Results for "Nick Smart"

Nick Smart

Mammal Hands: Shadow Work

By PHIL BARNES

Our best musicians can soak up influences from many diverse sources, assimilate them into their own style, and allow them to emerge during improvisation. This is why, as readers of this site will surely be aware, a piece can sound different in the hands of two skilled jazz musicians even when the raw material of the ...

Eric Ineke: Surveying the European Jazz Scene

By VICTOR L. SCHERMER

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6[This is the fourth of the All About Jazz series on “The Many Faces of Jazz Today: Critical Dialogues" in which we explore the current state of jazz around the world with musicians, journalists, and entrepreneurs who give ...

Tom Green: A Man And His Trombone

By NICK DAVIES

Tom Green is a trombonist, composer and arranger described as “a new rising star in the British jazz scene" by Nigel Williams (Jazz FM). In 2014 he was mentioned three times as Jazzwise “One to Watch," and was the recipient of a Help Musicians UK Emerging Excellence award. He is a graduate of the Royal Academy ...

London Jazz Festival 2016

By DUNCAN HEINING

The London Jazz Festival, now in its 24th year, straddles the capital--its noble aim, as ever, is the provision of musical succour for the diverse tastes that make up the larger British jazz audience. You want mainstream, you'll find it. Looking for fusion, then look no further. Free jazz, bebop, blues? Step this way. Postjazz? Postjazz? ...

Mammal Hands: Floa

By PHIL BARNES

Mammal Hands debut album Animalia from autumn 2014 impressed with its emphasis on the overall collective effect over solo pyrotechnics, a choice that perfectly complemented the build and release of tension in the music. Of course in a trio set up the contributions of each member are always discernible and the twist of substituting Jordan Smart's ...

Bray Jazz 2016

By IAN PATTERSON

Bray Jazz Various venues jny:Bray, Ireland April 29 -May 1, 2016 With first-rate music festivals mushrooming all over Ireland, Bray Jazz remains a highlight in a crowded calendar. Now in its seventeenth year, Bray Jazz' tried and tested format strikes a pleasing balance musically, with jazz, folk and world musics in ...

Mammal Hands: Animalia

By PHIL BARNES

Tough economic times have seen a lot of musicians aggregate into trios of one sort or another of late. Sonically the more minimalist sound has the upside that it is more easily reproduced live and avoids the logistical and financial difficulties of maintaining a large ensemble. The trouble is that it becomes more and more difficult ...

Jack Davies: Inventing Himself

By DUNCAN HEINING

"Jack's formal education has given him useful tools but above all he has drive and determination and ideas, which cannot be taught." class="f-right">--Colin Towns, composer, bandleaderand producer of The Jack Davies Big Band (V&V, 2012). The jazz big band is a wondrous beast. Caught in movement and it's like a big cat, with ...

Jack Davies Big Band: The Jack Davies Big Band

By CHRIS MAY

Jack Davies Big BandThe Jack Davies Big BandV&V Music2012With its debut album, trumpeter and composer Jack Davies' big band has joined an elite strand of British orchestras--Loose Tubes, flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler's outfits and Colin Towns' Mask Orchestra prominent among them--which have enriched and expanded the original big band ...