Jazz Articles
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Perfect Stranger: Unfinished Business
by Neil Duggan
There cannot be too many artists who release music 50 years after composing it. In 1974, Chris Sansom wrote six tracks, the highlight being a four-movement piece, echoing the structure of a classical symphony but taking influences from the progressive rock of the time to create something outside conventional jazz. He formed a band to play it, called it Perfect Stranger and set about recording. The complexity of the music required many rehearsals; space to do this was in short ...
Continue ReadingPatchwork Jazz Orchestra: The Adventures of Mr Pottercakes
by Roger Farbey
Maybe the quickest way to sum-up Patchwork Jazz Orchestra's The Adventures Of Mr Pottercakes would be to appropriate the title of The Who's 1971 compilation album, Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy. For that is exactly what it is and quite a bit more besides. From the very start of the opening title track, there's a reminder of that other big band of young British jazz musicians, Loose Tubes. But since so many of today's leading British jazz musicians emerged from ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Baker: Eden
by Roger Farbey
Lorraine Baker graduated with First Class Honours from South East London's Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2009. Since then, she's worked with many of the UK's leading jazz musicians and in addition to such sessions she's also freelance drum tutor. Fellow drummer Jeff Williams is quoted describing Baker as having a “unique style" and “does not sound like anyone else." Judging by this recording, those words are emphatically true. She's chosen on her debut album to pay ...
Continue ReadingTom Millar Quartet: Unnatural Events
by Roger Farbey
Born in Sydney, pianist, composer and bandleader Tom Millar grew up in London where he still resides. After reading Music at King's College, Cambridge, he studied Jazz Piano and Composition for a Masters at the Royal Academy of Music and later with Django Bates in Bern, Switzerland. The brisk “Azur Days" opens Unnatural Events with guitarist Alex Munk soloing first with his trademark crystal clear tone, swiftly followed by Millar's spritely piano work. “The Seafarer," the album's longest ...
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