Articles

Viljandi Folk Music Festival 2021

by Martin Longley
September 25, 2021

Viljandi Folk Music Festival Viljandi, Estonia July 22-25, 2021 Viljandi must be a quiet place in usual times, situated down in the south of Estonia, and emanating a small town vibration. Usually its annual four-day folk festival magnetises a massive gathering, and invites multiple international acts, fully inhabiting an impressive location in the Viljandi Castle Hills. This 28th edition still seemed somewhat busy, when compared to recent times, even with its reduced attendance limit ...

Alisa Amador: Narratives

by Kyle Simpler
September 25, 2021

Artists frequently discover something about themselves during the process of creation, and Boston-based musician Alisa Amador is no exception. In her case, the songwriting process allows her to investigate her thoughts and feelings until she discovers what the song will be about. With Narratives, she opens up and allows listeners to come into her inner world and experience her joy, vulnerability and strength. Amador was born into a musical family, and pursuing music was never really a choice. ...

Billy Cobham Quartet and the Gustav Brom Radio Big Band at Symphony of Art in Bratislava

by Peter Hladký
September 25, 2021

Legendary fusion drummer Billy Cobham and his quartet performed at the multi-genre festival the Symphony of Art in Bratislava together with the Gustav Brom Radio Big Band on September 11, 2021. Cobham's quartet—comprised of Steve Hamilton, Ulf Wakenius, and Fifi Chayeb (bass)—along with the Gustav Brom Radio Big Band dazzled with compositions including “Panama," “A Days Grace," “Sweet Bocas," and “Cancun Market."—all from Broad Horizon, a 2016 recording with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. The concert concluded with the iconic ...

Gerry Eastman Trio: Trust Me

by Jack Bowers
September 25, 2021

Trust Me embodies more than an hour of tasteful contemporary jazz by a decisively hip guitar/organ/drums trio led by New York-bred Gerry Eastman on guitar with Greg Lewis at the Hammond B3 and Taru Alexander manning the drum set. The program consists of eight of Eastman's original compositions, each of which is polished and credible but a step or two short of memorable. The same is true of solos, which are consistently sharp and steady while at the same time ...

Tito Mangialajo 'Rantzer Dal basso in alto' at the San Domenico Theatre

by Danilo Codazzi
September 25, 2021

Joe Harriott: Free Form & Abstract Revisited

by Mark Corroto
September 25, 2021

Call it partisanship or maybe musical chauvinism, but North American audiences have traditionally had little appreciation for jazz musicians from the United Kingdom or, for that matter, Europe. Rewind back to 1961, and explain why Americans were not hip to the Joe Harriott Quintet? His two releases, Free Form, released in 1961, and Abstract, in 1963, if released by an American artist would have been held in the same regard as the music of Sonny Rollins or Ornette Coleman. That ...

John Coltrane: A Love Supreme - Live In Seattle

by Chris May
September 24, 2021

A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle comes from a gig at The Penthouse in October 1965. The recording, by a septet, is a radical reading of : John Coltrane's suite which has only previously been heard by friends and students of saxophonist and educator Joe Brazil, who taped it and who, few days earlier, had played flute on Coltrane's Om (Impulse, 1968). Brazil passed in 2008 and by a route not yet made public, the tape has been acquired and ...