Jazz Voice: Celebrating a Century of Song
Barbican, Nov 14

The opening night’s big bash puts the emphasis on vocals as a gaggle of performers — led by the sublime Melody Gardot — show why it’s the singers who are making the running at the moment. A ‘very special guest’ is promised, intriguing when the event is also a celebration of Quincy Jones’s birthday.

Carolina Chocolate Drops
Bush Hall, W12, Nov 14

Delicious evocations of the African-American past courtesy of the string band from the backwoods. The three band members use banjo, fiddle and down-home vocals to conjure up the ghosts of the Appalachians.

Buika
QEH, Nov 20

This could well be the hit of the entire season. Jazz meets copla as the charismatic Spanish singer delivers songs from the two beguiling albums that have set a benchmark for “new flamenco”.

Kurt Elling
QEH, Nov 18

Is he the best jazz singer on the planet? The Chicago hipster and versifier creates a thrilling marriage of beatnik bop and poetry. In this show he pays homage to the mellow balladry generated by Johnny Hartman's studio encounter with John Coltrane.

Sibongile Khumalo & Jack DeJohnette
QEH, Nov 21

A majestic singer who straddles the jazz-classical divide, the South African diva teams up with the drummer’s drummer.

Neil Cowley
Various venues, Nov 21 & 22

The ferocious riffs of Cowley’s trio have won over lots of young listeners who like a funky tune when they hear one. Cowley will be shuttling between venues, including the Natural History Museum, as part of the Festival on the Move series.

Scene Norway
Kings Place, N1, Nov 14 onwards

Mixing folk and improvisation, the Scandinavians will be colonising the new venue. The deeply weird ice percussion of Terje Isung should be worth a visit, as will the mystic vocals of Mari Boine.

Milton Nascimento & the Jobim Trio
Festival Hall, Nov 20

Echoes of the heyday of Stan Getz and the bossa nova, as the great Brazilian singer-guitarist links up with a band featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim’s son Paulo and grandson Daniel.

Millennial Territory Orchestra meets Laurel & Hardy
Barbican, Nov 15 (afternoon)

A trip back to the Jazz Age, as Steve Bernstein’s musicians supply the soundtrack to three knockabout films: Sugar Daddies, Double Whoopee and Wrong Again.

Funk Off/Tokyo-Chutei-Iki
Various venues and dates

A hint of the New Orleans marching band tradition as the high-spirited five-piece Italian group Funk Off plays its way around a string of venues on the opening weekend. The closing days will see the mercurial Japanese baritone sax ensemble Tokyo-Chutei-Iki blasting away in Marylebone station and elsewhere.

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