jazz
Jim Rattigan's Pavillon, Seven Arts, LeedsSaturday, 19 November 2016
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... Read more... |
Norma Winstone, Cadogan HallFriday, 18 November 2016
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... Read more... |
Lizz Wright, Cadogan HallMonday, 14 November 2016
There are singers who can dazzle with their technical mastery, those who welcome you into their musical world through a special communicative gift, and those who can traverse genres with absolutely no artifice. Rarest of all are those singers who... Read more... |
Michael Wollny Trio + Andrew McCormack, Kings PlaceSunday, 13 November 2016
This rambunctious German-Swiss trio is used to selling out much larger venues at home. Their overdue EFG London Jazz Festival debut, in an enthusiastic but not full Kings Place, introduced British audiences to an exhilarating take on the acoustic... Read more... |
Jazz Voice, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 12 November 2016
Following the seismic events across the pond earlier this week, an outcome which has left the rest of the world blinking in disbelief, Guy Barker’s brilliant arrangements for this year’s Jazz Voice offered much needed balm for the soul. Creativity,... Read more... |
CD: Dr John - The Musical Mojo of Dr JohnMonday, 31 October 2016
New Orleans icon Dr John (Mac Rebennack) epitomises that city’s diversely blended musical traditions. This release was recorded live in May 2014 at a New Orleans Jazz Festival celebration of his career, which began in the 1950s on the Los Angeles... Read more... |
CD: Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Until The HunterSunday, 30 October 2016
Until The Hunter is the third solo album by Mazzy Star singer, Hope Sandoval, and the long awaited follow-up to 2009’s Through the Devil Softly. It’s safe to say that the intervening time hasn’t encouraged any great stylistic leaps but to say that... Read more... |
Nicky and Wynton: The Making of a Concerto, BBC FourSaturday, 29 October 2016
Two personable musicians, who win on all fronts: at the pinnacle of their highly competitive and skilled professions, highly articulate, and perhaps unlikely partners in their art. In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, the composer, world-leading... Read more... |
CD: AYBEE - The OdysseySaturday, 29 October 2016
Berlin's electronic music world has been traditionally been very white. Sometimes, as with the inward-looking minimal techno of the 2000s, it could feel painfully so. Obviously a city can't really help the nature of its demographic, but monoculture... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Paris BluesFriday, 28 October 2016
The original 1961 poster for Paris Blues trumpeted it as “a love-spectacular so personally exciting you feel it’s happening to you”. Would it were actually thus. Instead, it’s ponderous and features a cast so obviously “acting” that any verve... Read more... |
CD: David Crosby - LighthouseThursday, 13 October 2016
While there were 20 years between the 74-year-old David Crosby’s last solo album, 2014’s Croz, and its predecessor It's All Coming Back To Me Now..., Lighthouse arrives with what must be seen as exceptional speed. It’s also, despite being recorded... Read more... |
CD: Norah Jones - Day BreaksWednesday, 05 October 2016
The human voice is as individual as a fingerprint: the emotional, melancholic pull of Billie Holiday; the slightly nasal, always ironic quality of Donald Fagen; the overheated melismas of Mariah Carey; and Michael Bolton, the aural equivalent of the... Read more... |
