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Patrick Cornelius: Acadia: Way Of The Cairns
by Chris May
No, this is not an ECM album, though, looking at the sleeve art, you would be excused from thinking it was trying to pass itself off as one. Half of the Acadia quartet is indeed European: Estonian-born, German-based pianist Kristjan Randalu and Luxembourg-born, US-based drummer Paul Wiltgen. The other half is American: alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius ...
Jim Rattigan: When
by Chris May
Composer-arrangers as diverse as Gil Evans and Charles Mingus have employed the French horn, but it remains something of a niche instrument in jazz. Why? The same question applies to the almost complete absence of trombones in West African jazz and Afrobeat, and their ubiquity in Brazilian samba. The first convincing explanation in the Comments box ...
Thelonious Monk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Of Deep And Staggering Genius
by Chris May
Thelonious Monk's position in cultural history grows in stature with each passing year and every new generation. Lionised by jazz fans and a continuing influence on musicians, Monk in 2020 is also held to be a hero by the hip hop movement. While his music no longer has the power to shock that it once possessed, ...
Alex Clarke Quartet: Mirage
by Chris May
The bi-annual Young Jazz Musician competition was launched by Britain's public service broadcaster, the BBC, in 2014. As with all arts awards, the final selection tends to be a lottery, with the judges tasked with picking a winner from among five close-matched contestants. 2020 was no exception. The final was televised on November 22 and the ...
Pharoah Sanders: An Alternative Top Ten Albums To Feed Your Head
by Chris May
Fellow tenor-wielding sonic adventurer Albert Ayler famously described his own and Pharoah Sanders' relationships with their mentor John Coltrane thus: “Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost." The epigram goes some way to capturing the scorched-earth ferocity of much, though not all, of Sanders' music in the 1960s. But Ayler ...
EABS: Discipline Of Sun Ra
by Chris May
Poland's future-jazz collective EABS brightened up summer 2020 with Erozje (Astigmatic), made by a breakout quartet going under the name Bloto. Those musicians—keyboardist Marek Pedziwiatr, saxophonist Olaf Wegier, electric bassist Pawel Stachowiak and drummer Marcin Rak--return to the mothership for Discipline Of Sun Ra, EABS' fifth studio album, on which they are joined by trumpeter Jakob ...
Nat Birchall Sextet: Exaltation / Live In Athens Vol 1
by Chris May
The saxophonist Nat Birchall is, alongside his friend the trumpeter Matthew Halsall, one of the instigators of the spiritual jazz scene centred around the northern British city of Manchester, two hundred miles and a lifestyle north of London. Birchall self-released his debut album, The Sixth Sense, in 1999. John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders and Alice ...
Chris May’s Best Releases Of 2020
by Chris May
Not the best year for live gigs in London, but Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra just made it under the wire, lighting up the Jazz Cafe in late January. Rather like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Sosimi's band has form as an incubator of young talent. A recent star in the making was trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, who has ...
Elina Duni / Rob Luft: Lost Ships
by Chris May
Released just in time to make the Best Albums of 2020 lists, the Albanian-Swiss singer Elina Duni and the British guitarist Rob Luft's Lost Ships is an exquisitely beautiful, emotionally complex, words and music masterpiece from two of the most distinctive talents on the European scene. Passionate and grave, serene and desolate, it is a kind ...
Elina Duni & Rob Luft: Songs Of Love And Exile
by Chris May
The British guitarist Rob Luft has already released one of the great albums of 2020 with Life Is The Dancer (Edition), which came out back in the spring. Now Luft notches up another 2020 highlight with the collaborative Lost Ships (ECM), jointly conceived and co-led with the Albanian-Swiss singer Elina Duni. By turns passionate and grave, ...
