Jazz Articles
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Audrey Powne: From the Fire
by Scott Lichtman
The work of Australian-born singer, trumpeter, keyboardist and composer/lyricist Audrey Powne transcends traditional jazz styles. From the Fire (BBE Music, 2024) is a gem that melds jazz, new soul and soundtrack impressionism with penetrating lyrics to fashion a sonic journey. One first notices her impressive technique across instruments. Powne's trumpet playing swings freely. Drawing from horn masters, especially Roy Hargrove, Powne interjects a strong sense of the melodic and the blues into each improvisation, which gives them universal ...
Continue ReadingLarry Nozero: Time
by Chris May
Here is an odd one. Originally released on the short-lived Detroit label Strata in 1975, Larry Nozero's Time defies categorization. First-generation spiritual jazz, Henry Mancini, Motown, strings (real and synthed), the Swingle Singers, Braziliana and Shaft era Isaac Hayes jostle around the mic, along with Sibylline hints of Kamasi Washington. Is it for real? Is it a put on? Either way, it is an often-compelling mix, fronted by an expressive and lyrically minded saxophonist and flautist. It ...
Continue ReadingAlina Bzhezhinska & Tony Kofi: Altera Vita
by Chris May
Harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and saxophonist Tony Kofi's musical partnership began in 2015 and two years later made the main stage of the London Jazz Festival, opening the bill of A Concert For Alice And John at the Barbican concert hall. Also appearing, saxophonist Denys Baptiste's quartet and, top of the bill, Pharoah Sanders' quartet. It was a magical night. It would be an exaggeration to say that the relatively unknown Bzhezhinska stole the show (Sanders did that with the standard ...
Continue ReadingAlina Bzhezhinska & HipHarpCollective: Reflections
by Chris May
In an inspired piece of programming, London's Barbican Centre presented the then virtually unknown harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and her quartet as one of the support bands on its November 18, 2017 one-nighter A Concert for Alice and John, a show headlined by Pharoah Sanders. It would be an exaggeration to say Bzhezhinska stole the show (see “Pharoah Sanders" above), but she was sensational, offering up fresh readings of Alice Coltrane tunes and a few originals, accompanied by Tony Kofi on ...
Continue ReadingSean Khan: Supreme Love – A Journey Through Coltrane
by Chris May
One thing you can count on with alto and soprano saxophonist Sean Khan is that he will never approach a project from a predictable angle. In this he resembles tenor saxophonist Steve Williamson. Both are among the most idiosyncratic of British jazz musicians as well as being uncompromising exponents of jazz as rebel music. Both first made their mark as bandleaders twenty or so years ago experimenting with edgy collisions of hardcore acoustic jazz and dance music. Each player's cross-genre ...
Continue ReadingBilly Bang: Lucky Man
by Karl Ackermann
When he performed in Germany, they called him the “black devil violinist," his frenetic playing wrapped in a gyrating, trance-like state. For Billy Bang, who believed he had schizophrenia, the epithet bore a resemblance to his inner turmoil. He was born William Walker in Mobile, Alabama but grew up in the South Bronx. He studied violin and classical music, and his talent earned him a hardship scholarship to the Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Bang felt out of place in ...
Continue ReadingSean Khan: Distant Voice
by Chris May
Sean Khan is among the most interesting of British jazz musicians, a prime exponent of jazz as rebel music with a unique voice. And yet, twenty years after he debuted with his band SK Radicals, Khan remains one of the scene's least celebrated players. Khan accurately describes himself as a “career outsider." Like another outsider, fellow saxophonist Steve Williamson, his post-modern, cross-genre aesthetic resists categorisation and means that he remains a niche figure. Though you would never know it from ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Jazz In Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden
by Karl Ackermann
With previously unreleased material from Dexter Gordon, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and now, Charles Mingus, it may feel in 2018 like we are living fifty years in the past. Jazz In Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden captures a short-lived quintet that--given time--could have been Mingus' best. Drummer Roy Brooks and trumpeter Joe Gardner had been touring Europe with the bassist and returned to play a radio broadcast on WDET in Detroit in 1973. Their host was a ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Jazz In Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden
by Chris May
Summer 2018 saw the general release of privately held recordings by two giants of twentieth century jazz. First up was John Coltrane's Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!). It was followed by Thelonious Monk's Mønk (Gearbox). In autumn 2018, recordings by another totemic figure, Charles Mingus, become the year's third newly revealed archaeological discovery. The release of the Coltrane album was hyped as an event akin to the excavation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Hugh Masekela Presents the Chisa Years 1965-76
by AAJ Staff
Following his departure from Johannesburg in 1961--around the same time that many other South African musicians put apartheid behind them--Hugh Masekela ensconced himself in New York and settled in to make a heap of recordings over the ensuing decades. Masekela, who first drew attention for his straight-ahead jazz playing, would eventually build an enormous American and international fan base through crossover music, as well as live performances like his appearance at the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival along with Jimi ...
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