John L. Walters
John L. Walters is a journalist and composer, who once wrote a tune that people whistle. He has written about different genres of music for mags and newspapers, notably The Guardian, for whom he wrote a column for five years. He has been the (award-winning) editor of Eye, the international review of graphic design, since 1999, and its co-owner since 2008.
After university he formed Landscape, who gigged extensively, released EPs on their indie label and pioneered computerised synth-pop. 'Einstein a Go-Go', featuring Walters' Lyricon melody, was a top 5 hit.
Walters produced Swans Way, Twelfth Night, Mike Gibbs, Mark Springer and wrote several long-forgotten TV themes. With Landscape's Richard James Burgess, he programmed Fairlight on Kate Bush's Never Forever.
In the late 1980s he formed 'electronic jazz orchestra' Zyklus with Neil Ardley. In the 1990s he launched (Prudential award-winning) creative music journal Unknown Public with Laurence Aston.
He reinvented himself as a journalist, working for the Sunday Times and Architectural Review before joining Eye, and writing for The Wire, Jazzwise, The Independent and The Guardian. Since 2014 he has also edited Pulp, which Eye makes for Fedrigoni Papers. Career highlight: joining Charlie Gillett twice for 'Radio Ping Pong'.
Photo by Bruce Connew
45 articles
List of articles in the library
Laurie Anderson: All her own invention
Report and Interview by John L. Walters, Eye, Summer 2010
Graphic design's recent concerns have for decades been at the heart of Laurie Anderson's practice. ...
Book Review by John L. Walters, The Times Literary Supplement, 2001
"IF YOU'VE NEVER read Paul Williams but love Brian Wilson's music, you're in for a revelation", promises David Leaf in the introduction to this amiable ...
Jeff Beck: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 29 November 2007
IT IS DINNER time in Soho, but Ronnie's seems set for a fusion version of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. ...
Jeff Beck, John McLaughlin, The White Stripes: Jeff Beck and guests: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 17 September 2002
WHATEVER YOUR take on rock guitar heroics, Jeff Beck's three-night South Bank residency was certainly the most miscellaneous gig of the year, and a logistical ...
Carla Bley: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 19 November 2009
AT FIRST GLANCE, Carla Bley's current band, the Lost Chords, look like just another jazz quartet. Then you listen to what they play, and realise ...
Live Review by John L. Walters, London Jazz News, 21 November 2016
CHARLIE'S LIBERATION MUSIC Orchestra was a product of the cultural moment outlined in the Victoria & Albert Museum's current exhibition You Say You Want a ...
Dee Dee Bridgewater: Barbican, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 19 April 2010
DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER has a technique and musicality that bests most performers of her generation, and her understanding of the "great American songbook" makes pretenders ...
Gary Burton, Chick Corea: Crystal Silence: Gary Burton & Chick Corea
Preview by John L. Walters, Barbican show programme, April 2012
NEARLY 40 YEARS have elapsed since Gary Burton and Chick Corea walked into an Oslo studio to record the nine exquisite tracks that make up ...
Eliza Carthy, Fred Frith, David Toop: On the Edge: Sunny delights
Column by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 8 August 2003
In hot weather, some tunes just have to be heard in the great outdoors says John L Walters ...
Nick Cave, Hal Willner: Hal Willner's Harry Smith Project at Nick Cave's Meltdown
Live Review by John L. Walters, Frieze, 9 September 1999
HAL WILLNER has been described as an "auteur" producer, but he doesn't have a trademark sound, like Trevor Horn or Quincy Jones, and he's not ...
Ry Cooder: Chávez Ravine (Nonesuch)
Review by John L. Walters, TuneTribe, Summer 2005
CHÁVEZ RAVINE is Ry Cooder's What A Carve Up, a multilayered song-cycle about the way a Hispanic neighbourhood of Los Angeles was cleared to make ...
Randy Crawford: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 12 December 2006
I'VE ALWAYS HAD A SOFT SPOT for Randy Crawford. Ever since I caught her eye backstage at a recording of Top of the Pops and ...
Jamie Cullum: So you want to be a jazz star?
Comment by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 11 October 2002
It's the TV show that will never be made — but it would be a lot more fun than Popstars ...
Preview by John L. Walters, Barbican show programme, 10 March 2009
JERRY DAMMERS has long had a place in the nation's musical heart. His exuberant, hard-working band Special AKA (the Specials), helped to revive and redefine ...
Comment by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 10 February 2006
Miles Davis wouldn't have wanted his out-takes made public, so why all the box sets? ...
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 22 July 2008
DEVOTCHKA, an American four-piece fronted by exuberant singer-guitarist Nick Urata, play what might best be described as "indie-world", or "Slavic punk". Their sepia website plays ...
Brian Eno: A Year with Swollen Appendices (Faber & Faber)
Book Review by John L. Walters, The Wire, June 1996
NOTE: This is a "director's cut" version of John's review of Eno's book. ...
Film/DVD/TV Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 1 August 2003
THE MAIN REASONS for buying a DVD of Donald Fagen's Kamakiriad are sonic: the crisp intelligence of the songwriting is matched by the sumptuous clarity ...
Bill Frisell Plays Buster Keaton: Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London
Preview by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 29 October 1994
Go West (1925), Sherlock Junior (1924), The High Sign (1921), One Week (1920). Wednesday November 2 1994, 7.30pm ...
Bebel Gilberto: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 25 July 2003
BEBEL GILBERTO'S Tanto Tempo was the great summer album of 2000. And 2001. And 2002. ...
