New music
Rava / Herbert / Guidi + Murgia, Kings PlaceSaturday, 19 November 2016
There was an Italian flavour to the EFG London Jazz Festival programme at Kings Place on Thursday night. Enrico Rava is an eminent statesman of European jazz, who emerged in the 1960s as a disciple of Miles Davis. He was collaborating with young... Read more... |
Jim Rattigan's Pavillon, Seven Arts, LeedsSaturday, 19 November 2016
French horn players active in jazz are thin on the ground: there’s the long-deceased John Graas, and composer and polymath Gunther Schuller’s career took in collaborations with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Unlike most brass instruments, the horn... Read more... |
CD: Metallica - Hardwired… To Self-DestructSaturday, 19 November 2016
“One thing there's not is the big Metallica ballad – it's all pretty uppity,” said Lars Ulrich of Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, Metallica’s first album for the best part of a decade. If we ignore, for a moment, the Trump-esque grasp of language and... Read more... |
Norma Winstone, Cadogan HallFriday, 18 November 2016
For fans of vocal jazz and fine lyric writing, this 75th birthday concert for the inimitable Norma Winstone offered a treasure trove of riches. From intimate chamber jazz to the gravitas of a full orchestra, the two sets seamlessly blended every... Read more... |
CD: Rumer - This Girl's in LoveFriday, 18 November 2016
In a career that began just six years ago, Rumer has tipped her musical hat to such songwriting greats as Jimmy Webb and Hall and Oates while also finding her own voice as a writer. Now, with her fourth album, she pays homage to one of the great pop... Read more... |
CD: Solange - A Seat at the TableThursday, 17 November 2016
It would be easy to create a neat dichotomy between Solange Knowles and her sister Beyoncé. Solange is alternative while Beyoncé is pop, Solange deals in intimacy while Beyoncé is about grand gestures, Solange – on this album more than ever – is... Read more... |
Elza Soares, Barbican / Calypso Rose, Jazz CaféWednesday, 16 November 2016
She calls it “dirty samba”. Elza Soares, The Woman at the End of the World - to use the name from her last album - sat on a throne like a warrior from a fantasy sci-fi film at the back of the stage. Her regal, mythic aura has been earned in an epic... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Volume 22 - Queen, Gillan, The Pop Group, Joe Fox and moreWednesday, 16 November 2016
The music keeps coming thick and fast. There’s an emphasis on rock this month but, as regular readers will know, theartsdesk on Vinyl has no favoured musical genre. All music is welcome, as long as it’s cut to plastic.This month we open with a jazzy... Read more... |
CD: Little Mix - Glory DaysWednesday, 16 November 2016
Little Mix, like Girls Aloud before them, have developed fast from TV talent newbies into impressively sparkly industry professionals. They won The X Factor in 2011 and released a flabby cover of Damien Rice’s moany fist-pumper, “Cannonball”, but... Read more... |
Lizz Wright, Cadogan HallMonday, 14 November 2016
There are singers who can dazzle with their technical mastery, those who welcome you into their musical world through a special communicative gift, and those who can traverse genres with absolutely no artifice. Rarest of all are those singers who... Read more... |
CD: Rachael Yamagata - Tightrope WalkerMonday, 14 November 2016
Rachael Yamagata likes to take her time. Tightrope Walker comes a full five years after the American songwriter’s last release, and it’s an album that demands to be listened to with as much care as clearly went into its creation. Like the French... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Reykjavík: Iceland Airwaves 2016Sunday, 13 November 2016
On the final night of Iceland Airwaves 2016, Polly Jean Harvey and her band are ranged in a line just inside the edge of the stage constructed inside Valshöllin, a sports hall south of Reykjavík’s city centre. The festival’s five days have climaxed... Read more... |
