Shadowball | Jazz review

Mermaid, LondonThe last time librettist Mike Phillips and composer-pianist Julian Joseph teamed up for a jazz opera, it was about 19th-century black violinist George Bridgetower. Shadowball uses a similar structure to dramatise the parallels between jazz and baseball, two forms of entertainment riven by racial tensions throughout the US in the 1920s and 30s, and in baseball's case rigidly segregated until Jackie Robinson's barrier-busting 1947 game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.Once again, powerful...

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