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Mississippi Heat: Let's Live It Up!
by Nic Jones
In times like these, the blues form is well-placed to reflect them, and with its sometimes fine balance of the urban and the down-home, Mississippi Heat is a band more than capable of doing it. Pierre Lacocque, a mouth harp virtuoso without any of the negative connotations such virtuosity might imply, has been ...
Ingrid Laubrock: Anti-House
by Nic Jones
Ingrid Laubrock's trajectory through the music reflects her choice of home. German-born, when she resided in London she was producing Latin jazz, but that proved to be only a passing phase. By the time of Forensic (F-IRE, 2004), it was clear that she was more intent on carving out an idiosyncratic space of her own. Now, ...
Mikrokolektyw: Revisit
by Nic Jones
In the booklet note for Revisit, the parallel between Poland and Chicago is pertinently pointed out in terms of climate. It stretches as far as the music, too, because this Polish duo is enthralled with one of the windy city's current musical strands. They owe a debt to the Chicago Underground Trio in the way they ...
Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys: Betweenwhile
by Nic Jones
Drummer Mike Pride is nothing if not busy, as a list of past collaborators including Milford Graves, George Lewis and Mary Halvorson shows. Such collaborations inevitably testify to his range, as does Betweenwhile, the second release by his working quartet. The trouble might be, however, that this very range dilutes the group's identity. ...
Sylvia Hallett / Mike Adcock: Reduced
by Nic Jones
The Spontaneous Music Ensemble lineup of drummer/cornetist John Stevens and soprano saxophonist Trevor Watts can, for countless reasons, serve as the template against which many another freely improvising duo can be gauged. That's an especially pertinent point with Reduced, as multi-instrumentalists Sylvia Hallett and Mike Adcock have fashioned a dialog every bit as rarefied as the ...
Ken Wheeler & The John Dankworth Orchestra: Windmill Tilter
by Nic Jones
It's easy to forget how long Canadian-born Kenny Wheeler has been making music. This, the first of his infrequent large ensemble recordings, was originally released back in 1969, and some thirteen years prior to that he was working in the quintet of baritone saxophonist Buddy Featherstonhaugh. Windmill Tilter offers the best of both ...
Mary Halvorson Quintet: Saturn Sings
by Nic Jones
One of the things that make Mary Halvorson's music so distinctive is the sense of flux which ensures that every release under the guitarist's own name seems like a report back from musical territories as yet uncharted. Making Saturn Sings something of a milestone, as the addition of horns might have had a ...
William Parker: I Plan To Stay A Believer
by Nic Jones
On the surface of it there might not seem to be much continuity between the music of William Parker's and Curtis Mayfield, but scratch away at it and the overlap is revealed. On a social level both men were/are activists, conscious of rights human as well as merely social and, on the basis of the evidence ...
David S. Ware: Onecept
by Nic Jones
In the press release for Onecept, David S. Ware makes much of the concept of spontaneous form. This is worth mentioning because the degree of continuity between notion and outcome is exceptional. Ware's work--and, indeed, his musical life, perhaps--is now at a stage where the reedman doesn't have to be combustible all the time, and it ...
Soft Machine: NDR Jazz Workshop –Hamburg, Germany 1973
by Nic Jones
By May, 1973, Soft Machine was well on its way from being a truly remarkable outfit to being a comparatively anonymous fusion band. This CD and DVD set goes to show this, but at least the music is played with the kind of fire that wasn't apparent on their studio albums of the time.
