Gigs in London this weekend

The Southbank Centre kicks off an exciting new partnership with Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival this winter, via a weekend of events celebrating the legacy of legendary Nina Simone. The main event is a Friday night concert with the Nu Civilisation Orchestra, where special guests including Corinne Bailey Rae and Laura Mvula will perform some of the American jazz and blues singer’s biggest hits. Elsewhere you can catch saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch premiering his new album, ‘Soundtrack to the Apocalypse’, join a celebration of writer and activist James Baldwin with young talents from the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and get down with gender-diverse musical platform Peng Femme Jam at a Saturday night afterparty. It’s not just music on the programme either. Award-winning playwright and poet Inua Ellems is bringing his R.A.P.P. (Rhythm, Poetry and Prose) party to the Southbank, while Nigerian British writer Yomi Sode also hosts a special edition of First Five, chatting to special guests about what Nina Simone means to them. It promises to be a fitting tribute to one of the greatest jazz acts in living memory.    

January might not be the jam-packed extravaganza of gigs and club nights that the rest of the year often offers, but there’s four Fridays of fun to look forward to at Brixton’s Phonox. Renowned electronic group Mount Kimble will be in residence at the venue, kicking off every weekend for four weeks in January. The nights are billed as ‘a testament to their latest exciting direction’, so expect these curated nights out to be both a voyage through their seminal catalogue so far and a hint at where they could go next.