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Hendrik Meurkens: Amazon River
by Chris May
When the great wordsmith in the sky invented the word “gorgeous" She might have been thinking of this album, a celebration of all that is lovely about Brazilian music, from samba and choro through bossa nova and jazz. On the face of it, Hendrik Meurkens is not the most likely outsider to have gotten ...
Moutin Reunion Quartet: Something Like Now
by Chris May
Louis and François Moutin are French-born twin brothers who play drums and bass. Since '97, when François relocated from Paris to New York, they've been separated by a few thousand miles, but have managed periodically to get together to tour and record as the Moutin Reunion Quartet. Saxophonist Rick Margitza joined the lineup in '04 for ...
Bobby Hutcherson: Oblique
by Chris May
A welcome and worthwhile addition to Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder remaster series, Oblique is one of only two quartet albums Bobby Hutcherson recorded for the label, and it's the most enduring by a long mile. Two tracks in particular, “Oblique" and “Bi-Sectional," both by genius drummer/composer Joe Chambers, are bona fide, five star hall-of-fame greats.
Ingrid Laubrock: Playing with the Future
by Chris May
Born and brought up in Germany, but resident in London since 1990, saxophonist, composer and bandleader Ingrid Laubrock started getting noticed on the UK scene in 1997, with the release of her first solo album, Who Is It?. The same year she began recording with Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos' band Nois, a collaboration which continues on ...
Candi Staton: Candi Staton
by Chris May
These are some of the finest soul recordings ever made, by an artist who stands head high with the great Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. If you love jazz, chances are you'll love this too. Recorded from '69 to '73 for FAME Records in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, these are tough, funky, dirty, raw, proud, ...
Natural History: Fur
by Chris May
In which genius guitarist Joe Morris picks up the acoustic bass, forms a trio with two unknown musicians half his age, records just under an hour of totally improvised music... and blows us away with beauty. Pretty much everything about Fur is a surprise. Morris himself, a guitarist born out of the splintered-note, rocket-speed ...
Cedric Im Brooks & The Light Of Saba: Cedric Im Brooks & The Light Of Saba
by Chris May
Another treasure trove of near-lost, jazz-infused, Caribbean-based masterpieces from the label which is bringing us the London Is The Place For Me series. This time the focus is Jamaica during the '70s and the sublime blackism melange that was Cedric Im Brooks' Light Of Saba band. Ska, hard bop, mento, Afrobeat, highlife, dub, roots reggae, and ...
Johnny Smith: Walk, Don't Run!
by Chris May
Woefully obscure and unlauded today, Johnny Smith's early '50s recordings make him as important to the development of jazz guitar as his contemporaries Stan Getz and Al Haig are to the history of the tenor saxophone and the piano. Johnny who? For a very short while, Smith was a star. His '52 single “Moonlight ...
Django Bates' Human Chain: Live At The Hackney Empire, London, 24 July 2005
by Chris May
After twenty-something years subverting and enlivening the UK jazz scene - with Loose Tubes, Delightful Precipice, and Human Chain, amongst myriad other projects - Django Bates has announced he is leaving the country. Tonight's performance was the last London gig before he relocates to Denmark, to become the inaugural Professor at Denmarks's adventurous, and generously state-funded, ...
Grand Union Bangla Band: Live At The Spitz, London, 21 July '05
by Chris May
Always a glorious artistic experience - a uniquely deep blend of jazz and other world musics - tonight's performance by Tony Haynes' Grand Union Bangla Band had a powerful extra-musical significance. A few hours earlier, to commemorate the mass murder they'd committed precisely two weeks before, terrorists had planted another four bombs on London's public transport ...
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