jazz
Matthew Wright
Jazz pianist Bill Evans was a titanic figure in jazz performance until addiction and death took him in 1980, his blend of strength and sensitivity unparalleled, while his collaborations with Miles Davis and Charles Mingus, among others, left epochal records. Yet Evans is covered much less frequently than his contemporaries, so this release by London jazz pianist Bruno Heinen and Danish guitarist Kristian Borring is a timely reminder of what we’ve been missing.Heinen is best known for the intriguing album Tierkreis, which re-worked a 1974 piece of the same name written for 12 music boxes by Read more ...
graham.rickson
Mozart, arr. Makato Ozone: Piano Concerto No.9 Makato Ozone (piano), Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, dir. Tommy Smith (Spartacus Records)This is something pretty special. Jazzed-up Bach usually works, as Jacques Loussier has shown, and I've enjoyed recent arrangements of Stravinsky and Messiaen. But Mozart? Here is Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone's take on the Piano Concerto No.9, the Jeunehomme, accompanied by the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. It's stunning, the most potent musical pick-me-up I've encountered in months. The composer would surely have approved. As Ozone says, “There's a Read more ...
peter.quinn
Playing that exudes a real joie de vivre, compositions that unfailingly get the synapses firing, fearless soloing, and a textural density and rhythmic punch that deliver a powerful emotional jolt. It's rare to hear music-making of this calibre, which is why this final piece of the magisterial Loose Tubes triptych – following Dancing on Frith Street (2010) and Säd Afrika (2012) from the same valedictory residency at Ronnie Scott's in September 1990 – is to be given the warmest of welcomes.The skip-proof collection opens with the circling riffs of “Armchair March”, one of four tunes penned Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Don’t be fooled by the header picture. Despite the relaxed poses, Iceland’s Pink Street Boys are amongst the angriest, loudest, most unhinged bands on the planet right now. Hits #1, their debut vinyl album – which follows distorted-sounding, lower-than-lo-fi cassette and digital-only releases – is so impolite and wild that once the rest of the world gets the message the story of what constitutes the current-day music of their home country will have to be rewritten.They are not an anomaly. Iceland is currently witnessing a groundswell of loosely punk–inspired bands drawing from the edgy spirit Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Company could have been recorded any time in the past 25 years. Although Slime’s debut feels fresh, affinities with the familiar tag Company as a retro-nodding debut which will have a broad appeal. Chin-stroking collectors will love its references. Hipsters dwelling in the edgy zones of cities will love the comedown, late-night, reflective atmosphere. The Newcastle-born, Hackney resident electronicist Will Archer – who assumes the name Slime – has created an album with the potential to cross boundaries.The chief attribute of Company is the ease with which it brings together the disparate as a Read more ...
Thomas Rees
There was a buzz at the Barbican last night, the kind that makes you feel like a child again, a ripple of electric energy that only comes with seeing the true greats. And they don’t come much greater than Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, two jazz legends with strikingly similar trajectories. Both cut their teeth playing with Miles, both helped determine the direction of jazz-rock fusion and, though they’re now in their mid 70s, both have continued to push the boundaries.A huge cheer went up as they took the stage, looking supremely relaxed, with Hancock thanking the crowd and Corea declaring Read more ...
David Nice
Cleopatra in her barge gliding down the nave of Southwark Cathedral? Only figuratively, in the hypnotic “Half the Fun” movement of Duke Ellington’s constantly surprising Shakespeare compendium Such Sweet Thunder. Still, it wouldn’t be that much stranger than the combination of a jazz orchestra and a chamber choir – so superlative as not to need the “youth” in their names observed – celebrating Shakespeare in his local place of worship.It worked brilliantly. That was partly because not only the layered sound of the National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain but also, more surprisingly, the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“I don’t think I could handle it, I think I’d go mad.” It’s the sort of answer given by anyone asked how they’d react to fame. With the possibility looming of recognition beyond jazz circles, Amy Winehouse, who was then not so well-known, responded with something which could have appeared trite; the humble words of an aspirant not wanting to seem too big for her boots.What came later is well known. Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011 after a too public decline which seemingly realised her prediction. Those off-the-cuff words in an interview took on a resonance few would have Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Freedom Festival, a new event curated by vibes player and electronicist Orphy Robinson and vocalist Cleveland Watkiss, is all about bringing improvised music out of the shadows and into the limelight. All the same, it felt strange going to the Vortex in broad daylight. Gigs here don’t usually get started much before 9 pm (I’d always assumed that improvising musicians only came out at night), and darkness seems to lend itself to the free jazz atmosphere.After appearances from Tony Kofi’s Sphinx Trio and Byron Wallen on the first day, it was down to the Freeform Improv Strings to start the Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Robert Glasper has recently been making a name, and winning Grammys with his electronic fusion outfit, the Robert Glasper Experiment. After years of Casey Benjamin’s croaking vocoder on the Black Radio albums, the pealing acoustic notes of Glasper’s conventional trio are almost a surprise. Also novel by Glasper’s standards is the source material: there’s only one standard, “Stella By Starlight”. Many of the rest of are, as the title suggests, covers. While the sound of Glasper’s trio is fairly traditional, with his choice of tracks he’s clearly reaching out far beyond the jazz comfort zone: Read more ...
Thomas Rees
If you still haven’t been to Played Twice, a monthly jazz night held at Brilliant Corners in Dalston, I suggest you do something about it. The concept is simple. First there’s a playthrough of a landmark album on the venue’s top of the range analogue soundsystem – an anorak’s dream, all glistening valves and sleek silver turntables – and then a band reinterpret that recording live in the venue.I first went way back in November for a double play of Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil, and I’ve been a regular ever since. It rarely misses a beat. The musicians are always from the top flight and the Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, who died this week, was both a defining and divisive figure in jazz history. His highly individual and virtuosic playing and his development of a non-harmonic style of improvisation and composition have remained milestones in the development of modern jazz. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, and developing as a musician in a series of R&B bands in Los Angeles, he studied musical theory privately, initially meeting widespread ridicule whenever he proposed his novel techniques. He cut a dedicated if idiosyncratic figure for most of the 1950s, operating a Read more ...