jazz
Annie Lennox: The Jazz SingerSunday, 26 October 2014
Annie Lennox is a far more fascinating artist than she’s often given credit for. Perhaps because she has been around for decades (she’s now 59) and hasn’t self-destructed like her friend Amy Winehouse or gone into exile for ages like Kate Bush, or... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Poulenc, Orbert DavisSaturday, 18 October 2014
Mahler: Symphony no 9 Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Michael Schønwandt (Challenge Classics)The halting, juddering opening of Mahler 9 is nicely characterised in this live reading. Low harp notes ring out like bells, the stuttering rhythm... Read more... |
Sandra Nkaké and Jî Drû, Pizza Express Jazz Club - "mesmerising, leonine"Saturday, 18 October 2014
A first live experience of the French-Cameroonian singer Sandra Nkaké leaves many questions unanswered. Once the immediate bewilderment has passed, the most pressing question for a British audience should be: why is this extraordinary performer not... Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Jamie CullumWednesday, 08 October 2014
Since self-releasing his debut album Heard It All Before in 1999, Jamie Cullum has gone on to become the UK's biggest selling jazz artist of all time. Since April 2010, he has also presented a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, for which he won a Sony... Read more... |
CD: Tobias Christl - WildernWednesday, 08 October 2014
“Wildern” means “poaching” in German. That’s as in pheasant, rather than egg. On this album, German jazz singer Tobias Christl goes poaching (foraging might be more accurate) for iconic rock songs, which he adapts for his jazz quintet. Retaining on... Read more... |
Stacey Kent, Ronnie Scott's - 'sublime miniaturism'Tuesday, 07 October 2014
“Were we leaving Rio, or were we in New York?” Stacey Kent sings in “The Changing Lights”, the title song of her latest album, before moving on seamlessly to “Les Invalides, or Trafalgar Square”. The prosperous, wistful ennui that some of her... Read more... |
ReVoice! 2014: Welcoming the cream of international jazz singing to LondonSaturday, 04 October 2014
Acclaimed British jazz singer Georgia Mancio celebrates five years of ReVoice!, her festival of jazz song, with an expanded event – now twice its original length – beginning next week. Mancio’s programming combines some of the most charismatic and... Read more... |
Andrea Motis / Joan Chamorro Quintet, Pizza Express Jazz ClubWednesday, 01 October 2014
Amy Winehouse, Esperanza Spalding, and Roberto Fonseca were the names tossed and bandied after a London debut of extraordinary charm and maturity from the 19-year-old Spanish singer and multi-instrumentalist Andrea Motis. While a modest Soho crowd... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Sun RaSunday, 21 September 2014
Sun Ra and his Arkestra: In the Orbit of RaUp till his death in 1993, the space-fixated jazz bandleader, composer, musician and visionary born Herman Blount had issued around 117 albums, about 46 of which were live sets. Trying to pin down... Read more... |
Sarah Jane Morris, Union ChapelFriday, 19 September 2014
Recorded in the UK, Johannesburg, Paris and Tel Aviv, Sarah Jane Morris's latest album, Bloody Rain, is undoubtedly a labour of love. Hearing it performed live last night in the Union Chapel, in front of an adoring audience, confirmed that it is... Read more... |
Mulatu Astatke, Royal Festival HallSunday, 14 September 2014
It was Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers that first really got Mulatu Astatke major Western attention – in same way that Angelo Badalementi’s music for Twin Peaks gave a rich and strange dimension to David Lynch’s TV epic, there was an even greater... Read more... |
Prom 71: Time for Three, BBC Concert Orchestra, LockhartWednesday, 10 September 2014
Aaron Copland was an unlikely musical portraitist of the American plains and prairies. Son of Jewish immigrants from Brooklyn and student of modernism with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, he nonetheless created the quintessential American orchestral sound... Read more... |
