WITH some politicians electioneering on a repatriation of immigrants platform, we should ponder on what the music scene would be like without the spice of foreign influences. Would here be any jazz or popular music as we know it ?

We would not be hearing Cuban maestro jazz violinist Omar Puente tomorrow night at the Jazz Weekend at the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM). There would be no Shirley Bassey, Lennie Henry and Cleo Laine, or the countless others who have enriched British culture.

The NCEM Jazz Weekend opens tonight with the Tom Arthurs Trio, a resounding hit at the London and Manchester Jazz Festivals, and continues with the Late Learners workshop with saxophonist Rob Lavers on Sunday, 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Multi award-winners Guy Barker (trumpet) and Ian Shaw (vocals/piano) celebrate cinema music with Barker And Shaw At The Movies on Sunday at 4pm. The closing concert on Sunday night will be Farrago, the University of York Jazz Orchestra, at 8pm. Details from 01904 658338.

Wakefield Jazz Club’s big event tonight is the premiere performance by the Jamil Sheriff Big Band. With funding from the PRS Foundation, the club commissioned Jamil and tonight’s suite, mentored by writers/arrangers Alan Barnes and Tony Falkner. Rising star Jamil has picked the cream of Leeds-based players for a 16-piece band (01977 680542).

Jazz In The Spa presents trad jazz with John Shillito’s Chosen Six tomorrow night (01937 842544).

Ironic that in a week when the best entertainment pub award in The Press went to the Black Swan, the Peasholme Green pub lost its long-standing Wednesday jazz, which has moved to The Phoenix Inn. Amazingly, this past week the Phoenix, George Street, hosted no fewer than five jazz nights.

Bass player Paul Baxter has started a new bi-monthly Thursday session at the pub and the Ian Chalk Quartet has made Sunday night a firm fixture at the Phoenix; phone 01904 656401 for details.

The fortnightly Thursdays by Jules and the Gang have moved from the Phoenix to the Victoria Vaults, Nunnery Lane, the next being on Thursday, May 20, at 8.30pm (01904 654307).

Pianist Zezo Olimpio should be back on Sunday afternoon at Kennedys Cafe Bar, Little Stonegate, after his return from a visit home to Brazil was delayed by the Icelandic volcano (01904 620222).

The Pasadena Roof Orchestra will swing into the Pocklington Arts Centre on Wednesday, at 8pm. Check the trombone section to espy famous Yorkie Andy Hillier. (01759 301547).

Sixteen years of jazz at the Old White Swan, Goodramgate, continues on Thursday with the Mardi Gras Band (01904 540911).

The jazz piano trio has undergone some changes over the past ten years. Such groups as The Bad Plus (USA) and the Esbjorn Svenssen Trio, from Sweden, have retooled the old model into a new, eclectic form. Expect classical and pop/rock influences added to the basic rhythms, as in the new album from Britain’s Neil Cowley Trio, Radio Silence, on-message for 2010 with grand, pianistic flourishes alternating with floaty ballads.

The opening track, Monoface, begins as thundering pomp-rock with heavy ostinato piano and rock-style drumming.

The title track has a beautifully measured melody, elegiac improvisation, tempo changes often implied rather than stated, and a changing dynamic over the course of the piece. Vice Skating begins in jazz waltz-time and moves from full-tilt to pastoral, with a flamenco-tinged section.

Desert To Rabat is an impressionistic piece in a minor key, the rhythmic impetus driven by the melodic lines of the piano. It is difficult to know how much of the music is composed and how much improvised. Best advice is to approach with open mind and view the album as a work in progress.

More thoughts on repatriation – what about our football teams and Britain’s favourite Indian, Thai, Italian and Chinese restaurants? Take it further and McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and more would have to pack their bags… hang on, maybe there is something in this.