Home » Search Center » Results: Chris May

Results for "Chris May"

Article: Album Review

Traeben: Push

by Chris May
July 2, 2012

With a Danish frontline and Dutch rhythm section, Den Haag-based Træben draws much of its inspiration from the chamber jazz which came out of Los Angeles and San Francisco in the late 1950s and 1960s. Hummable melodies, cool swing, mellifluous improvisation. The whisper rises to a conversational murmer but rarely raises its voice. This is sunny, ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Ray Charles: The Complete ABC Recordings 1959-1961

by Chris May
July 2, 2012

Ray CharlesThe Complete ABC Recordings 1959-1961Le Chant du Monde2012At first glance, it's a mystery. Why choose 1961 as the cut-off point for a collection spanning the first years of singer/keyboardist Ray Charles' lengthy tenure with ABC-Paramount? Extend that to 1962, and even within the 3-CD confines of The ...

Article: Catching Up With

Christian Scott: Shining a Light

by Chris May
June 19, 2012

Trumpeter/bandleader Christian Scott's aTunde Adjuah (Concord, 2012), like its immediate predecessor, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (Concord, 2010), delivers on two fronts. Musically, it retains what is precious in the jazz tradition, while drawing in ideas from hip hop, rock, funk, ambient and Afrorock. Extra-musically, it reaffirms jazz as protest music. Born and brought up ...

Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Criolo: Nó Na Orelha

by Chris May
June 16, 2012

CrioloNó Na OrelhaSterns Music2012There may be an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, but there's not an awful lot of Afrobeat. So here's some qualitative easing: the opening track on singer/rapper Criolo's Nó Na Orelha ("knot in the ear"). “Bogotá" has the rhythms, a turbulent horn arrangement, chopping ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Spirits Up Above - The Atlantic Years 1965-1976

by Chris May
June 14, 2012

Rahsaan Roland KirkSpirits Up Above: The Atlantic Years 1965-1976Warner Jazz2012He was as funky as singer James Brown. With three horns in his mouth, he sounded like the entire JB reed section. And onstage, with a truckload of instruments around his neck, he was the hardest working man in ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Christian Scott: aTunde Adjuah

by Chris May
June 11, 2012

In 1959, when Whitney Balliett, the New Yorker's jazz critic, published a collection of his columns, he titled the book The Sound of Surprise. The promise of the unexpected, wrote Balliett, was jazz's most precious quality. In a year which went on to include the release of trumpeter Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Columbia), saxophonist John ...

Article: Extended Analysis

John Taylor: Giulia's Thursdays

by Chris May
June 5, 2012

John TaylorGiulia's ThursdaysCam Jazz2012There has been a flurry of activity around film music this spring/summer 2012, all of it good. Warner Jazz has released an anthology of movie themes written by the Italian composer Nino Rota, Collector Nino Rota; Alex Sutton's piano trio took northern European movie composers ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Astor Piazzolla and Manos Hadjidakis: L'Ultime Concert

by Chris May
May 24, 2012

Astor Piazzolla and Manos HadjidakisL'Ultime ConcertWarner Jazz2012Astor Piazzolla's international breakthrough albums, Tango: Zero Hour and The Rough Dancer And The Cyclical Night (Nonesuch, 1986 and 1991), were made with small groups, with which the bandoneonist and composer is still most commonly associated outside Argentina. But Piazzolla also wrote ...

Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Part 25 - Ben Zabo: It's a Blinder - But It's Not Afrobeat

by Chris May
May 18, 2012

Ben ZaboBen ZaboGlitterhouse Records2012The extraordinary success of the musical Fela!, and the resurgence of interest in all things Fela Kuti, has made “Afrobeat" a popular buzzword among label publicists. The invocation is often fanciful; albums claiming to be Afrobeat releases regularly land at Afrobeat Diaries which have little, ...

195

Article: Extended Analysis

Dave Stapleton: Flight

by Chris May
May 1, 2012

Dave StapletonFlightEdition2012Dave Stapleton is a multi-tasker of Olympian energy and talent. That is not a new observation, but as the pianist and record company director's outputs increase, it bears repeating. As well as operating the Edition label, which has released 30 albums of immaculately-recorded British and European jazz ...