Home » Search Center » Results: Chris May
Results for "Chris May"
Chris May's Best Releases of 2019
by Chris May
The world may be going to hell in a handcart, but the year has been full of uplifting jazz. Here are ten of the best albums--the first seven newly recorded, the final three reissued or recently unearthed. Each one is the coyote's cojones. Yazz Ahmed Polyhymnia Ropeadope The eagerly ...
Yazz Ahmed & The Guildhall Jazz Orchestra
by Chris May
Yazz Ahmed / The Guildhall Jazz Orchestra / Scott Stroman Milton Court Concert Hall Yazz Ahmed & The Guildhall Jazz Orchestra London November 27, 2019 Performances by student orchestras rarely qualify as must-see events. Audiences tend to be composed of fellow students and friends and ...
The Darius Brubeck Quartet: Live In Poland
by Chris May
Early on in his career, the pianist Darius Brubeck bowed to the inevitable. Accepting that he was always going to be compared to his father, Dave Brubeck, he both embraced his heritage and sidelined it. In the 1970s, embracing it, he was a member of Two Generations Of Brubeck and The New Brubeck Quartet, groups which ...
Buddy Rich: Just In Time: The Final Recording
by Chris May
There are few sounds in jazz as thrilling as a big band in full flight. And a big band led by Buddy Rich promises to send the listener's dials into the red. The live album Just In Time: The Final Recording delivers on the promise. When London club owner Ronnie Scott introduces Rich, he dispenses with ...
The Calle Stenman Quintet: Mr Sands Is In The Dressing Room
by Chris May
Welcome to the debut album from the self-proclaimed “roughest jazz group in Sweden," led by trumpeter, flugelhornist and composer Calle Stenman. By rough, Stenman's original Swedish text probably meant something akin to “raucous," for there is nothing untutored or blemished about the album, which has been carefully crafted. Four of the tunes—the hard boppish “Jazzkaban," post-boppish ...
Art Ensemble of Chicago 50th Anniversary
by Chris May
Art Ensemble of Chicago Barbican Hall Art Ensemble of Chicago 50th Anniversary London November 23, 2019 There is nothing in the rule book which says that a band celebrating its 50th anniversary must avoid new material and instead trawl through its back catalogue. And in ...
Ryan Porter: Force For Good
by Chris May
The Los Angeles jazz scene clustered around the community of session musicians known as the West Coast Get Down (WCGD), and its most prominent member (and now ex-session musician), Kamasi Washington, is a US equivalent of London's underground jazz scene. Both exist in parallel universes to the jazz establishment, both are culturally inclusive though peopled mainly ...
Blue Note Records Beyond The Notes
by Chris May
Blue Note Records Beyond The Notes Director: Sophie Huber Run Time: 111 minutes Eagle Rock Entertainment 2019 Blue Note fans will love this film. It is an unblemished, 360-degree, feel-good feast for the eyes and the ears. Intended by director Sophie Huber to make sense ...
Lyder Øvreås Røed: The Moon Doesn't Drink
by Chris May
A promising own-name debut from the Norwegian trumpeter, Lyder Øvreås Røed's The Moon Doesn't Drink has both feet planted in analogue-era jazz yet sounds wholly modern. Røed's melodic, intimate style and burnished tone may be reminiscent of pre-electric Miles Davis, but if this album comes across, at times, a bit like Davis' Kind Of Blue (CBS, ...
Ahmad Jamal: Trio & Quintet Recordings With Ray Crawford
by Chris May
This 2xCD reissue comprises three of Ahmad Jamal's early and mid 1950s trio albums plus a fourth recorded in 1960 with a quintet. Between times, Jamal had released the totemic trio set At The Pershing (Argo, 1958), which included the break-out single “Poinciana" (his first, equally lovely, 1955 recording of Nat Simon and Buddy Bernier's tune ...
