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Content by tag "Duncan Heining"
Mônica Vasconcelos: Brazil Songs of Resistance
A tanned, beautiful young woman in a skimpy bikini walks through the lapping sea waters on the edge of a sun-soaked beach. Soft music plays, its shifting beat following her footsteps. It's a cliché, of course, but a powerful one when it comes to thoughts (male, mainly) of Brazil and its music.
UK-based Brazilian ...
Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra: GIO Sevens
Back in the 60s, there was a pop show on British TV called Thank Your Lucky Stars. It featured a “spin-a-disc" segment, where a DJ and three teenagers scored a clutch of 45s on a scale of one to five. One of these was a girl from the West Midlands called Janice Nicholls, who delighted audiences ...
read moreRaymond MacDonald & Graeme Wilson: A Cast of Thousands
Raymond MacDonald and Graeme Wilson are two of the leading figures in the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. The music on Cast Of Thousands may be freely improvised but the emphasis here seems very much upon structure and form. One suspects that MacDonald and Wilson's lengthy experience playing together allows each man to trust the other and that ...
read moreLol Coxhill & Raymond MacDonald: Morphometry
Glorious, custard-coloured vinyl, a charming and witty woodcut by artist Ian Barrett (Syd's nephew) on the cover and ten duos featuring saxophonists Lol Coxhill and Raymond MacDonald--what's not to like? My first sightings/hearings of the legend that was Lol took place in my mid-teens. Crossing Hungerford Bridge en route to the South Bank for a concert ...
read moreAlan Skidmore: After The Rain
In 1998, with After The Rain British saxophonist Alan Skidmore got to achieve a lifetime ambition to record this beautiful 'jazz with strings' album. Out of print for some time, its reissue is well overdue. It was once a cliché in the jazz world amongst critics that records such as this represented a descent into the ...
read moreNeil Ardley & the New Jazz Orchestra: On The Radio: BBC Sessions 1971
Neil Ardley was a truly remarkable individual. As well as his work in jazz as a composer/band-leader/arranger, Neil was a scientific author with 101 books to his name, which sold over 10 million copies. I spoke to him once but, sadly, Ardley had died by the time I commenced work on my book on British jazz, ...
read moreMartin Archer: Story Tellers
We used to call records like this 'concept albums.' The whole idea soon became a term of derision thanks to Rick Wakeman and others. Nevertheless, let's stick with it for a moment. Martin Archer's Story Tellers is constructed as a series of interlocking vignettes, linked both by certain recurring themes, narrative threads and the attribution of ...
read moreGrand Union Orchestra at Wilton's Music Hall
Grand Union Orchestra
Wilton's Music Hall
London
June 14, 2017
Song of Contagion, Grand Union Orchestra's latest show, would be a strange subject indeed for any other ensemble. But for leader/composer Tony Haynes and his comrades, it sits perfectly within the orchestra's progressive dialogue between the musics and ...
Mike Westbrook at Bury St. Edmunds Festival
Mike Westbrook and Kate Westbrook
Bury St. Edmunds Festival
The Church of St. John the Evangelist
May 19, 2017
Of all his many achievements, Mike Westbrook's The Westbrook Blake is one of his finest. Few works in jazz have combined music and text, voices and instrumentation, to such profound effect. The ...
Paul Anka: Rock Swings!
A while ago, me and Mrs. O'Groove were at the Diamante Dance Academy, Chelmsford --I kid you not--for our regular lesson, when our teacher, Natasha Fellowes, put on this big band version of Van Halen's “Jump." Turned out it was off Paul Anka's Rock Swings album (2005). No particular reason but I've always had a soft ...
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