Home » Search Center » Results: Chris May
Results for "Chris May"
Paul Bley: Floater & Syndrome The Upright Piano Sessions Revisited
by Chris May
One way for a musician to conjure rapture is through full-frontal shamanic assault, the sonic equivalent of the Orgasmatron machine that Jane Fonda's character encounters in Roger Vadim's 1968 sci-fi romp Barbarella. Funk is an ideal vehicle. But the sensations produced are superficial and short-lived. A less travelled path instead uses subtlety, understatement and nuance, and ...
Alina Bzhezhinska & Tony Kofi: Tabula Rasa-Blank Slate
by Ian Patterson
Having played together since 2015, harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and saxophonist Tony Kofi have developed a keen musical understanding. In 2024 they released the gorgeous duo album, Altera Vita (BBE Records), which moved the late Chris May to write: “This ineffably beautiful and restorative disc succeeds resoundingly in its mission statement. This is, say the duo, to ...
Brilliant Corners 2025: Days 1-4
by Ian Patterson
Brilliant Corners 2025 Black Box/Various Venues Belfast, N. IrelandFebruary 28-March 8, 2025 Thirteen is young for most things, smartphones, cars and your average household pet aside. Thirteen is young for jazz festivals too, but as jazz festivals go, Brilliant Corners qualifies as a precocious youth. Its programming, whilst musically inclusive and ...
Which Writer Or Broadcaster Has Most Influenced Your Appreciation of Jazz?
by Ian Patterson
2024 was a sad year for All About Jazz, with the sudden passing of both John Kelman and Chris May severely rocking the ship. Each of these unique writers had dedicated twenty years to All About Jazz, promoting the music with love and artful care. Between them, these two venerable jazz advocates contributed over ...
Chris May's Best Jazz Albums Of 2024
by Chris May
In case you missed the sad news, our dear friend and compatriot, Chris May, passed away in November (read our tribute). Below are the albums he considered extraordinary in 2024--a final testament to his discerning taste and love of sound. -mR Rob LuftDahab Days Edition Records
Josephine Davies: Satori: Weatherwards
by Chris May
From an international perspective, the best kept secret in British jazz could be tenor and soprano saxophonist Josephine Davies. She first recorded in 2000 as a member of Crissy Lee's Jazz Orchestra, a fifteen piece all-woman band who made one album, the self-produced ...With Body And Soul. (Actually, there was one male in the lineup, trumpeter ...
Tadd Dameron: Fontainebleau & Magic Touch Revisited
by Chris May
There is much that is tragic about Tadd Dameron's story. The composer, arranger and pianist fell prey to the heroin epidemic that gripped New York's jazz world in the 1940s and 1950s. He did jail time for his addiction in 1959-60. He died at the woefully young age of 48 years in 1965. But there is ...
Roy Hargrove's Crisol: Grande-Terre
by Chris May
Increasingly and with growing momentum, right up until he died at the young age of 55 in 2018, Roy Hargrove was a standard bearer for a new kind of African American jazz. The recipe embraced a variety of styles--jazz, Afro-Cuban music, funk, hip hop and soul--and it influenced a generation of musicians in jazz and beyond. ...
Top Ten Sci-Fi Jazz Albums
by Chris May
On The Launch Pad Robert Frosch, head honcho at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1977 to 1981, wrote that at cocktail parties he was sometimes asked whether NASA had some gizmo or other that had recently been brought to fictional life in a sci-fi book or movie. If Frosch's answer was “No," the next ...
Sidsel Endresen, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré: Punkt Live Remixes Vol.2
by Chris May
The person who ought to be reviewing this album is, of course, the longtime AAJ writer and editor John Kelman/Dave Binder. Dave attended Punkt festivals on behalf of AAJ from the mid 2000s to the late 2010s, when ill-health stopped him making the long-haul flights to Norway. He was fascinated by Punkt's live- remixes, reporting on ...
