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Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke: Diverso Lontano Incomprehensibile
by Chris May
In English, the Italian singer and composer Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke's Diverso Lontano Incomprehensibile translates as “different, distant and incomprehensible." It certainly is different. But it is neither distant nor incomprehensible. It is close-up personal and, though strange, it makes perfect sense, just like a Thelonious Monk piano solo makes perfect sense. It is also beautiful, beguiling ...
Nicola Conte & Gianluca Petrella: People Need People
by Chris May
For over twenty years, the Italian producer, composer and guitarist Nicola Conte has pursued a resolutely independent path in jazz and jazz-related music. The Schema label, with whom he has almost exclusively partnered since his breakthrough album, 2000's acid-jazz masterpiece Jet Sounds, is based in the fashion-centric northern city of Milan. But Conte nearly always records ...
Brian Jackson: Winter In America Pt. 2
by Chris May
As Gil Scott-Heron's songwriting and performing partner during the 1970s, keyboardist, composer and arranger Brian Jackson was co-author of some of the most galvanising liberation music of the era. Inhabiting the intersection of jazz, soul and spoken word, Jackson and Scott-Heron, who met while they were both students at Lincoln University, were a team from Pieces ...
Andrew Nixon, Ed Croft, Joe Goretti: In Congruence
by Chris May
Every now and again an album comes along by a musician you have never heard of which knocks you sideways and, having done so, picks you up and makes you feel better about the world. Such an album is pianist Andrew Nixon's self-released debut, In Congruence. Nixon, we learn from his website, is ...
Meroli: Notturni
by Chris May
Jazz has a great track record when it comes to film scores. Standouts include Miles Davis' soundtrack for Louis Malle's Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud (1958), Charles Mingus' for John Cassavetes' Shadows (1959) and Krzysztof Komeda's for Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water (1962). There are dozens more, particularly from the 1950s and 1960s, before rock became the ...
Joe Chambers: Samba De Maracatu
by Chris May
Drummer Joe Chambers was unusual among the drummers who emerged on the Blue Note label in the mid 1960s in that not only did he generate a powerful beat, he wrote strong tunes, too. He played on, and often composed pieces for, albums by such Blue Note luminaries as saxophonists Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson, vibraphonist ...
Guitar Gods & Goddesses: An Alternative Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Although it has been present in jazz since the 1920s, when it was routinely used in rhythm sections, as a solo instrument the guitar struggled to make itself heard--literally--until the second half of the 1930s, when reliable pick-ups and portable amplifiers became available. Foremost among the pioneers of the electrified instrument was Charlie Christian, a member ...
Group Sounds Four & Five: Black & White Raga
by Chris May
So seismic were the eruptions of British pop and rock in the mid 1960s, along with the effusive chronicling which accompanied them, that the parallel fecundity of the country's jazz scene was widely overlooked then and has been largely forgotten since. Contemporary media coverage was practically non-existent except on those occasions when a musician got busted. ...
Elephant9: Arrival Of The New Elders
by Chris May
Unlike jazz or rock, both of which originated in the US, jazz-rock was born simultaneously in the US and Europe, with a British band the first off the blocks. Soft Machine's eponymous debut was released in 1968. It was followed by drummer Tony Williams' Lifetime's Emergency! (Polydor) in 1969 and trumpeter Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Columbia) ...
Nicola Conte: Good Juju From Italy’s Spiritual Jazz Shaman
by Chris May
Ever since his debut album, the acid-jazz masterpiece Jet Sounds (Schema), in 2000, the producer, composer, DJ and guitarist Nicola Conte has kept the jazz world guessing by constantly moving the goal posts. The trumpeter Miles Davis famously said, “I always gotta change. It's like a curse." But with Conte, it feels more like a blessing, ...
