The Write Stuff

Tonight is the last night of the London Jazz Festival, but after a week of (what felt like) non-stop gigs I badly needed a quiet one. This afternoon, though, I went to my last session of The Write Stuff, a fabulous course run by the LJF and Jazzwise magazine. If you've any aspiration to being a music journalist (jazz or otherwise) or just a journalist in general, I really can't recommend this enough. It's a free course, for 8 participants, taught by seasoned jazz writers including the wonderful Kevin Le Gendre.

On Wednesday all 8 of us had to write a 300-word review of John Surman's festival gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. One of these will eventually be published in the print edition of Jazzwise, but until then, all 8 are up on their website.

UPDATE: and Alyn Shipton has blogged about it on the Radio 3 website

. Listen to the clip for long enough and you'll hear my dulcet tones.