tunes "the greatest stadium-filling anthems that Coldplay never wrote", and that rousing material has been the secret of a remarkable success story. The former Brand New Heavies pianist is a maverick who for the past decade has been setting audiences hopping to a splicing of punchy themes, jazzy improv, and chord-belting, rock-piano climaxes. With last year's The Face Of Mount Molehill, this highly entertaining artist stepped his musical ambitions up a gear. With the help of a classical-strings group and Eno-collaborating effects guitarist Leo Abrahams he kept his knack for catchy hooks and for building deceptively laid-back motifs and looping systems-music patterns to thundering finales. This show (Cowley's only London appearance of 2013) features his long-standing trio with bassist Rex Horan and drummer Evan Jenkins, playing a full range of his work.
*Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, NW1, Sun*
JF
*The Midsummer Marriage, London*
Michael Tippett died 15 years ago, and since then many of works, his operas particularly, have faded from view. But the BBC Symphony has done its best to keep Tippett's music in the repertoire. All his symphonies and concertos were included in the orchestra's concerts at the Barbican last season, and now it's giving a concert performance of his first and greatest opera, The Midsummer Marriage, at the Proms. They've even invited back the former chief conductor of the BBC SO, Andrew Davis, to take charge. The opera's blend of myth, magic and ritual – mixing elements of Mozart's Magic Flute with ancient British fertility symbolism – is typical of Tippett at his playful best.
*Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Fri*
AC
*Beacons festival, Skipton*
As much as east London might dispute it, cool is not a quality exclusively held within E8. Beacons, now in its second year, provides solid evidence for the notion. The eventis small (sorry, "boutique") and in a beautiful Yorkshire Dales location, but most persuasively, it is tightly programmed enough to have found a wormhole of its own in the over-subscribed festival universe. It's built on the semantic lodestone where indie-dance meets dancey indie, with the Radiohead-favoured electronica of James Holden and melodic guitar pop of Django Django representing both camps. It also branches out into some interesting directions, including the lachrymose folk of Malcolm Middleton, Wire's modernist punk, and the rapid rhyming of Danny Brown.
*Funkirk Estate, Fri to 18 Aug*
JR
*Childhood, On tour*
There's nothing so appealing as a band who don't seem to crave attention. It's a trick that Childhood, a four-piece from London via Nottingham Uni, are pulling off nicely. Rather than a defiant blast of self-belief, debut single Blue Velvet trotted along as if wrapped up in its own thoughts, redolent of music from a pre-Britpop time. Already compared to the Stone Roses, they seem less interested in being adored, and more in developing a low-key sound of their own.
*Visions festival, E8, Sat; Broadcast, Glasgow, Mon; Soup Kitchen, Manchester, Wed; Beacons festival, Skipton, 17 Aug*
JR
*Keith Tippett, London*
A genre-crossing star on the British jazz and rock scenes of the 1970s, Keith Tippett, with his intense, jagged runs, tightly clustered harmonies and percussive attack, is still as potent as ever. After early years in which he played with art-rock outfit King Crimson and led free-jazz-to-fusion groups, Tippett's unflinching originality brought him a higher profile in Europe than in his homeland. Now The Vortex is paying Tippett's remarkable breadth and vision the respect it deserves with a three-day residency. The performances will feature Tippett's compositions for classical string quartets (Thu); the world premiere of The Nine Dances Of Patrick O'Gonogon for a powerful jazz octet (Fri); and a "spontaneous composition" night (17 Aug) featuring the leader's imaginative vocalist-poet wife Julie Tippett (formerly the 60s R&B diva Julie Driscoll) and members of the Elysian string quartet.
*The Vortex, N16, Thu to 17 Aug*
JF
*Visions festival, London*
It's early days but the debut of this one-day festival spread over three venues makes programming an eclectic yet coherent event look pretty easy. At The Brewhouse, quirky indie predominates in an event headlined by alt-folk hero Jeffrey Lewis and featuring Spectrals, Molly Nilsson and East India Youth. Dance, in a broad-church sense, holds court at Oval Space with !!! and Haxan Cloak. At Netil House, meanwhile, things get louder as the day goes on, with Danish punks Iceage giving way to the Steve Albini-produced Cloud Nothings, and concluding with the epic Canadian hardcore of Fucked Up.
*The Brewhouse and Oval Space, E2; Netil House, E8, Sat*
JR Reported by guardian.co.uk 9 hours ago.