Results for "Maisha"

Maisha

Chris May’s Best Releases Of 2020

By CHRIS MAY

Not the best year for live gigs in London, but Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra just made it under the wire, lighting up the Jazz Cafe in late January. Rather like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Sosimi's band has form as an incubator of young talent. A recent star in the making was trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, who has ...

Cindy Blackman Santana, Ben Wendel, Ellen Andrea Wang, Aaron Burnett and More

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

In the second part of this week's review of new and upcoming releases we focus on new projects by saxophonists Ben Wendel (as leader and sideman of Tom Guarna, Nubya Garcia (revisiting Joe Henderson for the Blue Note Re:imagined project, and as member of Maisha. Also noteworthy the new project of drummers Cindy Blackman Santana (with ...

Johanna Burnheart: Techno Jazz Shines A Light: New Directions In Music

By CHRIS MAY

A relatively new name on London's alternative jazz scene, the German-born violinist, vocalist and composer Johanna Burnheart has made a rapid ascent since leaving the city's Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2018. She has played on three of the scene's benchmark albums--spiritual-jazz band Maisha's There Is A Place (Brownswood, 2018), trombonist Rosie Turton's 5ive ...

Johanna Burnheart: Burnheart

By CHRIS MAY

The violin has an eventful history in jazz. But it is still a niche instrument, despite a line of singular players stretching back to Stephane Grappelli and Stuff Smith (who deserves some bonus points for composing the immortal “If You're A Viper"). There are no schools of jazz violinists, simply a succession of one-off stylists, with ...

Tamar Osborn: From Kalakuta To Collocutor: New Directions In Jazz

By CHRIS MAY

She has been likened to Gil Evans, Fela Kuti, Pharoah Sanders, Bismillah Khan and Mulatu Astatke, and the traditions represented by those musicians are all to be heard in the music of baritone saxophonist and composer Tamar Osborn. Osborn's aesthetic, however, is her own, and her band, Collocutor, is among the most distinctive on the British ...

Gary Bartz and Maisha: Night Dreamer Direct-To-Disc Sessions

By EMMANUEL DI TOMMASO

La storia della collaborazione fra il leggendario Gary Bartz e il collettivo di spiritual jazz Maisha risale al 2019, quando il DJ e produttore Gilles Peterson invitò il veterano del sax contralto a suonare al We Out Here Festival di Londra supportato dal collettivo fondato dal batterista Jake Long. Quella prima esibizione andò così bene che ...

Jorja Smith, Gary Bartz & Maisha, Jerry Granelli and More New Releases

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

The second part of this week's new and upcoming release special brings new gems by Angel Bat Dawid, Caleb Dolister, old gems in new bottles courtesy of Gary Bartz & Maisha and of Jorja Smith diving into the Blue Note catalogue for a neo-classic St. Germain, some family love by the Granellis and the electro-acoustic experimentations ...

Fire Music: When Jazz Speaks Out - Part 3

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

As Martin Luther King put it in the opening address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, “Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with ...

New Jazz From London: Top 20 Paradigm Shifting Albums

By CHRIS MAY

After a lifetime trying to get on an equal footing with its American parent, British jazz has finally come of age. Since around 2015, a community of young, London-based musicians has forged a style which, while anchored in the American tradition, reflects the Caribbean and African cultural heritages of many of its vanguard players. The scene ...