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S.O.S./: Looking for the Next One
by Glenn Astarita
Complete with an in-depth 16-page booklet--including photos and a storyboard of the core trio's existence, S.O.S features three protagonists of the '70s British progressive- jazz movement and beyond. The band formed in 1973 and lasted through 1976 with one self- titled album for the Ogun record label in 1975. Looking for the Next One, is a 2-CD set comprising of studio and live material that offers previously unreleased material that is grounded on the trio's innovative unification of electronics to ...
Continue ReadingJohn Surman: Manchester, England. June 18, 2012
by David McLean
John SurmanRNCMManchester Jazz FestivalManchester, EnglandJune 18, 2012As the lights slowly dimmed, a small and rather unremarkable man made his way onto the stage, in front of a table strewn with saxophones and wind instruments. However, as the audience soon discovered, when this man begins to play something utterly remarkable and unique is channeled. The room was charged with a quiet but detectable energy as John Surman began one of his first solo appearances ...
Continue ReadingJohn Surman: Saltash Bells
by AAJ Italy Staff
Proprio quarant'anni fa John Surman pubblicava per la Help (sottoetichetta della Island Records dedicata ai progetti musicali più sperimentali) il suo primo disco registrato completamente in solitudine, Westering Home. Cinque album analoghi gli avrebbero fatto seguito, tra il 1979 e il 1994, per la ECM, da Upon Reflection che marcò il suo esordio da titolare per la label tedesca, fino a A Biography of Rev. Absalom Dawe, l'ultimo in cui si era cimentato con questa formula. Le possibilità offerte dai ...
Continue ReadingJohn Surman: Saltash Bells
by John Kelman
There's no denying the “the sound of surprise" of group recordings; working solo, however, provides its own possibilities, despite meaning different things to different people. Pianist Keith Jarrett views it as a means for pulling form from the ether: one man, one piano, in real time. Multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus, on the other hand, considers it a blank slate where it's one man but a multitude of instruments layered one upon the other, through multi-tracking, over the course of days, months...even ...
Continue ReadingJohn Surman: The Rainbow Band Sessions
by John Kelman
It's been nearly two decades since British saxophonist/clarinetist John Surman last did a large ensemble disc, with the exception of Free and Equal (ECM, 2003), which teamed the duo of Surman and drummer/pianist Jack DeJohnette with the London Brass ensemble. But the last time Surman did a swinging session beyond a quartet was The Brass Project (ECM, 1993), and that was in collaboration with Canadian expat John Warren, another longtime Surman partner dating as far back as How Many Clouds ...
Continue ReadingJohn Surman: Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69
by AAJ Italy Staff
La mai abbastanza lodata Cuneiform recupera dagli archivi un altro inedito storico di lusso proveniente dal periodo d'oro del jazz inglese, come aveva già fatto nel 2005 con Way Back Then di John Surman e Workpoints di Graham Collier, e l'anno scorso con NDR Jazz Workshop: Hamburg 1973 dei Soft Machine. Anche in questo caso a riemergere è una session guidata da John Surman e registrata negli studi dell'emittente tedesca NDR nell'ambito dei Jazz Workshop che in numerose occasioni mettevano ...
Continue ReadingJohn Surman: Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69
by Nic Jones
In the necessarily modestly expansive booklet note which accompanies this CD and DVD set, Brian Morton sets out the development of jazz in Britain, from its point of origin in the early decades of the twentieth century. He also rightly identifies the musical generation that came of age in the 1960s as having no sense of cultural inferiority, a point which is made most potently on Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop--April '69 in music that reveals a character every bit as ...
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