Jazz Articles about Tamar Osborn

About Tamar Osborn

Album Review

One of the strengths of the alternative jazz scene which has grown in London since around 2016 is the interconnectivity of its players. Everyone knows each other and ad hoc bands constantly come together. Flock is the latest such conclave and it is something of a supergroup. On this its first album--others are promised--the lineup is reeds player Tamar Osborn, keyboard player Danalogue, pianist Al MacSween, vibraphonist Bex Burch and percussionist Sarathy Korwar (check Additional Personnel below ...

Album Review

Sarathy Korwar & Upaj Collective: Night Dreamer Direct-To-Disc Sessions

Read "Night Dreamer Direct-To-Disc Sessions" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
November 12, 2020

In her October 2020 interview with All About Jazz, baritone saxophonist, Collocutor bandleader, Afrobeat shaman and Upaj Collective founder member Tamar Osborn was asked to name six of her all-time favourite albums. One of them was Shakti's Natural Elements (Columbia, 1970), on which John McLaughlin plays a guitar customised to sound like a sitar. “To me, it's still one of the best meetings of two traditions you can listen to," said Osborn. “You can hear the mutual respect, the communication ...

Interview

Tamar Osborn: From Kalakuta To Collocutor: New Directions In Jazz

by Chris May
October 12, 2020

She has been likened to Gil Evans, Fela Kuti, Pharoah Sanders, Bismillah Khan and Mulatu Astatke, and the traditions represented by those musicians are all to be heard in the music of baritone saxophonist and composer Tamar Osborn. Osborn's aesthetic, however, is her own, and her band, Collocutor, is among the most distinctive on the British jazz scene. Collocutor is three albums old. It began as a studio project with the album Instead in 2014 and then became ...

Album Review

Collocutor: Continuation

Read "Continuation" reviewed by Gareth Thompson

by Gareth Thompson
May 13, 2020

Viewing the CV of musician-composer Tamar Osborn is like watching a tapestry unfurl in bewildering detail. Having started out on clarinet and saxophone, performing mostly classical works, she later studied rhythms and ragas in India, then collaborated with a vast array of talents, often fusing Afrobeat and Ethio-funk into jazzy paradigms. She was part of the onstage band for Fela! The Musical during its 2010 / 2011 runs in London, and formed her own Afrobeat-informed band, The Fontanelles, in 2011. ...