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Tom Callwood
Lucien Johnson: Ancient Relics
by Chris May
The astral jazz of Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane is among the most mimicked jazz to be heard in 2024. Mimicked as in superficial, cynical, clichéd, travesty. So it is a rare pleasure to come across an album as singular and substantial as New Zealand-based tenor saxophonist Lucien Johnson's Ancient Relics. The album is the follow-up to Wax///Wane (Deluge, 2020), another sextet affair with a similar lineup and the same bassist and drummer. It was a promising disc ...
read moreLucien Johnson: Wax///Wane
by Geno Thackara
While Lucien Johnson is a dab hand at playing and composing, he is even more skilled at weaving a piece of music. Flow and dynamics are the specialties he displays most here, sketching out a series of groove patterns, and smoothly guiding an eclectic quintet as they ride through the ebbs and swells. Wax///Wane is not just a poetic title, it is a mantra to which he commits in every way during this beguilingly evocative half-hour-plus set. Based ...
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