MATTHEW HALSALL

• Reduced mobility

To listen to the trumpet of Britain’s Matthew Halsall is to listen to the spiritual voice of today’s jazz. This musician and producer from Manchester not only founded the Gondwana label, home of such exquisite bands as GoGo Penguin, Mammal Hands and the Portico Quartet, but he has also succeeded in imbuing the seven albums he has to his name with a serene and elegant mysticism, thanks in part to the influence of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, the Cinematic Orchestra and the ambiance of trip-hop, which has ensured his place as an essential artist at any self-respecting festival. Of that, Gilles Peterson and the MOBO Awards have no doubt: his third album, On The Go (2011), the album that made his name, ran off with their prizes. He will be coming to Villanos del Jazz straight from his performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall to present the compositions of An Ever Changing View (2023), arguably the most experimental and complex work of his entire career, a bridge between the past and the present in a genre that he mixes to his heart’s content with many other languages. Can we now say that he is a classic of our time? Unquestionably.