jazz
Album: This Dream of You – Diana KrallSaturday, 19 September 2020
“Produced by Tommy LiPuma.” That phrase has appeared on just about every Diana Krall album since the summer of 1995, when the Cleveland-born mogul arrived at the GRP label – it would be his sixth and last music industry affiliation –... Read more... |
Album: Allison Neale - Quietly ThereTuesday, 08 September 2020
Seattle-born Allison Neale’s alto saxophone sound is instantly appealing. Her playing has the light wispy, airy quality from the "cool", "West Coast" school of Paul Desmond. One day last year, she spent just six hours (10am-5pm minus an hour for... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: This Is Our Music - Jazz Out Of NorwaySunday, 30 August 2020
The Turnamat is a type of washing machine made by AEG. In the composition titled “Turnamat”, Seventies-type synths, wobbly keyboard lines and hard-grooving drums give way to a brass-led interlude suggesting an acquaintance with the compositions... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 59: Johnny Cash, Bananagun, Fleetwood Mac, Romare, PJ Harvey, Kamaal Williams and moreWednesday, 19 August 2020
The usual summer vinyl release slump doesn’t seem to apply this year. During the COVID-19 crisis, the demand for vinyl has risen rather than fallen and theartsdesk on Vinyl reflects that again this month with another monster round-up of reviews,... Read more... |
Album: Solveig Slettahjell – Come In From the RainMonday, 17 August 2020
Norwegian singer Solveig Slettahjell has a feeling for slow. Her 2001 debut album was called Slow Motion Orchestra, and in the years since then she has turned her very fine sense of how to convey the essence and the meaning of songs at a very... Read more... |
AIM Awards 2020, SBTV review - a game attempt to rewire awards ceremoniesThursday, 13 August 2020
Music awards shows are a strange beast: part window display, part industry conference and part party. Especially if you don’t have Brit Awards or Mercury Prize budget to create a whizz-bang spectacle, the ceremonies can be an interminable pileup of... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Dudu Phukwana and the "Spears"Sunday, 09 August 2020
Whether explicitly or indirectly, what’s written on a master tape box can tantalise. Revealing part of a picture creates a desire to want to know more. Take the example seen above. It’s for an album by South African alto saxist Dudu Pukwana. The... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Oneness Of Juju - African Rhythms 1970-1982Sunday, 26 July 2020
“These are African rhythms, passed down to us from the ancient spirits. Feel the spirits, a unifying force. Come on, move with the spirits. Stand up. Clap your hands. Groove with the rhythms. Get down. Get off.”So begins “African Rhythms”,... Read more... |
Album: Khruangbin - MordechaiWednesday, 24 June 2020
There’s a moment halfway through Khruangbin’s latest album that succinctly sums up the melting-pot model this band have made their own. It’s “Pelota”, a Spanish-influenced song, based on a Japanese film, played by a Texan three-piece with a Thai... Read more... |
Album: John Scofield, Steve Swallow, Bill Stewart - Swallow TalesSaturday, 06 June 2020
Swallow Tales is a great album. It took three musicians fewer than five hours on one afternoon in New York studio in March 2019 to make. But there again, it also took them more than 40 years.John Scofield became aware of bassist Steve Swallow in the... Read more... |
Album: Hayley Williams - Petals for ArmorFriday, 08 May 2020
The music of monstrously successful emo-pop sorts Paramore is globally massive but is far from everyone’s cup of angst-lite. There is something polished and squeaky clean about them, Teflon fluoro-goth with an off-putting whiff of decent boy/girl-... Read more... |
Album: Dinosaur - To the EarthWednesday, 06 May 2020
Dinosaur’s Mercury-nominated debut was a jolt of 1970s Miles and James Brown electricity. This third album steps back into the familiar comforts of acoustic jazz, with a cool inquisitiveness combining trumpeter-leader Laura Jurd’s rural... Read more... |
