Home » Search Center » Results: Chris May
Results for "Chris May"
Ian Carr: Solar Session
by Chris May
One of the first European jazz bandleaders to embrace synthesizers, bass guitars and other electric instruments, trumpeter, composer and author Ian Carr forged a singularly British style of jazz-rock with his band Nucleus, which he formed in 1969 and with which he recorded a dozen albums through the 1970s. Carr had previously paid extensive dues in ...
Albert Ayler & New York Contemporary Five: Revisited, Remastered, Resplendent
by Chris May
The Swiss-based ezz-thetics label was launched in 2019 by Hat Hut Records' founder, Werner X. Uehlinger, and its Revisited strand is a jazz aficionado's dream. The series is devoted to landmark avant-garde recordings from the 1960s, and ezz-thetics does more than simply reissue them. Peter Pfister, Uehlinger's longtime mastering Jedi, improves the audio quality of the ...
Various Artists: Impulse Records: Music, Message & The Moment
by Chris May
Those of us for whom Impulse has been as important a part of our cultural lives as Blue Note, perhaps even a more important one, will not be satisfied until the label reissues its entire catalogue on remastered CDs and audiophile vinyl. In the meantime, it would be churlish to do anything other than applaud such ...
Carlos Niño: More Energy Fields, Current
by Chris May
Los Angeles-based percussionist, producer and sometime radio DJ Carlos Niño is active in jazz and new age music. His new age work, though immaculately crafted, is of limited interest from an AAJ perspective. But his jazz projects repay close attention. An early landmark was Horace (Elephant, 2001), singer Dwight Trible's salute to pianist, bandleader and community ...
Gary Bartz NTU Troop: Live In Bremen
by Chris May
In the early 1970s there was fusion and there was NTU Troop. After paying his dues in bands led by Charles Mingus, Max Roach and Art Blakey, Bartz made a splash in 1969 with his sophomore album, Another Earth (Milestone), a genius blend of spiritual jazz, space jazz and down and dirty blues. On it, Bartz ...
Richard X Bennett: RXB3
by Chris May
Brooklyn-based pianist Richard X Bennett is kind of the love child of Ramsey Lewis and Norah Jones with a head stuffed full of mescaline. He has Lewis' two-fisted poppy funkiness down and Jones' gift for a melodic hook, too. The combination is enriched, one speculates, by extensive first-hand knowledge of hallucinogens. Bennett, who is by his ...
John Coltrane: Top Ten Live Albums
by Chris May
This article is a companion piece to John Coltrane: An Alternative Top Ten Albums, which listed ten albums widely regarded as essential items in John Coltrane's discography and discussed another ten of comparable importance. John Coltrane: Top Ten Live Albums narrows the focus to club and concert recordings. Coltrane's live performances had a ...
Mike Taylor: Trio, Quartet & Composer Revisited
by Chris May
Historical context: Extracts from the diary of Ron Rubin, one of two bassists, the other being Jack Bruce, on Mike Taylor's Trio (Lansdowne, 1967).... “Saturday 18th February 1967. UFO, Tottenham Court Road. 'Giant Sun Trolley' Happening, opposite the Soft Machine etc. Mike spent the evening lying comatose, rigid and immobile in the middle of ...
Giant Steps: Diverse Journeys in British Jazz
by Chris May
Giant Steps: Diverse Journeys in British Jazz David Burke 240 Pages ISBN: 9781908755483 Desert Hearts 2021 David Burke's survey of British jazz musicians of colour does not begin promisingly. The first sentence of his Foreword reads: “Jazz is, of course, African-American in provenance, just as the greatest ...
Ohisashiburi: Reimagining The Beatles
by Chris May
One might imagine that making an album of Lennon & McCartney covers is as easy as falling off the proverbial log. Not so. For starters, even if the listener has never bought a Beatles record in his or her life, they will have heard the songs countless times and boredom may have set in. More than ...
