jazz
Thomas Rees
“I can’t believe it. Free jazz in Old Street tube, how cool is that?” It’s a relief to hear this kind of thing from passersby, because Empirical’s attempt to bring jazz to the people, to reach new audiences and develop their music through an experimental, week-long residency in a London tube station, could so easily have gone wrong.When I spoke to bassist Tom Farmer about the project, the MOBO-winners, due to release their fifth album, Connection, in March, seemed well aware of the risks. Commuters might hate it, or worse, keep their heads down and ignore it altogether. (“Don’t make eye Read more ...
peter.quinn
With Peter Andre butchering Frank Sinatra on the one hand ("Reality TV swing", as Ray Gelato aptly put it) and Annie Lennox massacring Billie Holiday on the other, it was heart-warming to hear two artists performing standards and originals with such care, insight and sensitivity.After they'd opened with an arresting snippet of Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce”, a massively swinging take on Peggy Lee’s “I Love Being Here with You” saw Martin slipping in some deft lyrical changes (“I’d love to kiss George Clooney’s nose”), while the first of several towering scats lit up “Comes Love” like a Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Wayne Shorter and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – that sounds like a dream pairing. Shorter, now 82, is one of the true greats, a saxophonist and composer with an enchanting and unpredictable approach that makes him instantly recognisable. He had a defining influence on Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet and on Weather Report and, for many, his current quartet represent the pinnacle of modern small group performance. Under the leadership of Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra have come to represent the pinnacle of repertoire big band playing, so this collaborative Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Described by Courtney Pine as "the most exciting jazz band to come out of the UK" and hailed in the press as the new young lions, Empirical broke cover in 2007, topping album of the year charts with their self-titled debut and picking up wins at the prestigious EBU/European Jazz Competition and the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award all within a few months.Originally a five-piece, with Kit Downes on piano and Jay Phelps on trumpet, they settled on their current line-up of bassist Tom Farmer, drummer Shane Forbes, altoist Nathaniel Facey and vibes-player Lewis Wright (a new recruit) in 2008. A trio Read more ...
peter.quinn
With everything they touch seemingly transforming into artistic gold, shapeshifting US collective Snarky Puppy are currently on a roll. Following their 2014 Grammy win for Family Dinner Volume One, they’ve since chalked up ‘Best Jazz Group’ in the 2015 Downbeat Readers Poll, plus a Grammy nomination in the ‘Best Contemporary Instrumental Album’ category for last year’s Sylva. This purple patch looks set to continue with the arrival of Family Dinner Volume Two.Serving up another appetizing smorgasbord of songs that range from the hyperventilated funk of “I Remember” (take a bow, LA duo Knower Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Penguins tend to be associated with slow and ungainly progress, slithering about in the snow. Yet there’s nothing cumbersome or awkward about the progress Manchester trio GoGo Penguin has made since emerging on the local jazz scene based around Matt and Phred’s club and their friend Matt Hallsall’s label Gondwana Records, which released their first two albums. In the past year they have broken through with North American audiences, and this, their third album, is not on Gondwana, but – applause – Blue Note. Much more GoGo than Penguin.The work is well titled. Man Made Object sums up Read more ...
peter.quinn
There's a moment in album-opener “Another Weirdo”, just after the one-and-a-half-minute mark, that powerfully captures the dramatic heft and textural surprise of this outstanding big band album. A subdued call and response in the brass snakes its way over an unchanging cadential figure in the bass. And then, from nowhere, a sudden shift up a semitone and the full might of the big band comes crashing in, a blaze of colour over which its composer takes flight.Groove Travels, a celebration of the rhythms that Gerard Presencer has absorbed on his various travels, has been incubating since 2010, Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Many jazz singers are known for an instantly recognisable tone. Billie Holiday or Louis Armstrong are known the moment they open their mouth, for a particular quality of delivery. Jazz singer and comedian Ian Shaw, who launched his 14th album at Pizza Express Jazz Club last night, works differently. His best performances are about the blend of comedian’s timing and musician’s tone, and once he’d warmed up last night, there were tears and giggles aplenty.His new album combines originals and an eclectic collection of covers, and they give the incredible versatility of his vocal range full rein Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Though Soft Machine were the first band to suggest Canterbury could be musically noteworthy, the appearance of Caravan’s debut album in late 1968, Kevin Ayers' post-Soft Machine solo outing two years later, and the subsequent arrivals of Gong, Matching Mole, Hatfield & the North and the solo Robert Wyatt confirmed the city had a fertile scene. It was a fluid environment where musicians from one band played with others. The mutability was captured in one of the most entangled of Pete Frame’s celebrated Rock Family Trees.And at its top: The Wilde Flowers. The band formed in 1963 and Read more ...
peter.quinn
My Album of the Year is The Thompson Fields, a stunningly beautiful collection of eight new pieces by the acclaimed composer, arranger and bandleader, Maria Schneider. It's one of those incredibly rare albums in which every element – breathtaking textural detail, gorgeous melodies, transfixing solos and the sheer expressivity of the playing – comes together in a kind of magical alignment.The magisterial Arriving by Loose Tubes, the final piece of the band's valedictory residency at Ronnie Scott's in September 1990, following Dancing on Frith Street ( Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Always desperately seeking the next profit-boosting lifeline, the record industry is getting all worked up about the "vinyl revival". While sales of CDs and downloads have been falling, those shiny black circles, once believed defunct, have been enjoying an upward surge. Tesco has even taken the bizarre decision to stock a triple LP by Iron Maiden.Don't get too excited, though. Vinyl apparently now makes up about three per cent of UK record sales, and while this is clearly an improvement on the 0.1 per cent share vinyl dwindled to in 2007, we're not looking at the imminent death of Spotify Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Contemporary jazz is a world full of magpies – artists who flit between genres and build glittering nests of disparate musical influences. Rock up to a so-called jazz night today and the repertoire can come from anywhere, you’re as likely to hear Jimi Hendrix or J. Dilla as Jerome Kern, and pianist Brad Mehldau has played a role in making that happen.Over the course of the past twenty years, Mehldau has established himself as one of the most distinctive and influential pianists of his generation, a musician with a healthy lack of respect for musical boundaries. Cast an eye over the tracklist Read more ...