Home » Search Center » Results: John Sharpe
Results for "John Sharpe"
John Sharpe's Best Jazz Albums Of 2023
by John Sharpe
From the 200 or so discs that I heard in 2023, here are ten new issues and one archival release, which gave me the most pleasure. As always these picks are entirely subjective. And take no account of the many other albums that I would no doubt have loved if I had heard them. So perhaps ...
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia With Love
by John Sharpe
The combination of James Brandon Lewis' impassioned tenor saxophone and songs associated with gospel singer and Civil Rights activist Mahalia Jackson is a match made in heaven. On For Mahalia, With Love by his Red Lily Quintet, Lewis retains the crack squad which made Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms, 2021) a success. Even though Lewis has a ...
bBb: Animal Quotes
by John Sharpe
Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen practices at least two distinct modes of expression. One is the variously sized Angles ensembles he fronts, which present sometimes exuberant, sometimes heart-rending riff-fuelled anthems to the acclaim of festival crowds across Europe. He also partakes of more arcane pursuits, using his saxophones as tools to examine the very question of what ...
Stephen Gauci / Michael Bisio / Whit Dickey: Live At Scholes Street Studio
by John Sharpe
Tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci sends another vital missive from the Brooklyn coal face, titled like several of its predecessors Live At Scholes Street Studio. Gauci has the knack of surrounding himself with top notch company and this is no exception. Joining him are two of the more seasoned avant jazz practitioners on the New York scene, ...
Barry Guy Blue Shroud Band: all this this here
by John Sharpe
Bassist and composer Barry Guy combines a number of his passions on All This This Here in a stunning act of synthesis. For the third major work for his Blue Shroud Band, following its eponymous debut (Intakt, 2016) and Odes And Meditations For Cecil Taylor (Not Two, 2018), Guy sets to music Nobel winning playwright Samuel ...
Matthew Shipp & Mark Helias: The New Syntax
by John Sharpe
Pianist Matthew Shipp particularly favors the duo format. Among a discography of more than 300 entries are winning combinations with partners as varied as trumpeter Nate Wooley, violist Mat Maneri, and saxophonists Darius Jones, Rob Brown and Evan Parker. But he retains a special fondness for the bass/piano twosome, accounting for multiple meetings with longtime comrade ...
Paul Dunmall / Olie Brice: The Laughing Stone
by John Sharpe
Reedman Paul Dunmall and bassist Olie Brice have collaborated on many occasions, with Palindromes (West Hill Records, 2020) and John Coltrane 50th Memorial Concert At Cafe Oto (Confront, 2019) only the most recent offerings. They supplement that tally with The Laughing Stone, a studio duet captured in November 2021 in Birmingham, England. Now one of ...
Yuji Takahashi / Sabu Toyozumi: The Quietly Clouds And A Wild Crane
by John Sharpe
Unlike most drum and piano duets, where the keyboard gets all the best lines, Sabu Toyozumi and Yuji Takahashi craft a truly egalitarian meeting of minds on The Quietly Clouds And A Wild Crane. Recorded in 1998, it represents another bulletin from the vital Japanese free scene of the period issued by the Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint ...
Matt Mitchell: Oblong Aplomb
by John Sharpe
On Oblong Aplomb pianist Matt Mitchell pays homage to the drummers in his life. In a way, it can be seen as a follow-up to his debut Fiction (Pi Recordings, 2013). That album, a duet with stickman Ches Smith, originated from Mitchell's practice of warming up for gigs with Tim Berne's Snakeoil by running through a ...
Thermal: Ice In A Hot World
by John Sharpe
A group which played their first concert in a disused Brussels train station in the early 2000s shows it still knows how to unsettle on Ice In A Hot World. It is only the second album during this time from saxophonist John Butcher, analog synthesizer player Thomas Lehn and guitarist Andy Moor, who ply their trade ...
