Results for "andy sheppard"

Espen Eriksen Trio: End Of Summer

by Gareth Thompson
September 17, 2020

Any album recorded during the lockdown of 2020 will doubtless be scrutinised for cryptic references. As such, End Of Summer as a title might hint at something deeper (or darker) than mere seasonal flux. But amidst so much global turmoil, the Espen Eriksen Trio has held its nerve and created another poignant opus. Tranquility at the ...

Meet Carla Bley

by Craig Jolley
June 20, 2000

A Genuine Tong Funeral (RCA). 1967 record by Gary Burton quartet with orchestra; music composed and arranged by Bley. It was my first big break. After the Funeral I did quite a few big projects. After all this time it's going to be performed next March at Iowa State University. The faculty of the music department ...

John Law's Congregation: Configuration

by Bruce Lindsay
May 11, 2020

John Law's Congregation is a quartet led by British pianist and composer Law and completed by three musicians from the UK jazz scene--James Mainwaring (Roller Trio), Ashley John Long and Billy Weir--who are part of what Brian Morton's sleeve notes calls the “new generation players." Law has been performing since the 1980s, releasing over ...

I Sing Just to Know I'm Alive - Happy Birthday to Nina Simone

by Mary Foster Conklin
March 2, 2020

This week we focus on new releases from pianist Jen Allen, vocalists Rosemary Loar, Simone Kopmajer, Casey Abrams and Ian Shaw, plus birthday shout outs to Nina Simone in the first hour (who also has a new single out), flutists Nicole Mitchell and Mayu Saeki, vocalists Nancy Wilson, Anne Phillips, Kellye Gray and Shirley Crabbe, violinist ...

New albums from Carla Bley, Lisa Hilton, Mark Godfrey, Nutria and Oded Tzur.

by Bob Osborne
February 27, 2020

There is a striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in 1961. Bley's distinctive piano, with its hints of Monk and Satie, is beautifully ...

Carla Bley: Life Goes On

by Mike Jurkovic
February 12, 2020

After decades of illuminating and revealing work, reveling in and breaking free of shadows, it is those same shadows that still inspire and inform Carla Bley. Which perhaps explains why the title track of Life Goes On rolls in on the 12-bar like a music obsessed, post-bop cigarette girl absorbing Count Basie at Birdland in the ...

Andy Sheppard

Born: January 20, 1957

An ECM recording artist, bandleader and composer, Andy Sheppard is one of Europe’s leading saxophonists and one of a very few British musicians to have made a significant impact on the international jazz scene, playing and writing for settings from solo to big band and chamber orchestra. Sheppard has composed over 350 works that incorporate a strong and characteristic sense of lyricism alongside a very personal use of rhythms from Asia, Africa and South America.

Sheppard took up the saxophone at 19, highly motivated after encountering the music of John Coltrane, and three weeks after getting his first instrument was playing in public with the Bristol-based quartet Sphere. After a period in Paris where he worked with groups including performance art band Urban Sax, he returned to the UK in the mid-80’s recording the album “Andy Sheppard” for Antilles/Island, with Steve Swallow as producer, the beginning of a long musical association that continues to this day. Since then Sheppard has recorded for labels including Blue Note, Verve, Label Bleu and Provocateur.

Carla Bley / Andy Sheppard / Steve Swallow: Life Goes On

by Karl Ackermann
February 7, 2020

Coming off a recent illness, the legendary composer-pianist Carla Bley has her sense of humor and political instincts intact on Life Goes On. The trio album with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Steve Swallow completes a trilogy which began with Trios in 2013 but the three have been recording together since 1994 with their first album ...

Lorenzo Feliciati & Michele Rabbia: Antikythera

by Don Phipps
January 15, 2020

Light, bouncy, funky, mysterious, cosmopolitan, chill, ambient—the music on Antikythera, an album by Lorenzo Feliciati and Michele Rabbia is all of these things. The album has an urban vibe, albeit a slow-motion one , with none of the jarring effects and noise that often accompany city living. Beyond handling the bass duties, Feliciati plays ...

Cartoon: Change Of Meaning

by Roger Farbey
August 9, 2019

The Confront Recording's Collectors Series is distinguished by the packaging of its CDs which arrive in a DVD sized metal box. Rather than any cover art, there are instead simple stickers affixed to the front and rear denoting the artist, title and track names. The CD itself quaintly replicates the grooves and track markers of a ...