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Henry Lowther's Quarternity: Never Never Land
by Chris May
The British trumpeter and composer Henry Lowther, who first made an impact in the 1960s and released the well received album Can't Believe, Won't Believe (Village Life) in 2018, came to jazz via a circuitous route. After playing cornet in a provincial Salvation Army band, he moved to London around 1960 to study violin at the ...
Horace Silver: His Only Mistake Was To Smile
by Chris May
In his sleeve note for the audio restored Horace Silver album Live New York Revisited (ezz-thetics, 2022), British writer Brian Morton cut to the chase. “[Silver]'s only mistake," he wrote, “was to smile while he was playing... a challenge to the notion that jazz should be deadly serious and played with a pained rictus."
CTI Records: Ten Tasty Albums With No Added Sugar (Almost)
by Chris May
Few jazz producers divide opinion as much as Creed Taylor. He is a hero to many and a villain to as many more. His fans love him for his high production values. His detractors accuse him of dumbing jazz down with excessively sweetened orchestrations and other sales-oriented compromises. Nowhere is the dispute more heated than over ...
Various Artists: First Impulse: The Creed Taylor Collection 50th Anniversary
by Chris May
The headline news on this lavishly packaged, four-CD collection of the work of the Impulse! label's founding producer, Creed Taylor, is that it includes three previously unreleased tracks by John Coltrane. These were recorded during rehearsals for what would become the saxophonist's Impulse! debut, Africa/Brass, in 1961. They have a combined playing time of less than ...
Mark de Clive-Lowe: Celebrating Pharoah Sanders
by Chris May
It is a curious thing, but among the present day champions of Pharoah Sanders' fundamentally acoustic music are two early adopters of post-production heavy, digitally-enabled, high-tech mutoid jazz: bassist and producer Bill Laswell and keyboardist and broken-beat pioneer Mark de Clive-Lowe, whose Freedom: Celebrating The Music Of Pharoah Sanders (Soul Bank) was released in July 2022. ...
Horace Silver Quintet: Live New York Revisited
by Chris May
This fabulous album, recorded during three New York club engagements in 1964, 1965 and 1966, ranks among the finest in the pianist/composer's illustrious catalogue. There are several things going for it: the quality and shared intentionality of the two, slightly different, lineups; the choice of material and its careful sequencing; the vibrancy of the performances, which ...
Ragawerk: Ragawerk
by Chris May
Fusions of jazz and Indian raga go back to the mid-1950s, when the London-based Indian composer John Mayer began experimenting with the concept and, in the early 1960s, went on to form Indo-Jazz Fusions with the alto saxophonist Joe Harriott. Meanwhile, across the pond, John Coltrane became so fascinated with raga that he named his son ...
Kokoroko: Could We Be More
by Chris May
One of the features of the 2022 alternative London jazz scene is the incorporation of musical styles originating in Africa and the Caribbean, from whence a high proportion of prominent musicians on that scene trace their heritage. Not every band shares this African and/or Caribbean dimension but the majority do and it is one of the ...
RedGreenBlue: The End And The Beginning
by Chris May
RedGreenBlue sound like they have emerged from the same synapse-snapping dope bunker that La Monte Young and Jon Hassell exited with their Theatre Of Eternal Music in the 1970s, whacked out on opium, hashish and mescaline, dazed but not confused. RedGreenBlue may or may not indulge in the same psychotropic self-medication as their Lower East Side ...
Miles Davis Quintet: Live Europe 1960 Revisited
by Chris May
A high proportion of the studio albums recorded by Miles Davis from the mid 1950s until Bitches Brew (Columbia) in 1970 are landmark ones, so frequent and so momentous were the occasions on which Davis adjusted his direction. With a few exceptions, notably My Funny Valentine (Columbia, 1964), this is less true of the live albums ...
