New Music Reviews
Television, RoundhouseWednesday, 20 November 2013
The expected curveball came an hour in with a completely unfamiliar 14-minute song. Based around a pulsing bass riff, it was a deconstructed merger of The Rolling Stones’s “Paint it Black” and the Spanish side of Love’s Da Capo. A large contingent of the audience used it as handy toilet break. Read more...
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Lee Konitz and Dan Tepfer, Kenny Wheeler Quintet, QEHTuesday, 19 November 2013
Last night’s Konitz and Wheeler concert was the sort of event at which the audience’s jaw has dropped before the music starts. Lee Konitz and Kenny Wheeler already have substantial legacies: Konitz’s cool sax style was a landmark sound, for decades the only serious alternative to Parker’s bop; his huge discography, varied in style but pretty uniform in quality, is a testament to his enduring commitment to experiment. Read more... |
Wayne Shorter Quartet with the BBC Concert Orchestra, BarbicanMonday, 18 November 2013
Wayne Shorter’s Quartet were introduced as “the greatest jazz band on the planet”. It’s an unexceptional thing, like the Rolling Stones being introduced as “the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world”. Read more... |
Arild Andersen Quintet and Reijseger/Fraanje/Sylla, QEHSunday, 17 November 2013
Five minutes into this concert, at that stage a polite cello and piano duo, there was a raucous bellowing from the rear, so loud that the front stalls leapt. The delicate cello spiccato continued, despite the persistent bellowing. Gradually, the musicians adapted to the new sound, and to widespread astonishment, Senegalese singer Mola Sylla, chanting in Wolof, descended through the stalls onto the stage. Read more... |
René Marie, Pizza Express Jazz ClubSunday, 17 November 2013
In a fascinating interview with the singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, published in The Los Angeles Times in June 1979 around the release of Mingus, Mitchell signs off with the following aperçu. “You know, pigeonholes all seem funny to me. I feel like one of those lifer-educational types that just keep going for letters after their name. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: I am the Center, Haiku SalutSunday, 17 November 2013
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Chase & Status, Brighton CentreSaturday, 16 November 2013
“Show Me Love” by Robin S was a monster pop-rave crossover hit in 1990. Most of the crowd at Chase & Status’s Brighton date would have either not been born or in nappies gnawing Duplo bricks when it had its moment in the sun, yet they sing along en masse and roar approval as the band’s female diva, Moko, belts it out, jumping around in precariously stacked heels. Read more... |
Jazz Voice 2013, BarbicanSaturday, 16 November 2013
Harp glissandos, trilling flutes, the heft of a swinging brass section. Yes, last night's Jazz Voice once again kick-started the EFG London Jazz Festival in typically exuberant fashion. Arranged, scored and conducted by the indefatigable Guy Barker, its epoch-spanning celebration of jazz-related anniversaries, birthdays and milestones was hosted for the second time by Victoria Wood. Read more... |
Philip Glass/Steve Reich, Royal Festival HallMonday, 11 November 2013
The Southbank’s artistic director Jude Kelly was out in force at this penultimate weekend of The Rest is Noise festival, delivering little triumphalist, Ryan Air-like fanfares, reminding us how pioneering they had been to programme composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Philip Glass - composers who no one had ever heard of before they'd bravely decided to put them on. Read more... |
Volcano Choir, O2 Academy BristolMonday, 11 November 2013
It’s surprising how a singer with as little obvious presence or charisma as Justin Vernon can carry a live show, but he does. The power is in the otherworldly voice, and haunting songs with mysterious lyrics, carried on a wall of sound in the tradition of those “little symphonies for the kids” that Phil Spector pioneered half a century ago. Read more... |
Various Artists: I am the Center – Private Issue New Age Music in America, 1950–1990Pages
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