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Charles Lloyd: Defiant Warrior Still On Song
by Chris May
As fool's errands go, few compare with selecting a Top Ten Albums collection from Charles Lloyd's extensive top-drawer output. But here goes. Lloyd newbies could consider the list a launch pad, and seasoned fans can compare the choices with their own... Anyone going to jazz festivals in summer 1966, and lucky enough to ...
Bobby Wellins Quartet: What Was Happening
by Chris May
In 1965 tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins made an indelible mark on jazz history with his contribution to pianist Stan Tracey's Jazz Suite Inspired By Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (Columbia). The exquisite Starless And Bible Black" is the most frequently cited track (check the YouTube below) and is indicative of the album's overall beauty. For a ...
Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star
by Chris May
Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star Chris Searle 394 Pages ISBN: 978-1-9163206-7-3 Jazz In Britain 2024 Although Marxist-Leninist theory itself has proved to be, at best, a blind alley--and, at worst, in practice the enemy of the freedoms it claims to champion--writers from the Left ...
Fire!: Testament
by Chris May
Recorded and then played back at reduced speed, even a seemingly simple two-note bird call reveals elaborate complexity and detail. It is worth hanging on to that thought when approaching the deceptively straightforward Testament. On a cursory listening, most of the album--an amalgam of Mats Gustafsson's slow-and-deliberate long-held low-end baritone notes and Johan Berthling and Andreas ...
Lucien Johnson: Ancient Relics
by Chris May
The astral jazz of Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane is among the most mimicked jazz to be heard in 2024. Mimicked as in superficial, cynical, clichéd, travesty. So it is a rare pleasure to come across an album as singular and substantial as New Zealand-based tenor saxophonist Lucien Johnson's Ancient Relics. The album is ...
What was the most memorable jazz concert you attended?
by Chris May
If you are an AAJer, you will almost certainly have some live performances filed under magic moments. My first came in 1966 when I saw Charles Lloyd at the Juan-Les-Pins Jazz Festival in Antibes, France. At the time I knew Lloyd only through his recorded work with Chico Hamilton's group and nothing had prepared me for ...
Chris Potter: Eagle's Point
by Chris May
The question that comes to mind after listening to Eagle's Point is this: why have the four musicians, who have known each other since the 1990s, never recorded together before? For the combination of Chris Potter, Brad Mehldau, John Patitucci and Brian Blade is a real meeting of minds; the stars are in perfect alignment.
Ruth Goller: Skyllumina
by Chris May
The Italian-born, British-based bassist and composer Ruth Goller has been rattling jazz's cage since 2007, the year she joined Acoustic Ladyland. The band was in the vanguard of what became known as jazz punk," although its sound was closer to metal than classic punk, and the lineup included tenor saxophonist Pete Wareham and drummer Sebastian Rochford. ...
Ruth Goller: Basso Profundo
by Chris May
Altogether easier to talk to than is suggested by the stage makeup in the photo above, Ruth Goller reveals herself as totally down-home when, some ten minutes into this interview, the conversation turns to International Anthem, the Chicago-based label that has released her second solo album, Skyllumina. I feel so lucky to have them," says Goller. ...
Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Open Me: A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit
by Chris May
The first few bars of Open Me: A Higher Consciousness Of Sound And Spirit promise the listener is in for a treat. Corey Wilkes' muted trumpet plays Miles Davis' All Blues" counterpointed by Alex Harding's rugged baritone saxophone and Kahil El'Zabar's ankle bells and kalimba. Here is Ethnic Heritage Ensemble in all its enchanting bare-bones singularity, ...