jazz
peter.quinn
Soweto Kinch's set last night as part of the eXplorations mini-series featured gluttony, envy and a host of other vices. No, not A Life in the Day of an Investment Banker, but a tantalising glimpse of Kinch's take on the Seven Deadly Sins.Presenting material from Kinch's most recent release (The New Emancipation) in the first half, “Trying to be a Star” set the mood for the entire evening: a riotous mix of sax, bass, drums, pre-recorded material and spoken/sung elements, with Kinch flexing his singing voice on the chorus hook. From the outset, his rhythm section of bassist Karl Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although they’ll still be filed under jazz, Portico Quartet’s third album takes them even closer to the ambient and trance they’ve been edging towards since they attracted attention in 2007 after the release of their Mercury-nominated debut, Knee Deep in the North Sea. It’s partly to do with the departure of founder member Nick Mulvey and his replacement with keyboard/percussion player Keir Vine, and also a natural progression.Much that’s familiar remains: Milo Fitzpatrick's pulsing, snappy bass, Jack Wyllie’s drifting, occasionally dissonant, sometimes squalling sax and the precision of Read more ...
peter.quinn
Recorded live at New York's Blue Note during a two-week residency, this double CD celebrating the music and legacy of the jazz pianist and composer, Bill Evans (1929-80), stirs the soul even as it breaks your heart a little. Drummer Paul Motian, a member of the first Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro on bass - widely recognised as one of the most influential piano trios in jazz - passed away in November last year.
Disc one sees piano maestro Chick Corea, together with Motian and another Evans alumnus, bassist Eddie Gomez, dusting down two Evans originals, “Peri’s Scope” from Portrait in Jazz Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
“He’s a praying mantis,” said the girl next to me, “but sexy.” True enough, even if Mr Bruce is a gangly long-limbed performer rather than an actual insect. I’ve seen him twice this year already, and he’s completely compelling on stage and as a dancer who moves like no one else out there.The first time was last week at a party or wake to mark the sad selling-off of Rosemary Works, a hive of studios in Islington where the entertainment included punk power-pop band Sabre Tooth Tiger and a girl who did a burlesque show dressed as Queen Elizabeth. Gloriana disrobed and shook her stuff, then Mr Read more ...
peter.quinn
The band's Facebook page states “Dirty Soulful Groovin Dancey Sweet” under genre. To which I'd add “Dramatic Playful Intense Voluptuous Transporting”. Performing last night as part of the London A Cappella Festival, The Boxettes swept away any residual festive cobwebs and dazzled a packed Kings Place. “Loosen your shirt, loosen your bow ties,” we were told. I have to confess I didn't actually see any bow ties, but, metaphorically speaking, we got the point.
The all-female, London-based vocal quintet comprises Belle “Bellatrix” Ehresmann - currently the female world champion beatboxer - plus Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Craig Hassall, English National Ballet’s managing director, apologised ironically at theartsdesk’s Dance Question Time in November for putting on popular work at ENB, meaning Strictly Gershwin, a song-and-dance entertainment to follow the music-and-dance entertainment that is The Nutcracker.My colleague Judith Flanders has already reported on her feelings about this production with unimprovable acerbity, and I’m there with her, wondering what the dancers of ENB did to deserve such pale fare as this. On the other hand, shows are not conceived with dancers in mind but with box office, and box Read more ...
peter.quinn
2011 can only be described as a banner year for vocal jazz. Gretchen Parlato is blessed with one of the most mellifluous timbres in jazz, but it's her highly developed rhythmic concept that really marks her out. Like some of the great Brazilian singers, Parlato can make the bar line disappear. It helps that she's got a killing band, and together on The Lost and Found they perform the subtlest metrical shifts in the blink of an eye.Gretchen Parlato performs "How We Love" (excerpt) from The Lost and FoundTwo world-class UK singers, Ian Shaw and Liane Carroll, both released career-best Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Frank Sinatra might have come to dislike being branded as part of the Rat Pack, but the phrase stuck and still sticks. Judging by last night’s Christmas-slanted show, just as he, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr live forever, so will that phrase. Eleven years on from the first Rat Pack Live From Las Vegas show the shine hasn’t gone and the trio – even though they aren’t really there – light up the Wyndham’s Theatre.Strolling on to open the show with “Come Fly With Me”, Stephen Triffitt is Frank Sinatra. He’s been at it for over 10 years and ought to be good, but if you’re a first-timer little Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Scotland’s Bill Wells is hard to pin down. Although ostensibly a jazz pianist, boundaries don’t concern him. He’s played with Aidan Moffat and Isobel Campbell. In 2009 he made the GOK album with Japan’s Tori Kudo (who records as Maher Shalal Hash Baz). Lemondale was made in Japan with a raft of collaborators that include Jim O’Rourke, Kudo and members of Tenniscoats.It’s a lovely album. Coherent, too. Especially considering that it was recorded in one day. Overall, Lemondale is filmic, edging towards Michel Legrand’s jazzier moments and even Francis Lai soundtracks. Equally, it’d be at home Read more ...
david.cheal
Let’s hope that the first posthumously released Amy Winehouse album is also the last; not because it’s in any way bad – actually it’s a pretty decent collection of songs from throughout her career – but because “pretty decent” is about as good as it gets. After this, if there’s anything left, it will surely only be the sound of a barrel being scraped.Assembled by Winehouse producers Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson, it’s a patchwork of alternative versions, some newer stuff, some bits and bobs, plus her famous duet from earlier this year with Tony Bennett. What shines through immediately – and Read more ...
John L Walters
The 10-day London Jazz Festival, now in its 19th year, is a diverse and international festival that embraces the unapologetically commercial Jazz Voice, the outer reaches of (free) free improv and even Abram Wilson’s Jazz for Toddlers. Despite a line-up that’s both starry and distinguished there was no single name that might encapsulate the festival’s rainbow palette. You can get a taste of its breadth from the three giants competing for our attention on the final night: Brazilian pioneer Hermeto Pascoal, guitarist Bill Frisell and free-jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. I rationed myself to Read more ...
marcus.odair
It’s nine days into the 10-day London Jazz Festival, and highlights so far include the double bill of saxophonists Steve Williamson and Steve Coleman, and the UK’s own Empirical supporting veterans Archie Shepp and Joachim Kuhn (the former a mellowed African-American firebrand, the latter a German pianist with all the wild intensity of Klaus Kinski in a Beethoven biopic). Contemporary crooner Gregory Porter, who played the "Jazz on 3" launch at Ronnie Scott’s, didn't do much for me, but it seems already to have been written that he is THE FUTURE OF JAZZ and it might just come to pass.The room Read more ...