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Faiz Lamouri: Inner Light
by Chris May
Inner Light is tenor saxophonist and composer Faïz Lamouri's follow-up to his promising debut, Wonders (Soprane, 2016). It does not disappoint and begs the question, why have we had to wait four years? Moroccan-born, Lamouri moved to Paris in 2004, where he studied at the American School of Modern Music until 2008. He ...
Tamar Osborn: From Kalakuta To Collocutor: New Directions In Jazz
by Chris May
She has been likened to Gil Evans, Fela Kuti, Pharoah Sanders, Bismillah Khan and Mulatu Astatke, and the traditions represented by those musicians are all to be heard in the music of baritone saxophonist and composer Tamar Osborn. Osborn's aesthetic, however, is her own, and her band, Collocutor, is among the most distinctive on the British ...
Judith & Dave O'Higgins: His 'n' Hers
by Chris May
Here is a great idea for a tough tenors face-off in the tradition of the Johnny Griffin / Eddie “Lockjaw" Davis group... Get hold of a tenor duo comprising a husband and wife who are on the verge of divorce and can barely stand being in the same room together and record them as they try ...
Chet Baker: An Alternative Top Ten Albums To Get Lost In
by Chris May
Chet Baker was born to a farmer's daughter and a hard-drinking, weed-smoking singer and guitarist in a Western Swing band in Yale, Oklahoma in 1929. Like many Okies, the family fared badly during the Great Depression but did a little better after moving to Glendale, California in 1939. Largely self-taught as a trumpeter, Baker honed his ...
Various Artists: Blue Note Re:imagined
by Chris May
The idea—honouring Blue Note's legacy while mapping out a possible future—promises much. The actuality is a curate's egg. The sixteen artists each interpreting a classic Blue Note-associated tune are not, as the label's American publicity has it, among the London scene's “most exciting young talents." A few are, but not many. The sixteen are instead an ...
Josephine Davies: Way Out East: New Directions In Jazz
by Chris May
Compared to many other bands which have emerged on London's revitalized jazz scene since the mid 2010s, saxophonist and composer Josephine Davies' trio Satori has attracted relatively little noise. This may be because, unlike most of its contemporaries, Satori is not infused with dancefloor-friendly grooves. Davies instead looks to Eastern culture, particularly to Buddhist texts and ...
Josephine Davies: How Can We Wake?
by Chris May
Compared to many of the other premier-league bands on the new London jazz scene, tenor saxophonist and composer Josephine Davies' Satori has attracted relatively little noise. There has been high praise from specialist critics, but little of the social media ballyhoo that has surrounded, for instance, bands led by fellow tenors Nubya Garcia and Binker Golding ...
Charlie Parker: Ten High Flying Albums Of Paradigm Shifting Genius
by Chris May
Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920, and brought up across the state line in anything-goes, jazz-friendly Kansas City, Missouri, controlled from the mid 1920s to the late 1930s by the spectacularly corrupt politician Tom Prendergast, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker lived fast and hard and passed in 1955, aged only 34 years. A founding father of ...
Floating Circles Quartet: Humble Travelers
by Chris May
London's Floating Circles Quartet are a group of Guildhall School of Music & Drama alumni who have been playing together since 2017. Humble Travelers is their debut album. If one had to pin a label on FCQ, chamber music is probably the most accurate off-the-peg description, though it is inadequate and oversimplified as ...
John Coltrane: Giant Steps: Remastered & Super Deluxe Editions
by Chris May
A date for your diary... 18 September 2020. That is when Atlantic / Rhino releases two cracking new editions of John Coltrane's first landmark album, Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1960). The main event is enhanced audio quality, which has noticeably more presence than any previous reissue. The double CD and vinyl Remastered Edition and ...
