jazz
peter.quinn
Nobody could ever accuse pianist Vijay Iyer of having narrow tastes. This highly anticipated follow-up to his award-winning 2009 album, Historicity, runs the gamut from Heatwave's über-smooth slow jam, “The Star of the Story”, to the tricky contrapuntal games of Henry Threadgill's “Little Pocket Size Demons”. In the two and a half years since the making of Historicity the trio has been on the road pretty much constantly, and you sense from the very opening bars of Iyer's self-penned “Bode” an even more refined rhythmic concept, a greater attention to textural detail, and a more intense attack Read more ...
peter.quinn
Where the creative interconnections between hip hop, jazz and soul are concerned, Robert Glasper proves himself a master on Black Radio. Featuring an impressive roll call of guest singers and rappers, the pianist has finally made the album which brings together all of his musical predilections into a single whole, and the results are outstanding.With three Blue Note albums in the bag - Canvas (2005), In My Element (2007) and the Grammy-nominated Double Booked (2009) - the pianist clearly feels he's demonstrated his bona fide jazz chops, and devotes this first full-length album from his Read more ...
ash.smyth
So Homeland is here, and mid-ranking-CIA-operative Claire Danes is chasing Marine-Sergeant-and-possible-al-Qaeda-double-agent Damian Lewis all over the shop (but really only in their heads, so far), and neither of them is getting anywhere fast, so Claire goes home for a kip and sticks on some relaxing music, and would you Adam ‘n’ Eve it? – another bloody jazz nerd!Seriously, has anyone done research into the neurological links between analytical thought and jazz? Or whether the CIA does the bulk of its recruiting in Manhattan after-hours clubs? Or whether all spy dramas are now just Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's a whole world of music out there that floats in the zone somewhere between jazz, club music, sound art, contemporary classical and meditative new age background sound – so much of it that it all too easily blurs together. But there are artists who can make something more, and when you stumble on something truly individualistic like this album it shines out like a beacon in the fog. Like Santiago Latorre's first album, Órbita, but more expansive, this passes breathy saxophone sounds, voices singing in Spanish and Taiwan Chinese, field recordings, rhythm tracks and more through digital Read more ...
peter.quinn
Just how good is Gregory Porter's Be Good? Put it this way, over the course of a single song Porter can deliver an emotional payload which some jazz wannabes fail to achieve over an entire career. Combining the tropes of jazz and soul in an entirely seamless way, all wrapped up in a fabulously rich baritone, it's an album to relish from start to finish. The oft-made comparisons with the likes of greats such as Nat King Cole and Donny Hathaway appear far from fanciful.As heard on songs such as “Real Good Hands” and “Our Love” - the latter inspired by the imposing edifice of the Tower of London Read more ...
peter.quinn
Naturally 7 represent the point where close-harmony singing, beatboxing and spookily accurate instrumental imitation meet. The US septet call it "vocal play" - the voice as instrument - and last night they sent dopamine levels soaring in the Barbican. The group conveys the beat-driven swagger of hip hop, the freewheeling improv of jazz and the trenchant emotion of soul, often within the confines of a single song. Their arrangements, courtesy of MD Roger Thomas, possess such textural imagination and technical finesse that they're able to traverse genres seemingly without artifice.Part of the Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Come on, the cheeky title is endearing. So it’s not the Fats Waller lyric that John Lennon would have lifted onto the album cover, but Paul McCartney has often sung of frogs and little lambs, of blackbirds and bluebirds, and even at 69 is still in touch with his inner child. Never more productively than in this homage to the age of the big-band jazz standard he ingested at his father’s feet.It’s not as if this outburst of nostalgia doesn’t belong to a through-line. With the Fabs he ceded the floor to jaunty clarinets and muted trumpets in “When I’m Sixty-Four” and “Honey Pie”, then with Wings Read more ...
peter.quinn
Soweto Kinch's set last night as part of the eXplorations mini-series featured gluttony, envy and a host of other vices. No, not A Life in the Day of an Investment Banker, but a tantalising glimpse of Kinch's take on the Seven Deadly Sins.Presenting material from Kinch's most recent release (The New Emancipation) in the first half, “Trying to be a Star” set the mood for the entire evening: a riotous mix of sax, bass, drums, pre-recorded material and spoken/sung elements, with Kinch flexing his singing voice on the chorus hook. From the outset, his rhythm section of bassist Karl Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although they’ll still be filed under jazz, Portico Quartet’s third album takes them even closer to the ambient and trance they’ve been edging towards since they attracted attention in 2007 after the release of their Mercury-nominated debut, Knee Deep in the North Sea. It’s partly to do with the departure of founder member Nick Mulvey and his replacement with keyboard/percussion player Keir Vine, and also a natural progression.Much that’s familiar remains: Milo Fitzpatrick's pulsing, snappy bass, Jack Wyllie’s drifting, occasionally dissonant, sometimes squalling sax and the precision of Read more ...
peter.quinn
Recorded live at New York's Blue Note during a two-week residency, this double CD celebrating the music and legacy of the jazz pianist and composer, Bill Evans (1929-80), stirs the soul even as it breaks your heart a little. Drummer Paul Motian, a member of the first Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro on bass - widely recognised as one of the most influential piano trios in jazz - passed away in November last year.
Disc one sees piano maestro Chick Corea, together with Motian and another Evans alumnus, bassist Eddie Gomez, dusting down two Evans originals, “Peri’s Scope” from Portrait in Jazz Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
“He’s a praying mantis,” said the girl next to me, “but sexy.” True enough, even if Mr Bruce is a gangly long-limbed performer rather than an actual insect. I’ve seen him twice this year already, and he’s completely compelling on stage and as a dancer who moves like no one else out there.The first time was last week at a party or wake to mark the sad selling-off of Rosemary Works, a hive of studios in Islington where the entertainment included punk power-pop band Sabre Tooth Tiger and a girl who did a burlesque show dressed as Queen Elizabeth. Gloriana disrobed and shook her stuff, then Mr Read more ...
peter.quinn
The band's Facebook page states “Dirty Soulful Groovin Dancey Sweet” under genre. To which I'd add “Dramatic Playful Intense Voluptuous Transporting”. Performing last night as part of the London A Cappella Festival, The Boxettes swept away any residual festive cobwebs and dazzled a packed Kings Place. “Loosen your shirt, loosen your bow ties,” we were told. I have to confess I didn't actually see any bow ties, but, metaphorically speaking, we got the point.
The all-female, London-based vocal quintet comprises Belle “Bellatrix” Ehresmann - currently the female world champion beatboxer - plus Read more ...