Jazz Articles about Chris Lawrence

About Chris Lawrence

Album Review

Sidney Jacobs: If I Were Your Woman

Read "If I Were Your Woman" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
September 19, 2022

Take a deep breath. Whether or not Sidney Jacobs came up with the somewhat offbeat title of this album (originally the property of Gladys Knight and the Pips) is irrelevant. What would matter is that there is a clear line of sonic and stylistic descent from Al Jarreau to Jacobs. Fans of Jarreau's style are going to enjoy Jacobs. He operates in a lower register and, all respect to Jarreau, with the same authority and, if anything, more power. Years ...

Album Review

Josh Nelson: Live At Bluewhale, Volume 1

Read "Live At Bluewhale, Volume 1" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 12, 2021

Pianist, composer and--maybe most importantly--conceptualist, Josh Nelson must be a big reader. For his album Exploring Mars (Origin Records, 2015) he drew from, in part, Ray Bradbury's fantastical science fiction story collage Martian Chronicles. And he took a deep look into science and science fiction (H.G. Wells, Jules Verne) for his Discoveries (Steel Bird Music, 2011). Live At Bluewhale features recordings from Nelson's Discovery Project originally performed at the Bluewhale jazz club in Little Tokyo in downtown Los ...

Album Review

Alan Wakeman: The Octet Broadcasts 1969 and 1979

Read "The Octet Broadcasts 1969 and 1979" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
August 23, 2020

Despite a perception fostered by the more breathless media coverage given to the young lions who have emerged on the London scene since the mid 2010s, an identifiably British strand of jazz did not kick off when Shabaka Hutchings' Sons Of Kemet released its debut album in 2013. The groundwork was laid back in the 1950s by musicians such as saxophonist Joe Harriott and pianist Stan Tracey. In the 1970s, two bandleaders who carried the torch for ...