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Tubby Hayes: Free Flight
by Chris May
Tenor saxophonist, flautist, vibraphonist and composer Tubby Hayes, who died at the unconscionably young age of thirty-eight in 1973, was that rare thing among the first generation of British jazz musicians in the 1960s—a player who was taken seriously by the hippest American musicians and audiences. He visited New York in 1961 and 1964 for well-received ...
Garage A Trois: Calm Down Cologne
by Chris May
Formed by guitarist Charlie Hunter, saxophonist Skerik and drummer Stanton Moore in 1999, Garage A Trois has sparked a slew of “But is it jazz?" debates with every new release. Calm Down Cologne will do it again. GAT has been through various incarnations since its debut EP, The Mysteryfunk (Fog City Records, 1999), necessitated ...
Whatitdo Archive Group: The Black Stone Affair
by Chris May
Great music recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, never previously released and thought to be lost forever, continues to be unearthed. In 2018, there was John Coltrane's Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!). In 2019, there was Miles Davis' Rubberband (Warner Bros). Now, in 2021, comes another historic discovery: the long-lost soundtrack of visionary ...
Sam Newbould: Bogus Notus
by Chris May
Sam Newbould is a British-born alto saxophonist and composer who has since 2016 been based in Amsterdam, where he leads the Sam Newbould Quintet. The group debuted on record with the self-produced Blencathra in 2019. Bogus Notus is the follow-up. The album is a substantial piece of work, a collection of eight originals which, ...
Eddie Sauter: A Wider Focus
by Chris May
For many people, composer and arranger Eddie Sauter's reputation begins and ends with Stan Getz's Focus (Verve, 1962). The album is, indeed, a masterpiece. But it is only one of the pinnacles of Sauter's career, which started during the swing era. Nor is Focus Sauter's only collaboration with Getz. The partnership continued with the less widely ...
Raul Gutierrez And His Cuban Big Band: Prado... Vive!
by Chris May
At the start of the 1950s, Cuban bandleader Pérez Prado, the subject of this tribute album, led the hottest big band in Cuba. By the end of the decade, he had been crowned the King of Mambo by the Latin American diaspora in New York City, too, and his cameo appearances in Hollywood movies had helped ...
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble: Now
by Chris May
Chicago-based collective Black Monument Ensemble's sophomore album was recorded in September 2020 at the intersection of various existential crises, as seen from a US perspective: the threat of Trump winning the presidential election, by fair means or foul; the rising tide of fascist ideology; extrajudicial murders of, in particular but not exclusively, black Americans; a galloping ...
Neil Ardley: Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows Live '75
by Chris May
One of the more obscure but loftiest masterpieces of British jazz, composer Neil Ardley's long-form suite Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows was released on the tiny Gull Records label in 1976. Its beauty and vitality have remained absolutely unsullied by the passing years and the album has been reissued a couple of times, most recently on Dusk Fire ...
Pino Palladino and Blake Mills: Notes with Attachments
by Chris May
Do not be put off by the cover. It might suggest inaccessible, up itself, bone-dry cerebralism, but the reality is contrariwise. Around a third of the music is vaguely reminiscent, in spirit if not in execution, of the 1949-1950 Birth Of The Cool sessions conducted by Miles Davis with arrangers Gil Evans, John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan ...
Soothsayers: We Are Many
by Chris May
Straddling jazz, Afrobeat, conscious reggae and dub, South London's Soothsayers is among the top ten must-see attractions on Britain's club circuit (on hold for the duration). Soothsayers can make the lame not merely walk, but dance. We Are Many is the band's ninth studio album and it is a superbly well-realized production, up there with an ...
