Results for "Chris May"
Shai Maestro: Human

After paying his dues with Avishai Cohen, with whose Trio he recorded four well received albums, pianist Shai Maestro cut loose on his own, debuting with Shai Maestro Trio (Laborie) in 2013. Human is Maestro's sixth own-name album and his second on ECM, followingThe Dream Thief in 2018. The new disc is elegant, expansive, emotionally charged ...
Nubiyan Twist: Freedom Fables

Guitarist Tom Excell's Nubiyan Twist is one of the more substantial groove-based fusion outfits orbiting the perimeter of Britain's alternative jazz world. The band combines soul, funk, modal jazz, hip hop, and West African Afrobeat and highlife in a dancefloor-friendly melange which is a whole lot of fun while also possessing some depth. Based in Leeds ...
Tamil Rogeon: Son Of Nyx

An energetic, modal, fusion release coming out of the alternative jazz scene in Melbourne, Australia, Son of Nyx is a good album which almost succeeds in being more than that, but, frustratingly, does not achieve lift-off until the closing track, Horns No Eyes." Tamil Rogeon first surfaced as co-leader of the jazz and ...
The Invisible Session: Echoes Of Africa

It is surely no coincidence that the Ishtar family of labels tagline Modern Sounds from Italy"is based in Milan, that most stylish and go-ahead of Italian cities. New imprint Space Echo's launch release is The Invisible Session's sophomore album, Echoes Of Africa, and it slots right into Ishtar's sophisticated aesthetic, which exists at the intersection of ...
Ten Tiptop Albums Which Include Thelonious Monk & Denzil Best’s Totally Rocking “Bemsha Swing”

That was the opinion expressed in Inside Jazz by its author, Leonard Feather, who, on the front cover of the book's first edition in 1949 was described as America's No.1 Authority On Be-Bop." Well, at least Feather was half right about the attractive tunes. In fact, Monk is known to have written at least eighty of ...
Various Artists: Indaba Is

There are probably several reasons why American jazz made the deep and lasting impact it did on South Africa in the 1950s. One may be that the colonial regime which was imposed on the country during Europe's pan-African nineteenth-century landgrab was among the most vicious of them all, and persisted the longest through the apartheid system ...
Alex Clarke: She Does It Her Way

Coming up fast behind the school of British saxophonists who emerged around 2015 is a younger group of players who are just beginning to get noticed. Among them is Alex Clarke, who was a finalist in Britain's public service broadcaster, the BBC's biannual Young Jazz Musician competition in 2020. In the televised final in November, Clarke ...
Will Glaser: Climbing In Circles

Women musicians seem more inclined to describe their albums as playful" than their male counterparts. We need not spend time speculating on the reasons for that here. Playful, however, is the word that best sums up this delightful trio album by two generations of male musicians. Young bloods drummer Will Glaser and saxophonist Matthew Herd have ...
Mauro Sigura Quartet: Terra Vetro

Although the Italian oud player and composer Mauro Sigura bills his band as a world-jazz group which combines traditional Ottoman-Mediterranean music with modern European jazz, the band's sophomore album is not full-on, capped-up World Jazz in the manner of, say, fellow oudist Anouar Brahem's Blue Maqams (ECM, 2017). That album, made with double bassist Dave Holland, ...
Enrico Pieranunzi & Bert Joris: Afterglow

Enrico Pieranunzi is a multidimensional pianist and composer, but when he is in mellow mood he can remind one of the late, great Henry Manciniand it is not just his Italian heritage. Pieranunzi is a classically trained jazz musician, whereas Mancini was a jazz trained soundtrack composer with a heaven-sent gift for writing great tunes, Moon ...