jazz
peter.quinn
A little more than a year after the death of acclaimed jazz trumpeter and composer Abram Wilson, his former manager and widow Jennie Cashman Wilson has teamed up with EFG London Jazz Festival producers Serious to stage the only London tribute concert in memory of her husband.Taking place on 20 November in the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, the concert provides an opportunity to see some of Wilson’s former bandmates from both the UK and the States celebrate his life and music. Originally from New Orleans, Abram Wilson had lived in the UK for the past 10 years and was working on a number of Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Liam Noble has kept his fans waiting so long for some new music, they were beginning to wonder if he’d turned into David Bowie. The British jazz pianist’s last album of originals, Romance among the Fishes, was released in 2004. Since then he’s recorded the highly regarded Brubeck, which Brubeck himself declared "an inspiration and a challenge for me to carry on”, and collaborated with distinguished players on both sides of the Atlantic. But his fans, while enjoying the live performances, which have built his reputation as one of the great piano improvisers of the contemporary scene, were Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Norway is currently attracting an uncommon degree of attention due to the absurd “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” by Ylvis, the comedy duo Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker. The country’s mainstream music hasn’t been this newsworthy since a-ha conquered the world in 1985. After 150 million YouTube hits for “The Fox”, the figure is still rising.The Ylvisåker brothers host the television chat show I kveld med Ylvis and the catchy musical novelty was meant for a sketch in the programme. It was intended to be the worst song ever. Ylvis had, though, roped in Stargate, the New York-based Norwegian Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Still only a year out of college, the diversely gifted trumpeter, composer and bandleader Laura Jurd has risen rapidly to prominence, enterprisingly bypassing the ritual of hanging around to be noticed by creating her own scene and ensembles. One of these, the Chaos Collective, this week curated a small festival in which another, the Chaos Orchestra, last night performed a range of new work. Most hotly anticipated were the arrangements of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, celebrating the centenary of its first performance. Django Bates tells the story of Charlie Parker’s spontaneous Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Of the many challenges facing a contemporary jazz quartet, there are, perhaps, several more pressing than becoming a gentleman. For this extraordinary band, their conviction derives from the affection, respect and detail with which they synthesise such a breadth of jazz tradition. Just arrived in London for the final leg of a tour to launch their second album Internationally Recognised Aliens, this first night of four at Pizza Express was an utterly compelling statement of that identity, spanning several genres of the contemporary jazz guitar. The gentlemen’s variety is Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth’s fifth album Live to Love is, on the face of it, an unlikely forum for appreciation of quantum physics or the heroic plight of Pakistani campaigner Malala Yousafzai. This new release, launched at the 606 Club, contains both, but not because she has morphed into a fearsome amalgam of Tom Lehrer and Billy Bragg. Dankworth unified her eclectic subject matter by demonstrating a multifarious, magnificent facility for empathy.Vocal quality and delivery were excellent. Dankworth radiated an irresistible, sensuous warmth, each word a little boat on her river of honey and Read more ...
peter.quinn
For lovers of vocal jazz, Georgia Mancio's ReVoice! Festival has become an unmissable part of London's jazz calendar. Now in its fourth year, ReVoice! has previously played host to artists such as Gregory Porter (his first UK booking), Tuck & Patti, Raúl Midón and the Becca Stevens Band. Running over 10 nights from 10-19 October, this year's edition is the longest yet, with all concerts hosted at Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club.An award-winning vocalist in her own right, Georgia not only curates and presents the festival but also performs the opening set each night. Little surprise, Read more ...
peter.quinn
It's only the truly great albums that usher you into a sound-world that is entirely sui generis. And so it is with this second chapter of jazz sax player and composer Matana Roberts's Coin Coin project, a vast musical work-in-progress exploring themes of history, memory and ancestry. Divided into 18 separate tracks, but heard as one continuous arc of sound, we enter into the leader's all-encompassing “panoramic sound quilting”, as she calls it, a reference both to her family’s handicraft heritage but also to the collage-like juxtaposition of her materials.Over a bowed pedal note in the Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Some people have all the luck. Listening to John Etheridge’s self-deprecating description of how his career has progressed (in interviews such as Radio 3‘s Jazz Library, or at a gig, when he is a disarmingly open host), you would think he had stumbled upon Stephane Grapelli and Nigel Kennedy (to name merely the most famous of his many stellar collaborators) while out for a pint of milk. What sounds like luck is of course talent, and last week, during his annual Pizza Express residency, he showed exactly why he is one of the most skilful and versatile guitarists of his generation.Soft Machine Read more ...
peter.quinn
Gregory Porter's Blue Note debut provides one of the biggest sugar rushes of auditory pleasure you'll hear this year. Grounded in jazz but heavily seasoned with the blues, gospel and soul, it's a superbly paced album, ranging from the poetic tableaux of ballad “When Love Was King” to the unstoppable, hand clapping moto perpetuo of the title track.There are many other gems amongst the album's 14 tracks, including the singular intimacy of opener “No Love Dying”, the heartfelt plea of “Musical Genocide” and the soulful melodicism of “Movin'”. With a baritone voice that evokes heartbreaking Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Pianist, composer, and band leader Django Bates was so inspired by Charlie Parker as a teenager that he used to whistle his tunes on the train. This led not to abuse, but the acquaintance (at Brixton station) of saxophonist Steve Buckley. Returning to the Proms this week for the first time since his 1987 debut with Loose Tubes, Bates paid homage with a set of mainly Parker adaptations, performed by his trio, Beloved, in a new collaboration with the Swedish Norrbotten Big Band.About half of the programme revisited tracks recorded on last year’s album Confirmation. Bates’s distinctive sound, Read more ...
Serena Kutchinsky
Dalston was the place on Friday night, as the Sun Ra Arkestra put on a trademark display of Afro-jazz excellence in the intimate surrounds of Café Oto. Jazz pioneer Sun Ra might have been dead since 1993, but his influential big band is very much alive and capable of puffing their way through marathon sets.Formed in the mid-1950s by Sun Ra, aka visionary pianist and composer Herman Poole, the Arkestra is currently led by the famed saxophonist Marshall Allen, 89. Frail-looking but authoritative, Allen worked with Sun Ra from 1958 until the latter's death and is often referred to as “the second Read more ...