Jazz Articles about Ray Russell

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Ray Russell: June 11, 1971 - Live at the ICA

by AAJ Italy Staff
October 2, 2006

L’edizione in vinile di questo album è praticamente introvabile da tantissimi anni e solo il passaparola fra musicisti ha fatto in modo di mantenerne viva la memoria, al punto da convincere Alan Licht e Jim O’Rourke che erano maturi i tempi per una riedizione ampliata su CD che la piccolissima etichetta americana Moikai ha pubblicato nel 2000. Non sappiamo se questa nuova edizione sia facilmente recuperabile, anche se il sito della etichetta collegata Drag City lo dà disponibile. Vale certamente ...

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Ray Russell: Goodbye Svengali

by Ty Cumbie
May 20, 2006

Heavy chops and slick production values are the dominant traits of this recording by British guitar wizard Ray Russell. While offering due tribute to the guitar master's powers, I would have liked to have heard more ideas and fewer effects. Russell was called up from the minors near the time fusion was starting to catch fire, and his sound remains redolent of that period. His playing, on single-note runs and complex, edgy chord voicings, is formidable indeed ...

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Ray Russell: Goodbye Svengali

by David Miller
March 20, 2006

Ray Russell is an eclectic. From rock to free jazz, fusion and pop, the guitarist has done it all. His newest effort, Goodbye Svengali, a tribute to a like-minded spirit (Gil Evans), highlights Russell's eclecticism. Nearly all of the aforementioned ground is covered, and Russell is in rare form throughout. Structuring this recording as a tribute album, Russell does not use a single band, instead working with a revolving door of musicians who fit the bill for each tune. While ...

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Ray Russell: Goodbye Svengali

by John Kelman
February 27, 2006

If you haven't been closely following the British jazz scene, you likely won't have heard of guitarist Ray Russell. In some ways he's simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All too briefly replacing Chris Spedding in trumpeter Ian Carr's Nucleus, his more forward-thinking playing with that seminal jazz/rock outfit has only come to light recently on Live in Bremen (Cuneiform, 2003).

While Russell ultimately evolved into a chameleon-like session player, working with everyone from Tina Turner ...

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Ray Russell: Why Not Now

by John Kelman
January 5, 2005

Avoiding the worst trappings of New Age music yet leaning to its atmospheric ambience, guitarist Ray Russell's 1987 album Childscape , now released in remastered and expanded form as Why Not Now , is as interesting for what it's not as for what it is.

It's too intrusive and insistent to be ambient; too ethereal to be considered fusion by its more traditional definition; and too structured to be jazz, even though solos abound albeit in a context that has ...