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Jazz Articles about James Allsopp

4
Album Review

Justin Thurgur: Many Faces

Read "Many Faces" reviewed by Chris May


London-based trombonist Justin Thurgur is at home in several traditions. He plays contemporary English folk music with the band Bellowhead and Afrobeat with the Afrobeat Orchestra, the ensemble led by keyboard player Dele Sosimi, a childhood protégé of Fela Kuti, who has done more than any other musician to keep the Afrobeat flame alight in Britain. Thurgur is also a member of keyboard player Kishon Khan's Lokkhi Terra, who mix Bangladeshi folk music and Cuban rumba and who ...

5
Album Review

The Golden Age Of Steam: Tomato Brain

Read "Tomato Brain" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


It's been a while. The Golden Age Of Steam released debut album Raspberry Tongue (Babel Records) in 2009, the follow-up, Welcome To Bat Country (Basho Records), in 2012. Then they laid low until 2020 and the appearance of album number three, Tomato Brain. It's been worth the wait. The album's multi-layered, six-part, “Loftopus" is an atmospheric and often disturbing half-hour. The title track is a reminder of the comic, but dark, inventiveness of Scots poet, songwriter, humorist and all-round genius ...

49
Album Review

World Sanguine Report: Skeleton Blush

Read "Skeleton Blush" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Don't be fooled by the appearance of “sanguine" in the band name. World Sanguine Report is not a band given to gentle optimism, or relaxed acceptance of whatever situation it's in. Look instead to the meaning of the word in heraldic terms—blood red. Skeleton Blush is filled with hard-edged, powerful and uncompromising songs, an album that fits neatly into 2020's singular experience: which makes bandleader and composer Andrew Plummer appear remarkably prescient, as the album was recorded in 2012.

6
Album Review

Pigfoot: Pigfoot Shuffle

Read "Pigfoot Shuffle" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Once a taste for mischief is acquired it's hard to rein it in. Pigfoot was having way, way too much fun on 21st Century Acid Trad (Village Life Records, 2014) to go straight on this, its second outing. If the former happily warped New Orleans jazz, Pigfoot Shuffle applies a similar concept to a broader pool of music, with rock 'n' roll, opera, soul, classic rock and pop coming in for some lovingly irreverent, jazzified treatment. In other hands it ...

Album Review

Adam Fairhall: The Imaginary Delta

Read "The Imaginary Delta" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff


Questo bel progetto che fonde mirabilmente sensazioni tradizionali che arrivano dagli inizi del novecento con lo spirito dei giorni nostri è stato commissionato dal Manchester Jazz Festival dove è stato poi eseguito a fine luglio del 2011. La Slam lo pubblica dopo averlo registrato mirabilmente in quella occasione. Il leader del gruppo è il pianista inglese Andy Fairhall che si circonda di ottimi musicisti suoi conterranei e soprattutto infiltra un alieno come Paul J Rogers che coi suoi sampling e ...

Album Review

Aquarium: Aquarium

Read "Aquarium" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff


Tutti i brani inseriti nel CD, realizzato nel dicembre 2009, si devono alla penna del giovane pianista londinese Sam Leak, di conseguenza leader effettivo del quartetto, che pure reca un nome collettivo. Ci si muove lungo i territori di un jazz classico-moderno piuttosto consolidato, a conti fatti in possesso più di solidità (globale) che non di originalità. Si parte bene, con “Strangers," dove Allsopp è al clarinetto basso, per quanto già qui si respiri una certa epidemicità che lascerà di ...

Album Review

Fulvio Sigurtà: House of Cards

Read "House of Cards" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff


Da anni non ci si trovava di fronte ad un disco d'esordio così autorevole e compiuto come House of Cards. Ne è superbo protagonista il trombettista bresciano Fulvio Sigurtà, che si attesta così tra le leve più interessanti del jazz italiano. Il suo CD riunisce sapientemente le due anime del jazz continentale, per coniugare la sensibilità di musicista mediterranea con le architetture sonore e ritmiche della tradizione nordeuropea. Ne discende un vivido contrasto di colori e dinamiche, in cui prevale ...


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