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Rastko Obradovic Quartet: The Northern Experience
by Chris May
Heads up. New kid on the block. Rastko Obradovic is a 24-year old Serbian saxophonist with bags of talent. He has his own voice, is a characterful composer and resourceful arranger, and sounds like he has what it takes to go the distance. Born and raised in Belgrade, Obradovic studied Jazz Performance at the ...
Levitation Orchestra: Inexpressible Infinity
by Chris May
A lot of bull is talked about collective music-making, so it is good to come across a band who not only talk the talk but also walk the walk. Good, too, to come across a debut album that is as outstanding as the thirteen-piece Levitation Orchestra's Inexpressible Infinity. Vibrant, joyous and cosmopolitan, it joins Theon Cross's ...
Woody Shaw: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Vol. 1: Hamburg 1979
by Chris May
Woody Shaw was born a decade or so after quintessential hard-bop trumpeters Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard, Shaw's professed role model. He came to the party late but he came bearing gifts—a strong technique, an ability to play inside and outside with equal conviction, and a lot of soul. These qualities were to the ...
Sean Khan: Distant Voice
by Chris May
Sean Khan is among the most interesting of British jazz musicians, a prime exponent of jazz as rebel music with a unique voice. And yet, twenty years after he debuted with his band SK Radicals, Khan remains one of the scene's least celebrated players. Khan accurately describes himself as a “career outsider." Like another outsider, fellow ...
Charles Lloyd Quartet: Montreux Jazz Festival 1967
by Chris May
2018 and 2019 have seen more than one release of newly discovered material by jazz icons which have been hyped as masterpieces by the record label, but proven to be underwhelming on investigation, no more than marginally interesting artefacts for anyone other than completists and the star-struck. The John Coltrane albums Both Directions At Once: The ...
Lookout Farm: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975
by Chris May
Fasten your seat belt, please. Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach's club date with Lookout Farm barely lets up during an hour of ferocious jazz going on jazz-rock. It's in roughly the same bag as Miles Davis' post-Bitches Brew (CBS, 1970) electric albums, some of which had Liebman in the lineup. The tape lay in the vaults ...
Tribe: Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990 - 2014
by Chris May
Hot on the heels of Detroit trombonist and co-founder of the Tribe Phil Ranelin's Phil Ranelin Collected 2003—2019 (Wide Hive, 2019), comes another funked up spiritual-jazz beauty from the collective. The music on both albums is about as good as jazz ever gets and, given the social divisions being encouraged by reactionary politicians on both sides ...
Jean Toussaint: Live At The Jazz Cafe 091218
by Chris May
Most times, the transatlantic flow of jazz musicians is from east to west. Less frequently, as with Jean Toussaint's relocation from New York to London, it is contrariwise. Hot from four years as a member of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers's Jazz Messengers, Toussaint arrived in Britain in 1987. He soon established himself as a ...
Edward Burra, Aaron Douglas: Into The Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
by Chris May
Edward Burra, Aaron Douglas, Colette Omogbai, Uche Okeke, et al. Barbican Art Gallery Into The Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art London October 3, 2019 This evocative exhibition explores from a global perspective the role of cabarets, cafes and clubs in 1880s through late ...
Cheik Tidiane Seck: Timbuktu: The Music of Randy Weston
by Chris May
A well-intentioned tribute to the late pianist, composer and pioneer of Maghrebi jazz Randy Weston by the keyboard player Cheikh Tidiane Seck, Timbuktu: The Music of Randy Weston never really gets off the ground. Seck, whose c.v. includes spells with Mali's Super Rail Band de Bamako, Les Ambassadeurs, Salif Keita and Amadou & Mariam, and Senegal's ...
