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Article: Extended Analysis

Oriole: Every New Day

by Chris May
April 24, 2012

OrioleEvery New DayF-IRE2012Oriole's third album of sonorous South American and Iberian-flavored jazz has been some time coming. The London group, led by guitarist and composer Jonny Phillips, debuted with Song For The Sleeping in 2005 and followed up a year later with Migration (both F-IRE). There has been ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Jack Davies Big Band: The Jack Davies Big Band

by Chris May
April 23, 2012

Jack Davies Big BandThe Jack Davies Big BandV&V Music2012With its debut album, trumpeter and composer Jack Davies' big band has joined an elite strand of British orchestras--Loose Tubes, flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler's outfits and Colin Towns' Mask Orchestra prominent among them--which have enriched and expanded the original big band ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Indigo Kid: Indigo Kid

by Chris May
April 18, 2012

Indigo KidIndigo KidBabel Label2012Indigo Kid is the debut, one heckuva debut, by the British guitarist Dan Messore, fronting one heckuva quartet. Indigo Kid comprises two parts new talent and two parts young veterans. New talent is represented by Messore and drummer Gethlin Jones, experience by tenor saxophonist Iain ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Alex Hutton Trio: Legentis

by Chris May
April 12, 2012

Alex Hutton TrioLegentisF-IRE Records2012There has been a flurry of activity around screen composers this spring 2012, all of it good. Warner Jazz has released an anthology of movie theme music written by Nino Rota, Collector Nino Rota; British pianist John Taylor is poised to release a tribute to ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Various Artists: The Leopard Lounge Box Set

by Chris May
April 6, 2012

Various ArtistsThe Leopard Lounge Box SetWarner Jazz2012If you enjoy the TV series Mad Men, you are going to love The Leopard Lounge Box Set. Probably.You need to go know what you are getting into. Should you be offended by the thought of guitarist Barney Kessel hanging ...

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Article: Profile

Grand Union Orchestra: Music and Movement

by Duncan Heining
April 3, 2012

In March, 2012, The Grand Union Orchestra, one of the jazz world's finest and most ambitious ensembles, celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. Maybe you haven't heard of the band yet but if you have the chances are you'll revel in its kaleidoscopic blending of jazz and music from across the planet. Though based in the East End ...

Article: Extended Analysis

Nino Rota: Collector Nino Rota

by Chris May
April 3, 2012

Nino Rota was a composer who stretched the imagination, though he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a jazz composer. Classically trained, at the Milan conservatoire and Rome's Santa Cecilia academy, Rota composed ten operas, five ballets and a great amount of orchestral and chamber music. He counted Igor Stravinsky and Arturo Toscanini among ...

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Article: Profile

Jazz Musicians with Eccentricities

by Chris May
April 1, 2012

Some of the 20th century's greatest eccentrics were jazz musicians. That is no surprise, given the link which psychologists long ago suggested exists between creative thinking and “abnormal" behavior, and which has been confirmed by recent neurological research locating both activities within the same area of the brain. Trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong's lifelong ...

Article: Book Review

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise - Listening To The Twentieth Century

by Chris May
March 25, 2012

The Rest Is Noise: Listening To The Twentieth CenturyAlex Ross640 pages; hardcoverISBN: 978-1-84115-475-6Fourth Estate2008In summer 1944, a few weeks after Allied forces landed in Normandy, a new student arrived at the Paris home of composer Olivier Messiaen. “M. Boulez (pupil of Pierre Jamet) at ...

Article: Book Review

John Caps: Henry Mancini - Reinventing Film Music

by Chris May
March 10, 2012

Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film MusicJohn Caps312 pages; hardcoverISBN: 978-0-252-03673-6University of Illinois Press2012When the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's was released in 1961, its tag line promised: “It's everything you've always wanted to do--and Audrey Hepburn's the one you've always wanted to do it with." It ...