jazz
Liz Thomson
In the era of star-making TV progs and here-today-gone-tomorrow musicians, just how wonderful is it to have a new album from a man who marked his 80th birthday three years ago by signing a new contract with Eric Corne’s Forty Below Records?John Mayall, Manchester-born “godfather of the British blues”, is a true guitar legend, an elder statesman to whom so many of rock’s key players owe a huge debt – among them John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor and, of course, Eric Clapton. Whose collection does not include the 1966 classic John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton on which Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Saxophonist, composer and former Radio 3 New Generation Artist Trish Clowes has created a reputation for original chamber jazz of densely woven harmonies and delicate, sometimes folk-tinged melody. This fourth album, with a quartet rather than (as often in the past) a small orchestra is billed as a new musical direction. It isn’t really, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of: in style and mood Clowes rather impressively recaptures the unshowy profundity of her chamber orchestra with only a quartet.There’s a remarkable range of subject matter here, testament to the diversity and maturity of Read more ...
peter.quinn
Through her work with Tomorrow's Warriors and the Nu Civilisation Orchestra and, more recently, Jazz Jamaica, alto saxist Camilla George has been an integral part of the UK jazz scene for over a decade. Apart from its melodic fecundity, subtle arrangements and the impressive way in which it fuses jazz, highlife, afrobeat, calypso and more into a meaningful whole, what makes this debut album stand out is the sense that George has been quietly honing not only her own sound but also that of her estimable quartet.George’s journey of self-discovery, from her African and Caribbean roots to her Read more ...
peter.quinn
Despite all of the challenges – more venues going to the wall, scarcity of funding, lack of column inches, and more – jazz in 2016 showed its seemingly endless capacity not only to survive and thrive, but also to innovate and invigorate. As one of 137 jazz writers invited to vote in the 2016 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll, both the range and vastness of the year’s output, from Old Locks and Irregular Verbs by poll winner Henry Threadgill (adding to his Pulitzer Prize earlier in the year) to Countdown by 13-year-old piano wunderkind Joey Alexander, offered a life-affirming jolt.Noted for its Read more ...
Matthew Wright
The future direction of jazz has been the subject of anxious discussion for at least 50 years, and the last few have seen particular fervent speculation, usually provoked by another tedious “death of jazz” article. Fortunately, such pieces almost always foreshadow a renaissance, and the recent prominence of jazz-sourced breakthrough artists such as Gregory Porter, Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper and Snarky Puppy has at least ensured the death-of-jazz polemicists have had to put down their poison pens. So far, so reassuring. Also American. As Shabaka Hutchings himself argued in an Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Attempts to steer a straightforward path through the music of Sun Ra have always been hampered by the volume of records issued, their limited availability and trying to work out whether they represent something he had a hand in releasing. Just because an album is in the shops does not necessarily mean it was part of the artist’s own vision of who they are or were.Last time theartsdesk encountered a Sun Ra collection, it generated the comments that he “had issued around 117 albums, about 46 of which were live sets. Trying to pin down exact numbers with Sun Ra is unrealistic. Some albums Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1970, The Who opened their Live at Leeds album with “Young Man Blues”, a hefty version of a song its composer Mose Allison recorded as “Blues” in 1957. Back then, it was the only vocal track on Back Country Suite, an otherwise instrumental blues-jazz album, the Mississippi-born pianist's debut long player. Allison had moved to New York in 1956 and a string of releases followed. The Who weren’t the only British band cocking an ear: in March 1965 The Yardbirds first recorded Allison's “I’m Not Talking”, plucked by them from 1964’s The Word From Mose.Mose Allison’s music was integral to the Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Everything about Xam Duo’s debut album, out earlier this month on Sonic Cathedral, has a wonderful sense of self-indulgence: from the freeform, experimental feel, the stretched-out tones and resulting melodies that exist almost by implication, to the mournful squall of the saxophone, buoyed by a stubborn sea of sound.The project, a collaboration between Hookworms’ Matthew Benn and Christopher Duffin of Deadwall, was born when the former was looking to expand what had, up until then, been a solo project. Much of this album is formed of the pair’s very first, completely improvised, session Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
At 83, and with 60-odd years on the road, Wayne Shorter could be forgiven for, in a musical sense, getting the slippers and pipe out and knocking out comfortable versions of his hits, the classic tunes he wrote for Miles Davis among them, like “Footprints” and “Sanctuary”. But instead, he went full tilt into a largely improvised set consisting of only five numbers in 90 minutes, most of them recent, and then a new collaboration, given only its second outing at the Barbican. There were a few times you thought you had heard some of these these musical conceits before - but that is mainly Read more ...
Matthew Wright
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 pianist Giovanni Guidi, also recorded on ECM, though best known for diaphanous soundscapes rather than free jazz at its most raw and bloody. They were joined by electronic music pioneer Matthew Herbert, who now has a distinguished presence across opera, theatre, film and books, as well as improvised electronica. Last night’s gig was the first Read more ...
graham.rickson
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’s bell faces backwards, potentially creating balance and coordination problems. Bandleader Stan Kenton tried to solve the problem by using an unwieldy hybrid instrument called the mellophonium; you can hear its piercing roar on his West Side Story album.Ex-RPO horn player Jim Rattigan solves any balance issues with discreet use of amplification, Read more ...
peter.quinn
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 aspect of Winstone’s artistry.As Nick Smart, the Royal Academy of Music’s Head of Jazz and our genial conductor for the evening, reminded us in his scene-setting introduction, we were celebrating not one but two anniversaries: it was in November 1966 that Winstone performed her first run at Ronnie Scott's as a band leader in her own right, opposite Read more ...