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Simin Tander: Unfading
by Henning Bolte
The newly formed quartet of German-Afghani vocalist Simin Tander with Swiss-Swedish electric bass guitarist Björn Meyer, Tunisian violinist Jasser Haj Youssef and Swiss drummer Samuel Rohrer from Berlin is a remarkable force field of igniting, merging and amplifying energies, temperaments and temperatures. Tander herself has provided 12 compositions here and three times her own lyrics as a mature mark of class. Tander's voice fluctuates between confidence and yearning, joy and grief, and oriental and occidental spheres. Her singing ...
read moreSimin Tander: Unfading
by Ian Patterson
Simin Tander's evolution has been fascinating to behold since her impressive debut Wagma (Neuklang Records, 2011), which featured pianist Jeroen van Vliet, bassist Cord Heineking and Etienne Nillesen on drums. The German/Afghan singer's whispered gravitas and keening lyricism on jazz-filtered chanson, Latin American balladry and her poetic originals was captivating enough, but her non-syllabic vocal improvisations signalled an original artist, unbound by convention. That same line-up delivered the even stronger Where Water Travels Home (Jazzhaus Records, 2014), with Tander expanding ...
read moreMoon Trio: Moon Trio: Earth-Time
by Marithe Van der Aa
Graceful melodies and grooves merge together effortlessly on the debut album of this recently formed trio led by Dutch pianist Jeroen Van Vliet. With the help of occasional electronic effects, Van Vliet and his trio create soundscapes of a dreamlike quality that trigger and inspire the imagination.While it is far from uncommon for contemporary jazz musicians to resort to technical showmanship, these three musicians wisely refrain--and it becomes them. On Earth-Time you will find no complex melodies , ...
read moreQuincy Jones And His Orchestra: Live In Ludwigshafen 1961
by Dan Bilawsky
Artistic dreams and financial realities are rarely in alignment. That's a sad fact that the great Quincy Jones learned the hard way at the dawn of the '60s. Jones was in Europe at the time, directing a dream orchestra that he put together for the musical Free And Easy. When that show closed in February of 1960, he decided to keep things going. The big band tours that followed--in 1960 and 1961--were, by all accounts, successful in an artistic sense; ...
read moreSimin Tander: Where Water Travels Home
by Ian Patterson
A typical jazz format perhaps, but the delivery on Simon Tander's second CD is anything but typical. As on her memorable debut Wagma (Neuklang Records, 2011), Tander sings in various languages--English, French--and in her improvised language. Here, however, Tander explores her roots by singing in pashto--her Afghan father's language--with mesmerizing results. On Wagma, Tander already sounded conceptually and musically fairly rounded, but Where Water Travels Home comes across as a more mature and personal work, one that reaffirms Tander's credentials ...
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