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105

Article: Extended Analysis

Zoe Rahman: Kindred Spirits

by Chris May
January 26, 2012

Zoe RahmanKindred SpiritsManushi Records2012 Holy soul food, Batman! It feels good to listen to a musician who plays from the heart rather than the brain. Not that British pianist Zoe Rahman is deficient in the grey stuff or technique. She studied music at Oxford University, the Royal ...

117

Article: Extended Analysis

Ahmad Jamal Trio: The Legendary 1958 Pershing Lounge & Spotlite Club Recordings

by Chris May
January 25, 2012

Ahmad Jamal TrioThe Legendary 1958 Pershing Lounge & Spotlite Club PerformancesSolar Records2011 “Play like Jamal," trumpeter Miles Davis is reputed to have told his pianist Red Garland in the mid 1950s. We can but speculate how Garland reacted to this request, assuming the story is true. It ...

112

Article: Book Review

David Kastin: Nica’s Dream - The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness

by Chris May
January 6, 2012

Nica's Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness David Kastin W.W.Norton SBN: 9780393069402 Hardcover, 336 pages 2012 Wonderful woman, wonderful book. David Kastin's assiduously researched biography of Baroness Kathleen Annie Panonnica Rothschild de Koenigswarter (1913-88) brilliantly relates the life of the London-born heiress and last great private ...

100

Article: Extended Analysis

Al Kindi: Parfums Ottomans

by Chris May
January 4, 2012

Al KindiParfums OttomansLe Chant du Monde2012 (2007) Pianist Dave Brubeck and his quartet's exploration of “exotic" time signatures on the 1959 album Time Out (Columbia) was, for its era, strikingly adventurous. The disc's opening track, “Blue Rondo A La Turk," was in 9/8, and “Take Five" was ...

171

Article: Extended Analysis

Femi Temowo: Orin Meta

by Chris May
December 29, 2011

Femi TemowoOrin MetaFemitone Records2011 The British jazz and black music scene started beating a path to guitarist Femi Temowo's door ten years ago. No sooner had he graduated from Middlesex University with a degree in Jazz Studies than he was featured on jazz, rap and samples group ...

132

Article: Reassessing

Charles Lloyd Quartet: Love-In

by Chris May
December 26, 2011

Charles Lloyd QuartetLove-InAtlantic1967 Four-and-a-half decades after the event, saxophonist Charles Lloyd's Love-In, recorded live at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in 1967, the counterculture's West Coast music hub, endures as much as an archaeological artifact as a musical document. From sleeve designer Stanislaw Zagorski's treatment of Rolling Stone ...

157

Article: Just For Fun

Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: Jazz Aphorisms

by Chris May
December 23, 2011

For artists who express themselves in a non-verbal medium, jazz instrumentalists have come up with a bundle of choice aphorisms. Here are four attributed to, or about, tenor saxophonists, which were coined too late for inclusion in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff's Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1955).

153

Article: Reassessing

Clifford Brown: With Strings

by Chris May
December 22, 2011

Clifford BrownWith StringsEmarcy1955 Recordings setting soloists alongside string ensembles were not a staple of the bop years, but, when trumpeter Clifford Brown recorded With Strings, he had two illustrious predecessors. In 1946, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie recorded four Jerome Kern standards with an ensemble arranged by Johnny Richards. ...

175

Article: Radio & Podcasts

Charles Gayle: Holiday Selection

by Chris May
December 17, 2011

Downtown veteran, multi-instrumentalist Charles Gayle's style suits all sorts of situations. It works equally well as an irresistible morning wake-up call or an unusual choice of late night, post-coital soundtrack. Whether he is playing tenor saxophone or viola, once heard, Gayle is not quickly forgotten. With the holiday season upon us, the selection ...

146

Article: Reassessing

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out

by Chris May
December 15, 2011

Dave Brubeck QuartetTime OutColumbia1959 As the authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (Penguin, 1992-2008) observed, pianist Dave Brubeck's Time Out has become so familiar that “no one actually hears what's going on anymore." The album is one of two masterpieces made in ...