Jazz Articles about John Surman

About John Surman

Album Review

Originally released on Chris Blackwell's Island Records, John Surman's first solo album was a complete departure from his previous works. It presaged the canon of pastoral solo recordings he was to produce later for ECM in contrast to his more robust and conventionally orchestrated recordings. His second and final album for Island, Morning Glory, a year later, was a reversion to the dynamic manifestations to which Surman had been hitherto associated. In subsequent ECM and other recordings Surman ...

Extended Analysis

Miroslav Vitous Group

by John Kelman
February 25, 2014

With the ongoing demand for historic titles to see first-time CD issue, ECM has raised the ante even further with Re:solutions: seven classic recordings, released on CD (four available for the first time and one previously only available for a limited time in Japan), vinyl and high resolution digital formats. They're all important, but 1981's Miroslav Vitous Group stands out as one of the most significant, completing, as it does—and more than three decades after the fact—the Czech bassist's early ...

Album Review

S.O.S./: Looking for the Next One

Read "Looking for the Next One" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 19, 2013

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 ...

Live Review

John Surman: Manchester, England. June 18, 2012

by David McLean
October 14, 2012

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 ...

Album Review

John Surman: Saltash Bells

Read "Saltash Bells" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 24, 2012

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 ...

Album Review

John Surman: Saltash Bells

Read "Saltash Bells" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
June 19, 2012

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 ...

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Album Review

John Surman: The Rainbow Band Sessions

Read "The Rainbow Band Sessions" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
December 27, 2011

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 ...