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Julian Arguelles: Momenta
by Chris May
Following fast on the delicately wrought solo album Inner Voices (Tone Of A Pitch, 2008), on which Julian Arguelles played a panoply of overdubbed saxophones, clarinets and flutes, here's a more extrovert outing from the lyrical and emotionally engaged British reed player. Momenta was made with the 16-piece Frankfurt Radio Bigband, and has the added bonus ...
Tony Allen: Secret Agent
by Chris May
Tony Allen Secret Agent World Circuit 2009 It's been a good six months for Afrobeat, the turbulent jazz meets funk meets West African roots music associated with the Nigerian singer Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938 - 1997) and his bands Afrika 70 and Egypt 80. There have been cracking ...
Stan Getz: At The Shrine
by Chris May
This latest reissue in the Verve Originals series--which in early 2009 brought us the superb five-CD box set Stan Getz: The Bossa Nova Albums--tends to be overlooked when lists of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's early classics are compiled. A 1954 live recording from The Shrine in Los Angeles, it was originally released on Norman Granz's Norgran ...
Laurence Hobgood / Charlie Haden / Kurt Elling: When The Heart Dances
by Chris May
Man, this is a beautiful album. How could it be otherwise? An intimate, unhurried conversation between Laurence Hobgood, since 1994 vocalist Kurt Elling's musical director, and one of the finest jazz pianists out there, and the magisterial Charlie Haden, featured bassist in bands led by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, pianist Keith Jarrett and guitarist Pat Metheny, among ...
Julian Siegel Trio: Live At The Vortex
by Chris May
He may or may not be “mad, bad and dangerous to know," as a female contemporary famously described the 19th century poet Lord Byron, but there is something distinctly Byronic about British reeds player Julian Siegel. His cascading curls (an early nickname was Wig), penchant for black clothing, and the intense lyricism of his playing combine ...
Dexter Gordon: Best Of 3CD
by Chris May
As shoddily put together compilations go, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon's three-disc Blue Note collection, Best Of 3CD, scrapes rock bottom. From the asinine title, through the inadequate liner annotation (no recording dates, no original album titles, misspelled musicians' names), to the full page photo of Roland Kirk, in simultaneous saxello, stritch and manzello flight, on the ...
Led Bib: Sensible Shoes
by Chris May
London quintet Led Bib is one of a succession of new millennial British bands, heralded by the perversely named Acoustic Ladyland--a high decibel punk fury of tenor saxophone, electric keyboards and bass, and drums--who are tearing up the jazz rule book with an enthusiasm which renders the description “iconoclastic" inadequate. While Led Bib's moniker ...
Zoe Rahman Trio: Live with special guest Idris Rahman
by Chris May
Zoe Rahman was most recently heard on disc, as leader, with the enchanting Where Rivers Meet (Manushi, 2008), in which the British-born pianist explored her Bengali father's musical heritage. The core band for that album included Zoe's clarinetist brother, Idris, and her regular bassist Oli Hayhurst and drummer Gene Calderazzo, an American who's long been resident ...
Carlos Lopez-Real's Mandorla: Mandorla
by Chris May
Among the otherwise quite disparate assembly of musicians which makes up London's F-IRE collective and label, a shared sense of playfulness runs deep. Leading lights such as saxophonists Ingrid Laubrock and Finn Peters, guitarist Jonny Phillips, trumpeter and flugelhornist Tom Arthurs, cellist Ben Davis and drummer Seb Rochford--all seriously adventurous musicians--bring refreshing degrees of fun to ...
Soothsayers Meet The Red Earth Collective: One More Reason
by Chris May
It's been four years since the release of Soothsayers' last album, the masterpiece Tangled Roots (Red Earth, 2005), but it seems like yesterday. A turbulent mash-up of jazz, Afrobeat, dub and funk, the disc still blows through the speakers like a fresh gale, coursing out of the vibrant, multi-cultural, south London milieu, centered around Brixton, which ...
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