“Batchelor, a fine trumpeter who intriguingly blends Miles Davis's shrewd pacing and evocative long-note sounds with something of Harry Beckett's bubbly phrasing"
John Fordham The Guardian

"The final composition of the evening was a passage song by Joseph Jarman for his lifelong friend Lester Bowie. Chris Batchelor rose to the challenge of opening on solo trumpet for what was a flowing, elegiac, but ultimately life-affirming, celebration"
John Shore allaboutjazz.com
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=1762

 

Pigfoot: 21st Century Acid Trad - Village Life 131112VL

"Pigfoot’s debut album not only blows the cobwebs off eight favourites of the trad repertoire, it sandblasts away decades of treacly cliché."

Matthew Wright theartsdesk.com ★★★★★ 

"Oh deep joy; something completely different to refresh the jaded critic’s palette......Pigfoot don’t parody the music – they simply have the virtuosity to take it outside itself, somewhat precariously, and then bring it home safe."
Garry Booth Jazz Journal   ★★★★ 

"A set made up of 1920-30s rags,old swing tunes, blues and spirituals, this high quality live recording is invested with some of the music’s original spirit of rapture and sense of humour."
Selwyn Harris Jazzwise ★★★★ 

"There are few other bands who have mined the trad seam quite as radically or audaciously as Pigfoot who look at the music with a fresh eye and cast it into fabulous new shapes while still retaining the outlines of the originals. Above all they sound as if they’re having fun."
Ian Mann thejazzmann.com ★★★★ 

"Pieces as familiar as “Basin Street Blues”, “Petite Fleur” and “Jitterbug Waltz” are released from the weight of their various associations....You heard it here first – the new wave of trad is on."
Phillip Clark The Wire 

 

Big Air - Babel BDV 2880

 

“Big, indeed. Big ideas. Big tunes. Big sounds…a kind of transatlantic jazz supergroup” 
Kevin Le Gendre Echoes

 

★★★★★

“the kind of uninhibited yet articulate roar-up that only a group of this calibre could handle.”
Roger Thomas BBC Music Magazine

 

"vivid and intoxicating.....as funky and unbuttoned as a chimp on acid. All the musicians soar, the sound is fantastic, and the spirit is tangible." 

Chris Mays, allaboutjazz.com
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31884

 

 

 “This is the best British jazz record for 20 years…funky, edgy, raw, polished, full of wry humour”
Brian Morton Jazz Journal

 

★★★★★
“The tunes are all terrific, and they're explored with a shifting variation of mood that's never off the boil."
John Fordham The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/06/batchelor-buckley-melford-big-air

 

“Big Air are a supergroup led by the Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry of UK jazz, Steve Buckley and Chris Batchelor” 
The Independent

★★★★
“Dazzling, invigorating”
Ian Mann 
http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/big-air-big-air/

“startlingly invigorating, ruggedly forthright and downright lovely”
The Scotsman

 

★★★★★
“one of the most engaging, exuberant and inventive albums of the year” 
Kenny Mathieson The List
http://www.list.co.uk/article/16641-big-air-big-air/

 

“thrill down your spine stuff”
Properganda

 

★★★★★
“provocative, vital and rich in variety, as soft delicacy is dramatically juxtaposed with pulsating fury”
Al Brownlee City Life  
http://www.citylife.co.uk/music/release/5788