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Jasmine Myra: Rising

by Chris May
The British alto saxophonist, flautist and composer Jasmine Myra is based in the north of England, which is far enough away from London to have its own distinctive jazz scene, much of which is in the ambit of auteur, trumpeter and producer Matthew Halsall, who founded the Manchester-based Gondwana label in 2008. More about this can ...
Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & Espen Berg: Maetrix

by Chris May
Lana and Lilly Wachowski's The Matrix (1999)--an inspiration for Norwegian pianist and composer Espen Berg's Maetrix--divides opinion. The movie is regarded by some, including one assumes Berg, as a prescient masterpiece addressing the existential threat posed to humanity by digital technology. Others say it is pretentious twaddle. No worries. Discord is unlikely to ...
John Alvey: Loft Glow

by Chris May
Such is the proliferation of albums which in the 2020s are taking jazz in new and exciting directions--see AAJ's Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition round-up here--that it is easy to pass over albums which have their feet firmly planted in the tradition, and which show no ambition to redefine it, but which are ...
WHO Trio: Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023

by Chris May
This jewel of an album was released just too late for inclusion in AAJ's Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition, where contributors were invited to name their three best albums released during the first half of the year (the article can be read here). But five gets you ten that it will be included ...
Amina Figarova & Matsiko World Orphan Choir: Suite For Africa

by Dan McClenaghan
Happenstance played a hand in two of pianist Amina Figarova's finest recordings. The first time around it was September Suite (Munich Records, 2005). Though based in the Netherlands at the time, Figarova was staying in New York City when the planes flew into the World Trade Center buildings on September 11th, 2001. The music for the ...
Denny Zeitlin: Panoply

by Dan McClenaghan
There was a Steinway in the Zeitlin household in the outskirts of Chicago in the early 1940s. During this time Denny Zeitlin would find his way to the piano playing parental laps and sit at the keyboard, where he, he says: I would put my little hands on their hands and go along for the ride...and ...
Whiplash In Concert At Barbican Hall

by Chris May
Multiquarium Big Band Barbican Hall Whiplash in ConcertLondon July 4, 2024 Studying at a music conservatoire can stifle an aspiring young jazz musician, and to inhabit for a moment the world of the Whiplash baddie Professor Terence Fletcher, there are times when one might wish it stifled more of ...
Arthur Verocai With Nu Civilisation Orchestra At Barbican Hall

by Chris May
Arthur Verocai with Nu Civilisation Orchestra Barbican Hall Arthur VerocaiLondon June 28, 2024 To begin where the evening ended, it surely must be that the phenomenal standing ovation which concluded Arthur Verocai's concert was the most tumultuous ever heard in Barbican Hall. It was loud enough literally to hurt the ...
Linda Sikhakhane: Iladi

by Chris May
It is beyond coincidence that the two most uplifting albums released by male saxophonists so far in 2024 were made by players who use their music, in part, to celebrate female wisdom. The albums are Linda Sikhakhane's Iladi and Oded Tzur's My Prophet (ECM). New York-based Tzur's My Prophet, like its immediate predecessor, ...
Larry Nozero: Time

by Chris May
Here is an odd one. Originally released on the short-lived Detroit label Strata in 1975, Larry Nozero's Time defies categorization. First-generation spiritual jazz, Henry Mancini, Motown, strings (real and synthed), the Swingle Singers, Braziliana and Shaft era Isaac Hayes jostle around the mic, along with Sibylline hints of Kamasi Washington. Is it for real? Is it ...