New bistro and bar now open

Downstairs from The Vortex, the bar offers a menu of delicious, simple, modern dishes and a range of wines and beers.

More details on The Ochre Works page.

Vortex gig reviews by Chris Parker

Eddie Parker's Twittering Machine

Saturday 17 May

A new band comprised of flautist/pianist Eddie Parker, reeds/bass player Julian Siegel, guitarist/violinist/bassist Stuart Hall and drummer/percussionist Paul Clarvis, Twittering Machine is able, courtesy of all this doubling/trebling, to produce an unusually wide range of timbres and textures for a quartet. Read the full review.

New CD reviews by Chris Parker

Phil Robson  Six Strings & the Beat

Initially commissioned by Derby Jazz in 2007, the music contained on this album, as its title suggests, features six string players (composer/guitarist Phil Robson, bassist Peter Herbert, violinists Emma Smith and Jennymay Logan, viola player Naomi Fairhurst, cellist Kate Shortt) and 'the beat' (drummer Gene Calderazzo).

Christine Tobin  Secret Life of a Girl

Christine Tobin has been road-testing the material on this, her seventh Babel recording, for some time now (Vortex patrons in particular will view many of the songs as old friends), and it shows in the ease and assurance of their delivery on this superb album.

Ian Shaw  Lifejacket

A lifejacket saves you from drowning, and thus provides a useful defining metaphor for Ian Shaw's first album comprised (almost) solely of self-penned material. Like his great inspiration Joni Mitchell (whose songs Shaw interpreted on his previous Linn album, Drawn to All Things), Shaw has a gift for rendering the deeply personal accessible...

Tubby Hayes  Intensity

Recorded at Ronnie Scott's in spring 1965, this hitherto unreleased material catches Tubby Hayes in a brief period between bands Æ as fellow tenor player Simon Spillett points out in his comprehensive liner notes, Hayes experienced 'a recurring headache' caused by his 'inability to fix satisfying rhythm sections in the UK' until he chanced upon Tony Levin in 1966.