All that jazz | 1 November 2012

What London can give jazz music — beyond an audience in its concert halls — is a setting to match the music’s diversity. The city offers access, culturally, to what is European, American, African and more. And so it is with the London Jazz Festival (9–18 November), whose extensive programme is significant both for its cultural mix and for its line-up of jazz’s greatest living musicians.

2012 marks the festival’s 17th outing, with over 250 concerts, 40 hours of which are to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Performers will include the legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins (16 November, Barbican), who recorded with Miles Davis before he was 20. Now aged 82, Rollins is passing through London on a seven-date European tour. Acoustic pianist Chick Corea (above) — one of the most prominent jazz musicians of the past 50 years — takes the stage with drummer Brian Blade and bassist Christian McBride (17 November, Barbican).