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Montreal Jazz Festival Day 5, Part Two: July 2, 2007
by John Kelman
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5-1 | Day 5-2 Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 Arriving in Montreal for the second week of the 2007 Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, it took only a few minutes to be swept back up into the vibe that makes this North America's best jazz festival and one of the top music ...
Continue ReadingBruford: Rock Goes to College
by John Kelman
The DVD release of Rock Goes to College (Winterfold, 2006), by drummer Bill Bruford's late-1970s band Bruford, was greeted with considerable excitement. Featuring Hatfield and the North/National Health keyboardist Dave Stewart and über-bassist Jeff Berlin, the group only played a couple of live dates with original guitarist Allan Holdsworth, who left shortly afterwards and was replaced by “The Unknown John Clarke. One of those performances was recorded by the BBC for television broadcast and, while it's a scant 42-minutes long, ...
Continue ReadingAlan Holdsworth and Alan Pasqua featuring Chad Wackerman and Jimmy Haslip
by John Kelman
Allan Holdsworth and Alan Pasqua Allan Holdsworth and Alan Pasqua featuring Chad Wackerman and Jimmy Haslip Altitude Digital 2007 2007 is the year that guitarist Allan Holdsworth makes a return to the public eye. With planned reissues of his long out-of-print discography and more extensive touring than he's done in years, this groundbreaking guitarist--long considered an icon by fusion fans and a guitarist's guitarist by other equally legendary six-stringers, including Pat Metheny and John ...
Continue ReadingAllan Holdsworth/Alan Pasqua: Tribute to the Music of Tony Williams
by Jack Gold-Molina
Allan Holdsworth/Alan Pasqua The Triple Door Seattle, Washington September 26, 2006The music started with an easy, laid back swing, with guitarist Allan Holdsworth and organist/electric pianist Alan Pasqua providing texture. Drummer Chad Wackerman accented the upbeats as the groove intensified, then the group brought the music down into a bass solo by Jimmy Haslip. The groove continued and Holdsworth led into a solo that increased in complexity while Wackerman played off of him, ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: Floating World Live
by John Kelman
Fans of Soft Machine, which began with mid-1960s psychedelia but evolved into Britain's most influential jazz/rock group, generally consider the “classic lineup to be keyboardist Mike Ratledge, bassist Hugh Hopper, drummer Robert Wyatt and the recently deceased saxophonist Elton Dean. Many also suggest that ex-Nucleus woodwind multi-instrumentalist/keyboardist Karl Jenkins' recruitment signalled the beginning of the end, as the Softs moved from greater freedom towards riff-heavy fusion. But it's a more complicated story than that. The fact is that many post-Dean ...
Continue ReadingAllan Holdsworth: Against the Clock: The Best of Allan Holdsworth
by John Kelman
It's rare enough to find artists who have developed a voice so unique that they can be recognized within the space of a few notes. Rarer still are those who have evolved such a distinctive vernacular that their music can be identified without them personally playing a single note. Scarcer still are those who can work within someone else's framework, altering the complexion to fit their own musical universe--indelibly stamping whatever musical situation they find themselves in, not just through ...
Continue ReadingAllan Holdsworth Group: Then!
by John Kelman
Recorded twelve years before his latest release, the similarly-live All Night Wrong , and at the same location in Tokyo, guitarist Allan Holdsworth demonstrates that while he's come a long way in the ensuing years, there's absolutely no reason not to look back at archival material such as this and stand in awe of a stylist who has singularly redefined the potential of his instrument. Then! captures Holdsworth and his band, keyboardist Steve Hunt, bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Gary ...
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