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265

Article: Album Review

Kit Downes Trio: Quiet Tiger

Read "Quiet Tiger" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
February 28, 2011

When it's time to follow up an album nominated for a major, mainstream award such as Britain's Mercury Prize, jazz artists face a conundrum. Having enjoyed a year or so of unprecedented publicity, and keen to keep it coming, the choice is between a carbon copy of the nominated album, designed to maintain the lucrative, but ...

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Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Part 20 - ?uestlove Curates Fela Kuti Vinyl Box

by Freddy Charles
February 27, 2011

Fela Anikulapo KutiFela Vinyl Box Set 1Knitting Factory Records2011 With the release of the eight-CD and download collection Fela Power Show: Batch 4, two of the strands in Knitting Factory Records' high-end Fela Kuti reissue project have come to a conclusion. All of Kuti's albums are now ...

283

Article: Extended Analysis

Stan Getz Quintette: Jazz At Storyville

by Chris May
February 25, 2011

Stan Getz QuintetteJazz At StoryvilleRoyal Roost1951 For his casual listeners, tenor saxophonist Stan Getz peaked during the bossa nova craze of the early to mid 1960s. And as Verve's five-disc, 2008 box set, The Bossa Nova Albums, reminded casual and committed listeners alike, Getz and bossa nova ...

345

Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Part 19 - Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band: Live

by Chris May
February 18, 2011

Chopteeth Afrofunk Big BandLiveGrigri Discs2011 Washington, DC-based Chopteeth isn't exactly an Afrobeat band, not all of the time anyway. Fela Kuti pieces figure in its set list, but so do “belle epoque" tunes from Guinea's Le Simandou De Beyla, Senegal's Orchestra Baobab, Congo's Tabu Ley Rochereau and ...

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Article: Extended Analysis

Stan Getz: Quintets - The Clef and Norgran Studio Albums

by Chris May
February 17, 2011

Stan GetzQuintets: The Clef & Norgran Studio AlbumsVerve/Hip-0 Select2011 A pleasure to handle and a thrill to play, this limited edition box set brings together all the quintet studio recordings made by tenor saxophonist Stan Getz for impresario Norman Granz's Clef and Norgran labels, soon to be ...

397

Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Part 18 - Seun Kuti talks about From Africa With Fury: Rise

by Chris May
February 12, 2011

Seun Kuti's From Africa With Fury: Rise, the follow-up to the ferocious Many Things (Tot Au Tard, 2008), is under starter's orders--and Afrobeat Diaries' sneak preview attests that it's a monster, a stone delight of epic proportions. Produced by Brian Eno with John Reynolds and Kuti, with additional input from dub wizard Godwin ...

252

Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Part 17 - Dele Sosimi: Identity

by Chris May
February 6, 2011

Dele SosimiIdentityHelico Records2007 Keyboard player and singer Dele Sosimi, a member of Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 from 1979-86 and Femi Kuti's Positive Force from 1986-94, returned to London, where he was born in 1963, in 1995. A decade and a half later, he leads three bands in ...

261

Article: Afrobeat Diaries

Part 16 - Dele Sosimi: Turbulent Times

by Chris May
January 21, 2011

Dele SosimiTurbulent TimesEko Star2002 Whatever you may think of musicals, and most people either love them or hate them, the New York and London productions of Fela! are to be welcomed. Both have been distinguished as much by their house bands as by their leading actors and ...

231

Article: Album Review

Led Bib: Bring Your Own

Read "Bring Your Own" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
January 18, 2011

Writing about Led Bib's Mercury Prize-nominated album, the raucous and confrontational Sensible Shoes (Cuneiform, 2009), Britain's Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun newspaper--which speaks with as much authority about jazz as Murdoch's Fox News speaks about politics--declared: “Led Bib are the band bringing jazz back to contemporary music's cutting edge." A slightly more measured response came from ...

346

Article: Album Review

Ballake Sissoko / Vincent Segal: Chamber Music

Read "Chamber Music" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
January 16, 2011

Until quite recently, the kora was a curiosity which generally required the bracketed explanation (a 16 or 21 string West African harp) when referred to in print. Today, with “world music" part of the cultural mainstream, the instrument is almost commonplace. More so, in jazz anyway, than the cello (a four string viol pitched above a ...