Jazz Articles

Ute Wassermann: Strange Songs

by John Eyles
July 31, 2023

Although it was recorded in 2015, at Studioboerne45 Berlin, it took several years for Strange Songs to see the light of day. The album sleeve dates its release as 2022, but its arrival on vinyl and its launch event did not happen until July 2023, marked by two well-attended Ute Wassermann performances at Café Oto in London. Across the two days, in addition to two solo sets, Wassermann performed in a quintet with Spring Heel Jack (John Coxon and Ashley ...

Alan Wilkinson/Steve Noble/John Coxon/Pat Thomas: The Founder Effect I

by Mark Corroto
May 15, 2014

You cannot judge a book by its cover. Maybe, but music fans somehow know that expression doesn't lend itself to album covers (in this case, CD covers). Look at the Blue Note Records covers from the 1960 sixties, Miles Davis' On The Corner (Columbia, 1972), or The Clash's London Calling (Columbia, 1979), and tell me you don't have a very good idea what you'll hear on those records. Covers matter, and more importantly they reveal essential information about ...

John Butcher & Mark Sanders / Alex Ward & Roger Turner / John Tchicai & Tony Marsh: Treader Duos

by John Eyles
December 11, 2009

These three contrasting reeds/drums duos are a fine record of the concert at which they were recorded, in February 2008 at St Giles-in-the-Fields church, London. Each of the three tracks lasts about twenty five minutes, long enough for the duos to give a good account of themselves. The three tracks give an opportunity to hear some fine improvisers as well as to compare their differing approaches to the combination of reeds and drums.

The album opens with John Butcher and ...

John Coxon / Wadada Leo Smith: Brooklyn Duos

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 26, 2007

John Coxon of the British drum n' bass duo Spring Heel Jack first collaborated with American trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith on the duo's last and most challenging and fully realized effort, The Sweetness of The Water (Thirsty Ear, 2004). This release was recorded a year later in Brooklyn by John Zorn collaborator Jamie Saft.

But whereas The Sweetness of the Water was a beautiful showcase of an emphatic and conversational meeting between Smith and another master ...

Evan Parker: Evan Parker with Birds (for Steve Lacy)

by Rex Butters
July 3, 2005

Someone recently told me that they didn't care for outside music, because to really hear what's going on, you have to stop everything and sit inside it. On Evan Parker with Birds, the sax sounder invites you to sit inside an interdimensional aviary while he joins the conversation around him. Indispensable to those conversations, the duo of John Coxon and Ashley Wales produces, alters, and teases the edges with an ambiance not always avian. An outgrowth of their collaboration with ...