jazz
Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012Wednesday, 05 December 2012
In 2009 I interviewed Jamie Cullum about Dave Brubeck, who has died today just a day before his 92nd birthday. What follows are Cullum's recollections of falling in love with Brubeck's music, and later knowing and working with a jazz legend."My... Read more... |
CD: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra - The Jazz AgeSunday, 25 November 2012
It might have looked good on paper; the best of Bryan Ferry revisited in a 1920s swing jazz style. But in practice, rather than reveal previously unrecognised properties of some of the most haunting and original pop/rock songs of the late 20th... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the London Jazz Festival: Heart beats on the fringeTuesday, 20 November 2012
Squeezing nearly 300 events into the 10-day dash that is the London Jazz Festival, which has just ended required dozens of venues – many not regular presenters of jazz – to open their doors. From the 606 Club in the west to Oliver’s Bar in Greenwich... Read more... |
Kurt Elling and Sheila Jordan, Queen Elizabeth HallThursday, 15 November 2012
Just occasionally an artist hits the truth of the song in such spectacular fashion that it makes you feel with ever greater intensity what it means to be human. Last night, vocalist Sheila Jordan's performance of the Jimmy Webb standard, “The Moon... Read more... |
Herbie Hancock Plugged In, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 13 November 2012
At the beginning of last night's show, Herbie Hancock looked like he was going to perform with the dignity and serenity befitting a 72-year-old with some 50 years playing experience. The improvisation that launched from a base of Wayne Shorter's “... Read more... |
Black Top #5, Café OtoTuesday, 13 November 2012
For the way it combined mercurial, on-the-fly interplay, seismic textural shifts and listening of the highest order, this gig was remarkable. In the space of two continuous sets there wasn't a longueur to be found, such was the incredible union of... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Bill Withers, Massive Attack, Django Reinhardt, Diablos Del RitmoSunday, 11 November 2012
Bill Withers: The Complete Sussex and Columbia AlbumsKieron TylerThis box set is several cuts above the usual major-label, no-frills cheapo collection gathering together a selection of an artist’s albums. Produced with evident care, it’s a superb... Read more... |
CD: The Hot 8 Brass Band - The Life & Times Of...Tuesday, 06 November 2012
It's sad, isn't it, that we still live in a world where the more something sounds like a great party, the less “serious” it is considered? Think about how much deep meaning is attached by how many to, say, the portentous mitherings of Thom Yorke,... Read more... |
Interview: TigranTuesday, 06 November 2012
Tigran Hamasyan is a brilliant jazz pianist who is clearly on the rise – for one thing, like many a star before him, he has dropped his surname, and is now, according to his latest record The Fable, simply Tigran. When I meet him in London, he tells... Read more... |
Interview: 10 Questions for Herbie HancockMonday, 05 November 2012
Herbie Hancock has never stood still. He hit the ground running, joining Miles Davis's second great quintet on piano in 1963 at the age of just 23, and from that moment on demonstrated a Stakhanovite work ethic and appetite for the new which saw him... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ennio Morricone, Rites of Spring, Hotlegs, Cults Percussion EnsembleSunday, 28 October 2012
Ennio Morricone: In ColourKieron TylerThe recent release of Berberian Sound Studio raised the level of interest in Italian film soundtracks. From the moment Ennio Morricone’s compositions for the spaghetti westerns of the Sixties attracted attention... Read more... |
Interview: 10 Questions for Diana KrallMonday, 22 October 2012
Jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall has won two Grammys and sold more than 15 million albums worldwide. Born in 1964 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, she attended Berklee College of Music in the early 1980s and had her major breakthrough with... Read more... |
