My favourite tracks on this album keep changing. At the moment it’s Mirrors with its dense structure and perfectly controlled transitions through nine-and-a-half minutes. It feels like a classical piece in the thoroughness of the writing and in the romantic… Read More ›
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LondonJazz: CD REVIEW: John Abercrombie Quartet – Up And Coming
Those who like Abercrombie’s wider emotional range on his albums of 20 years ago might find his more recent work a little too consistently mellow. To my ears the range might be restricted but the subtlety within these more constrained… Read More ›
Some of the 2016 CDs that nearly got away
These are just a few of the many CDs released in 2016 that thoroughly deserved a review but didn’t get one on this site. Well, not until now, and in brief… Nils Petter Molvaer – Buoyancy (Okeh Records): The trumpeter continues… Read More ›
Wolfgang Muthspiel – Rising Grace
(ECM) Full marks to the guitarist for his choice of band members. He leads Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet, Brad Mehldau on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass and Brian Blade on drums. Now you would have very high expectations with such… Read More ›
Keith Jarrett – A Multitude Of Angels
(ECM) This four-CD set gathers together four solo concerts the American pianist gave in Italy 20 years ago. In Modena, Ferrara, Torino and Genova over eight days, Jarrett seems to have brought all his experience, his knowledge and his energy… Read More ›
Jakob Bro – Streams
(ECM) The Danish guitarist’s previous trio disc for ECM, Gefion, had a quiet presence that was most attractive but this new one, again with Thomas Morgan on double bass but with Joey Baron replacing Jon Christensen behind the drum kit,… Read More ›
Andrew Cyrille Quartet – The Declaration Of Musical Independence
(ECM) Jazz doesn’t come much more sophisticated than this. The drummer Andrew Cyrille operates at a whole different level from the “regular beat”. This album opens with Coltrane Time, an obscure John Coltrane composition unrecorded by him, and only known… Read More ›
Tigran Hamasyan/Arve Henriksen/Eivind Aarset/Jan Bang – Atmosphères
(ECM) Following a performance at the 2013 Punkt Festival in which pianist Tigran Hamasyan collaborated with live sampler Jan Bang, ECM boss Manfred Eicher felt there was great potential for further music from the pair and this group, expanded to… Read More ›
September CD releases in brief
Here are paragraphs about some of the music I was listening to this past month which I couldn’t devote full reviews to: Pablo Held Trio – Lineage (Pirouet Records): Ten years together – it’s quite an achievement in these times of… Read More ›
Trygve Seim – Rumi Songs
(ECM) Like pianist Tord Gustavsen, saxophonist Trygve Seim is working with Sufi poetry and with a singer, and the results are similarly successful though very different in their sound and style. Seim – a very active player within the ECM stable, especially… Read More ›
Sinikka Langeland – The Magical Forest
(ECM) The Pan-Scandinavian Starflowers band of kantele player and vocalist Sinikka Langeland is further expanded on this latest recording, so in addition to Trygve Seim on saxophones, Arve Henriksen on trumpet, Anders Jormin on double bass and Markku Ounaskari on… Read More ›
Mats Eilertsen – Rubicon
(ECM) The Norwegian double bassist has always been a hugely supportive player and, given the chance to lead, he has on his recent albums on the Hubro label and now on his debut as a leader on ECM created a… Read More ›
Peter Erskine Trio – As It Was
(ECM Old and New Masters Series) This trio – the American drummer with Swedish double bassist Palle Danielsson and English pianist John Taylor – always sounded so distinctive to me, the albums sounding like no other trio’s. But I couldn’t… Read More ›
Glauco Venier – Miniatures
(ECM) Sometimes it’s the little things in life. This album from the Italian pianist is subtitled Music For Piano And Percussion, and, using his own compositions and adaptations of ones by Gurdjieff, Komitas and Guillaume Dufay, creates a very particular… Read More ›
June CD releases in brief
Here are paragraphs about some of the music I was listening to this month which I couldn’t devote full reviews to: Spirit In The Dark – Now Is The Time (Jazzland): We’ve have grown accustomed to – and it might… Read More ›
Miroslav Vitous – Music Of Weather Report
(ECM) In 2009 Czech bass player Miroslav Vitous remembered his old band with an album that evoked the spirit of the original Weather Report – Vitous was one of the founders of the jazz-fusion supergroup – without using any of its… Read More ›
Golfam Khayam & Mona Matbou Riahi – Narrante
(ECM) Both Golfam Khayam and Mona Matbou Riahi come from Iran, but both have lived outside the country for a while and had other musical interests ranging from contemporary classical music and some jazz (guitarist Khayam) and rock, jazz and free… Read More ›
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