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Elliot Galvin
Brilliant Corners 2025: Days 1-4
by Ian Patterson
Brilliant Corners 2025 Black Box/Various Venues Belfast, N. IrelandFebruary 28-March 8, 2025 Thirteen is young for most things, smartphones, cars and your average household pet aside. Thirteen is young for jazz festivals too, but as jazz festivals go, Brilliant Corners qualifies as a precocious youth. Its programming, whilst musically inclusive and respectful of tradition, has always been progressive, showcasing the latest trailblazers, and celebrating the fiercest improvisors and the fearless experimenters. Brilliant Corner's 13th edition ...
Continue ReadingMarius Neset: Cabaret
by Neil Duggan
Norwegian saxophonist and composer Marius Neset first captured the imagination with his 2011 album Golden Xplosion (Edition, 2011). Since then, his creative impetus has seen him release numerous albums, write pieces for large ensembles including the London Sinfonietta and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, collaborate with classical pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and fulfill a busy touring schedule, winning multiple awards along the way. In 2022, he formed a quintet and released Happy (Act Music). The quintet featured one of the ...
Continue ReadingMoss Freed / Union Division: Micromotives
by John Sharpe
A question any composer for improvisers must face is whether they can create something more worthwhile than what they might come up with if left to themselves. It can be a tough call. For some, such as Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra or Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, the ultimate conclusion was no, while for others such as Anthony Braxton and Barry Guy the answer has been far less clear cut. British guitarist Moss Freed falls somewhere between the two ...
Continue ReadingMark Lockheart: Dreamers
by Chris May
As a founder member of Loose Tubes and Polar Bear, saxophonist Mark Lockheart was at the forefront of two waves of reinvigoration of British jazz, one in the 1980s, the other in the 2000s. By age and experience, in 2022 he qualifies as close to an elder statesman of the music. But somehow one still thinks of Lockheart as a Young Turk. Mostly this is because he continues to search for new contexts in which to make his music.
Continue ReadingDinosaur: To The Earth
by Ian Patterson
One of the flag bearers of contemporary British jazz, Dinosaur's rise to more international renown accelerated with its signing to Edition Records, and the subsequent release of Together, As One (2016) and Wondertrail. (2018). Formerly known as the Laura Jurd Quartet, the band had already been going since 2010, releasing one album, Landing Ground (Chaos Collective, 2012) to general critical approval. Each album displays significant personality--the embrace of strings, or analogue keyboards--and Jurd's refusal to tread the same stylistic water. ...
Continue ReadingDinosaur: To The Earth
by Chris May
Britain's Edition label has remained independent of London's post-2015 alternative jazz scene, whose aesthetic is formed in part by the emphases of identity politics and which now, in 2020, has gone overground with the signing of three bands led by movement auteur Shabaka Hutchings to Impulse! in the US. Edition, which was founded in 2008 by pianist Dave Stapleton and photographer Tim Dickeson, has preferred to pursue its own path. It has done so with magnificent style. (The label made ...
Continue ReadingElliot Galvin: Live In Paris At Fondation Louis Vuitton
by Chris May
An inventive and adventurous keyboard player and composer, Elliot Galvin is active in Britain's jazz and contemporary-classical worlds. He is making a strong impression on the former. Galvin is a member of the Mercury Music Prize-nominated band Dinosaur, whose Wonder Trail (Edition) was among the highlights of 2018. His duo album Ex Nihilo (ByrdOut), made with London alternative jazz scene luminary, tenor saxophonist Binker Golding, was a highlight of 2019. On those albums, Galvin plays synths and ...
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