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Jazz Articles about Martin France
Gareth Williams: Short Stories
by Peter Jones
If you have never heard of Gareth Williams, he is a quiet piano master who enjoys a bigger reputation with fellow musicians than with the public. A founder member and MD of the Nineties jazz-hiphop band Us3, and a former accompanist for the singer Claire Martin, he has worked at the highest level for 30 years, mainly in London. But London is a city blessed with many international quality jazz pianists, and Williams has faced formidable competition during his career. ...
read moreChris Laurence: Ken Wheeler - Some Gnu Ones
by Chris May
The Jazz in Britain label has made its reputation with a niche catalogue of previously unavailable archive albums, mostly recorded live back in the day by jazz greats such as the saxophonists Tubby Hayes and Joe Harriott. With the lovely Ken Wheeler: Some Gnu Ones, the label ventures more or less into the present day with three pieces written by the late trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and recorded in 2020 and 2021 by the bassist Chris Laurence, for whom they were ...
read moreSpin Marvel 2: The Reluctantly Politicised Mr. James
by AAJ Italy Staff
Spin Marvel è una formazione nata nel 2005 da un gruppo di musicisti europei dalle ampie vedute e senza preconcetti stilistici. Guidato dal batterista inglese Martin France (già membro di quell'incredibile fucina di talenti che è stata la big band Loose Tubes) Spin Marvel 2 vede, rispetto al celebrato album d'esordio, l'apporto decisivo del trombettista Nils Petter Molvaer. Insieme all'altro norvegese del gruppo, il percussionista Terje Evensen, indirizza la musica verso una maggior astrazione, verso una fluidità quasi metafisica nella ...
read moreSpin Marvel: Spin Marvel 2: The Reluctantly Politicised Mr James
by Chris May
It's elephant in the room time. Though no-one likes to mention it, experience shows that it's wise to approach any band led by a drummer with a degree of caution. Drummers are primarily involved with rhythm--a crucial component in music, but only one of several. Unless, like Art Blakey or Chico Hamilton, a drummer/bandleader has an empathetic composer/arranger to hand, the broader musical picture, including melody and harmonic structure, will inevitably suffer. Well, almost inevitably. But for every Paul Motian ...
read moreMartin France / Spin Marvel: Spin Marvel
by John Kelman
Appearances can be deceptive. Martin France has built a career over the past two decades in largely acoustic environs. Along with being a member of the cooperative ECM group First House from the late 1980s, the British drummer has been involved in over fifty projects, including saxophonist Iain Ballamy's More Jazz (Basho, 2007) and pianist Gwilym Simcock's Perception (Basho, 2007) and John Taylor's Angel of the Presence (Cam Jazz, 2006). While he's the UK's most ubiquitous jazz drummer, none of ...
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