Retrospective by John L. Walters, TuneTribe, 15 May 2005
SINCE THE LATE 1990s, the Crammed Discs spin-off label Ziriguiboom has produced a small, well considered series of Brazilian albums, the most famous of which ...
João Gilberto: the Barbican, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 18 July 2000
TRY THIS FOR an example of musical minimalism: a man sits on a stool before a single microphone at the centre of a stage which ...
Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 24 February 2006
IN THE 40 YEARS since Pink Floyd burst on to the London scene, initially as part of a vibrant underground that included folk, jazz and ...
Kip Hanrahan: Love is Like a Cigarette
Review by John L. Walters, Perfect Sound Forever, December 2010
MY FIRST encounter with Kip Hanrahan was when someone at Pangaea, his record company, handed me a copy of Days and Nights of Blue Luck ...
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 11 May 2005
LIKE CREAM, Ahmad Jamal's trio is an influential outfit, hugely successful in its time, whose place in history can be underestimated. His early music had ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Bloomsbury Theatre, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 16 December 2003
NINE MUSICIANS stroll on to a stage packed with stringed instruments, keyboards, horns and percussion. Four of them are wearing hats, and under the coolest ...
Femi Kuti and Positive Force: Ocean, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 11 March 2002
SAXOPHONIST FEMI KUTI fronts a 14-piece band, with drums, two percussionists, guitar, bass, keyboards, four horns and three singers. Like a soul review or a ...
Lambchop: Hayward Gallery, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 28 July 2006
LAMBCHOP are one of those cult American bands that push all the right "alt" buttons: alt.country, alt.rock, alt.symphonic pop. Their approach to songcraft recalls the ...
Manhattan Transfer: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, London Jazz News, 8 May 2010
THERE'S NO ACT remotely like New York's Manhattan Transfer. The close harmony vocal quartet can do everything from Doo-Wop to Broadway schmaltz, from big band ...
Moondog: The Viking of 6th Ave: The Music of Moondog
Preview by John L. Walters, Barbican show programme, 30 May 2009
Presented by the Barbican and Eat Your Own Ears; part of Only Connect ...
Review by John L. Walters, London Jazz News, 2 July 2016
ED MOTTA's music can be an acquired taste. This is not because his music is especially challenging or 'difficult' — though his use of harmony ...
Orquestra Was: Forever's a Long, Long Time
Review by John L. Walters, unpublished, 1997
I BOUGHT Forever's a Long, Long Time within minutes of seeing it in a record store rack. The reason? I don't just admire Don Was, ...
Screaming Headless Torsos: CLF Art Café, Bussey Building, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, London Jazz News, 10 June 2016
FROM THE VERY first lick you can tell that Screaming Headless Torsos mean business. ...
Screaming Headless Torsos: London Jazz Festival, Spitalfields, London
Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 17 November 2004
LOOKED AT BALDLY, the Screaming Headless Torsos are just another rock'n'roll band with chops; a power trio plus vocals and percussion. ...
Señor Coconut y Su Conjunto: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 29 June 2002
WHAT A TREAT — to sip a cup of Assam in the Festival Hall ballroom while Señor Coconut y Su Conjunto play Kraftwerk cover versions ...
Wayne Shorter, Weather Report: Wayne Shorter: Alegria (Verve)
Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 21 March 2003
SAXOPHONIST WAYNE SHORTER still towers over contemporary jazz. Over four decades he's combined compositional flair with an original and masterly command of tenor and soprano ...
Steely Dan: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 10 July 2007
"HI YA KIDS," says Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, "we're going to play songs from the recent past, and going back to the deep 70s...if you ...
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 11 September 2000
GREAT GIG, but what a shame not to hear 'What A Shame About Me'. It's the perfect singalong anthem for fans of Steely Dan, since ...
Live Review by John L. Walters, The Guardian, 23 May 2008
A QUIET LEGEND before he was even out of his teens, Steve Winwood is one of a handful of musicians who shaped the way rock ...
Phil Woods and the NYJO: Jazz Café, London
Live Review by John L. Walters, unpublished, 2 October 2003
IT'S NOT EASY to smile while you're playing a saxophone, but the entire sax section of NYJO (the National Youth Jazz Orchestra) is grinning with ...
List of genre pieces
Art Kane. Harlem 1958 (Wall of Sound Editions)
Book Review by John L. Walters, Eye, Spring 2019
THE BLACK-AND-WHITE Esquire photo of 57 jazz musicians (plus a few local children) posed in front of a Harlem brownstone on 12 August 1958 is ...
Gilles Peterson: Lockdown FM: Broadcasting in a Pandemic
Book Review by John L. Walters, Eye, Fall 2021
GILLES PETERSON is known for his unfeasibly large record collection and an unstoppable enthusiasm for Black music. The pandemic forced radical changes to the DJ's ...
Jazz At The Movies: Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Special Feature by John L. Walters, Jazzwise, November 2001
JAZZ IS CRUCIAL to Sweet Smell of Success, the extraordinary and intense film drama made by British director Alexander MacKendrick in 1957. ...
Jazz on film: Play Misty for Me
Retrospective by John L. Walters, Jazzwise, July 2001
Jazz DJs don't always get in the hot water Dave Garver lands in during Play Misty For Me, says John L. Walters. ...
Rhythm & Reaction: The Age of Jazz in Britain: Two Temple Place, London
Review by John L. Walters, Eye, 25 February 2018
Rhythm & Reaction gets under the skin of a British love affair with American jazz 27 January — 22 April 2018 ...
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