Home » Search Center » Results: Chris May
Results for "Chris May"
Ambrose Adekoya Campbell: London Is The Place For Me 3
by Chris May
History, they say, is written by the victors. Without a doubt, it's written by the governing majority, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the near invisibility, until very recently, of black and African people in chronicles of British life and culture. Honest Jons provides a vibrant antidote to this Eurocentric bias with ...
Wilton "Bogey" Gaynair: Africa Calling
by Chris May
Jamaican tenor saxophonist Wilton “Bogey" Gaynair, whose passionate double-barrelled playing (and take no prisoners technical facility) illuminated the British hard bop scene in the late '50s, is today more or less forgotten. He made one headlong charge of an album, Blue Bogey, in '59, before disappearing into obscurity (or to be precise, into Germany, which at ...
Various Artists: Rembetika: Songs Of The Greek Underground 1925-1947
by Chris May
Flamenco, fado and tango are firm fixtures on the world music jukebox, but their close cultural equivalent, Greek rembetika, is overdue on the playlist. In Greece itself, roots artists and audiences are rediscovering the tradition in a big way, and a new generation of singers and instrumentalists is emerging to take the music forward. The rest ...
Paul Motian Band: Garden Of Eden
by Chris May
On Garden Of Eden, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band shortens its name and lengthens its stride to present a new artistic agenda. Recalibrations of the bop and hard bop repertoires stay on the bill, but only in a supporting role: the main event now is original material, most of it composed by Motian. (Nine of the ...
Son De La Frontera: Son De La Frontera
by Chris May
Son De La Frontera's radical ambition on this album is simultaneously to look forwards and backwards--forward to Andalusian retentions in modern Latin American music, back to flamenco's own birth in Moorish music ("Moorish" in a flamenco context being a description as approximate as Jelly Roll Morton's “Spanish tinge," encompassing a diversity of North African and Levantine ...
Bob Dorough: Small Day Tomorrow
by Chris May
At a party to celebrate his 100th birthday, pianist Eubie Blake, a glass of whiskey in one hand, a cigar in the other, is reported to have observed: “If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself." Way to go. (Blake died five days later--but he'd made his ...
Dimitri Vassilakis: Parallel Lines
by Chris May
Greek saxophonist Dimitri Vassilakis' third album for Candid is a one-course, big plate feast of rugged, gruff-toned tenor saxophone and high-torque bass and drums. It swings hard from start to finish, with only the halfway point “Soul Eyes" providing a pause, and does both Vassilakis and his primary influence, Sonny Rollins, proud. It was released in ...
Gricer: Gricer
by Chris May
Listening to Gricer's arresting debut album, conceived in the main by British guitarist David Maleed, it's easy to be reminded of Steve Reich's “Electric Guitar Phase," from Triple Quartet, Music For A Large Ensemble, Electric Guitar Phase (Nonesuch, '01). Like Reich's piece--a snarling assault of near-inchoate power chords and edgy cross-rhythms--much of Maleed's music is built ...
Howard Riley: Consequences
by Chris May
Revered by a few but unknown to most, Howard Riley has been an uncompromising free music agitator since the late '60s, first in small group settings, later with bigger outfits, like the London Jazz Composers Orchestra, and solo performance. His music ebbs and flows between material with no obvious antecedents and recalibrated shades of early bop. ...
Orqestra Mahatma: Stay Cool
by Chris May
A wonderfully joyous and inventive album, Stay Cool hides a wealth of scholarship and musicianship behind expansive instrumental performances of love songs and dance music from far and wide. Generally labelled world jazz, Orqestra Mahatma's music could more accurately (if more cumbersomely) be described as folk roots jazz. Since debuting with The Young Person's ...
Album Showcase
Trending
Jazz Raconteurs
Julius Hemphill: Marty Ehrlich and Tim Berne Remember a...
In Tribute To...
John Coltrane At 100: A Global Perspective
History of Jazz
John Coltrane in Detroit: A Brief History
Live Review
Detroit Jazz Festival 2026: A Gathering in a Great Jazz City
Profile
Sequoia Snyder: Growing in the Light of the Masters
Interview
Jasur Khalilov: From Falak to Fusion
Profile
The Discreet Charm of Tete Montoliu
VOTE!
