What makes a great Christmas song? There’s an alchemy to finding the winning combination of whimsy and humour, juxtaposed with a healthy slice of Christmas angst. This formula has led us to spin the same handful of pop bangers that endure down the decades, soundtracking generation after generation of tinsel and mince pies.

The double album The Sound Gallery was issued in 1995. It collected British easy listening and library music tracks which had been mostly overlooked by reissue compilers as they were beyond a form of musical pale. The 24 cuts were, up to a few years earlier, neither hip or trendy as they were by stuffy old geezers like Joe Loss, aimed at a low-cred easy listening audience, not rare or had been heard by barely anyone as they had appeared on subscription-only music library albums.

There’ve been more than a few cold and wet days in Birmingham just recently, as winter has been making its presence properly felt.

After Be-Bop Deluxe finished recording their third album at Abbey Road, their label said they needed something to promote as a single. EMI told band-leader Bill Nelson they wanted a song with commercial appeal. The result was the single “Ships in the Night”, which duly charted during the last week of February 1976. On the back of the hit single, the art-rock outfit’s third album Sunburst Finish became their first to go Top 20. EMI got what it wanted.

Jazz musicians of just about all ages and persuasions have been on show in this year’s 10-day EFG London Jazz Festival. Some were making their first mark, some taking stock of who and where they are, some trying new things or changing where they’re headed, others who’ve said yes to commissions, and others whose craft, identity and choices are totally persuasive. Charles Mingus got it right. “In my music,” he said, “I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.

One part of the brain, they tell us, responds to visual art and another, quite different, to music; we can't cope adequately with both at once. Which is why I'm often wary of those musical organisations which think that what we hear needs to be livened up with more to see: mixing Debussy with so-called "Impressionists", for instance, or Stravinsky with Cubism. A case can all the same be made for paintings which inspire composers, and vice versa, even if it's still a stretch to handle both simultaneously.

The famous names on Kreaturen Der Nacht: Deutsche Post-Punk Subkultur 1980–1984 are Christiane F., Die Haut, Malaria! and Mania D. Committed collectors of German post-punk and those who there at the time might be familiar with Ausserhalb, ExKurs or Leben Und Arbeiten.

Aside from her incredible time feel, exceptional range and consistently beautiful timbre, what was most impressive about Jazzmeia Horn’s bravura performance at a sold-out Ronnie Scott’s was the sense of joyousness and vitality that coursed through her music-making.

It’s a freezing cold, wet night in north London and Denver-based musician Brent Cowles is braving the grimness to play his first ever UK gig, at Highbury’s tiny, mirrorball-stuffed Thousand Island (the latest incarnation of The Garage’s upstairs venue).

After failing to make the charts on its release 50 years ago this month, Astral Weeks has long since passed into pop mythology, its unique amalgam of jazz, folk and soul influences inspiring musicians, writers and filmmakers alike.