It’s so sad to learn of the death of Blondie’s drummer Clem Burke, another of the Class of ’77 who has left us far too soon. Is this his finest moment?

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The New Pornographers wrote and recorded this wistful elegy for the long-lostd last payphone in New York City.

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Here’s my latest playlist – a spring-flavoured selection from March, ranging from The Damned to Miles Davis, Roy Ayers to Fontaines DC. It starts with a bang, to mark the death of Brian James, before settling into a smooth soul groove, dipping into the Nineties now and then for what we once called ‘indie’ music, making a detour into the Seventies, and ending up back in the Fifties and Sixties with some fiery blues and cool jazz.

Ezra Collective became the first British jazz band to make a splash at the Brits in 2025, winning Best Group and making headlines with their plea to save the nation’s youth clubs.

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Ebba Åsman’s smoky late-night jazz is adorned with crackles of electronica on this brief taster from the Swedish trombonist’s new album.

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Beirut return with a beautifully mournful and melancholy ballad about a mystical South Seas island paradise that vanished from the map.

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The thing about soul – soul in the musical sense – is that you’ve either got it or you haven’t. You only have to listen for a moment to know that Jerry Butler, who died this week, had soul.

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Fontaines D.C. reach a new high with their latest single, a euphoric hymn to youth and a plea for hope in an uncertain world – It’s Amazing To Be Young.

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I’ve never been a jazz-funk fan and the vibraphone would be very low on my list of favourite instruments, ranking alongside the flute and just above the ukelele. But I’d have to make an exception for Roy Ayers.

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I was too young to see the New York Dolls in their heyday, though I saw Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers on numerous occasions. The closest I got to David Johansen in those early days was that historically fabulous OGWT in 1973.

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