Jazz in Elsewhere
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Vallon, Moret, Rohrer: Rruga (ECM/Ode)
11 Apr 2011 | <1 min read
This is ECM piano trio jazz certainly, but young pianist/composer Colin Vallon brings something different and unusual to these 11 pieces, most of which are his originals or by drummer Samuel Rohrer. (There are two by bassist Patrice Moret). It is hard to put your finger on but you might say his playing has the pace, phrasing and emphasis of a conversation -- and it turns out Moret is a... > Read more
Vallon, Moret, Rohrer: Rruga, variation
TROMBONE SHORTY INTERVIEWED (2011): Born to blow
9 Apr 2011 | 7 min read | 1
Troy Andrews – better known as Trombone Shorty – is one of the rising stars of the New Orleans jazz scene. But he had a head start, he was playing trombone in local brass bands when he was six. He attended the same arts college as Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jnr, got out and played with rock bands (Lenny Kravitz, was with U2 and Green Day when they played... > Read more
Trombone Shorty: Hurricane Season (from the album Backatown)
Samsom Nacey Haines: Oxide (Rattle Jazz)
5 Apr 2011 | 1 min read | 1
Although the names up top -- drummer Ron Samsom, guitarist Dixon Nacey and bassist Kevin Haines -- suggest a spare, piano-less trio, the guests here include guitarist Joel Haines, pianist Kevin Field, singer Chris Melville, Neville Grenfell on fluegelhorn and saxophonist Roger Manins. And these players must have waited all their lives for a local label like Rattle Jazz -- committed to, and... > Read more
Samsom Nacey Haines: Locked (guitar solos by Joel Haines then Dixon Nacey)
Julia Hulsmann Trio: Imprint (ECM/Ode)
30 Mar 2011 | <1 min read
While few would deny the gentle beauty of these trio recordings (and, not incidentally, the impressive playing of drummer Heinrich Kobberling), this too often suffers the fate of some similarly-conceived ECM albums: much of it just evaporates before your ears and it is only when applying diligent listening that it gives itself up to you. Hulsmann's compositions can be very attractive -- the... > Read more
Julia Hulsmann Trio: Who's Next
THE VERVE LABEL: Fifty-plus years, and what's the forecast?
18 Mar 2011 | 5 min read
Sometimes, if we are lucky we can be at historic events. But we might not realise it until later. If a historic event is the Foo Fighters first recording as a band -- and remember Dave Grohl did the band's debut album himself -- then I can immodestly claim to have been there. It was in a BBC studio in London, Pat Smear lit one after another beneath the No Smoking sign, while Grohl was... > Read more
Joe Henderson: Miles Ahead (with John Scofield, Dave Holland and Al Foster, from the 1993 Verve albu
JACK DeJOHNETTE INTERVIEWED (2011): Two Jacks and a Miles
2 Mar 2011 | 7 min read
When fame called on Jack DeJohnette during his period in Miles Davis' innovative electric band of the late Sixties and early Seventies, he was ready for it. Acclaim outside their own world is unusual for jazz musicians, but DeJohnette had tasted it a few years previous in the Charles Lloyd Quartet which enjoyed that rarity, a jazz album which was a hit. Forest Flower, recorded live... > Read more
Sonny Rollins Trio: Shadow Waltz (Solar/Southbound)
28 Feb 2011 | 1 min read
Although now 80 and still playing at the time of this writing, the problem tenor giant Rollns has faced from the Sixties onwards is that no matter how great he plays, his every accomplishment is almost invariably compared to his exceptional work between 1955 and '58. That was when he recorded Saxophone Colossus, Way Out West, the set which became A Night at the Village Vanguard and Freedom... > Read more
Sonny Rollins: Till There Was You
CHARLIE PARKER: A life and musical shards of light
28 Feb 2011 | 11 min read | 1
Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in his characteristically clipped manner once observed that “the history of jazz can be told in four words: Louis Armstrong – Charlie Parker.” In offering those two names Davis highlighted two vastly different lives and two facets of genius. Armstrong was undoubtedly one of the great artists of the 20th century and, although his reputation as... > Read more
Esperanza Spalding: Chamber Music Society (Head Up)
20 Feb 2011 | 1 min read
Because we could safely assume few aggrieved Justin Bieber followers will ever come to Elsewhere, it is safe to write about this hitherto little-known jazz singer-composer-bassist who won the Grammy for Best New Artist over the glorious child who has been the sensation of the Twitter Generation. At first blush you can forgive their anger that their man -- boy? -- didn't win because he... > Read more
Esperanza Spalding: What Friend
SHEZ RAJA PROFILED (2011): Jazz with a world view
10 Feb 2011 | 1 min read | 2
British jazz bassist Shez Raja confounds expectation in the best possible way. A scan of reviews and comments in the British press for the Shez Raja Collective (which included saxophonist Andy Sheppard and trumpeter Claude Deppa on the new album Mystic Radikal) refer to funkmeister Bootsy Collins and Marcus Miller (behind Miles Davis albums such as Tutu), Stanley Clarke and the Mahavisnu... > Read more
Shez Raja Collective: Karmic Flow
FREEDOM, RHYTHM AND SOUND: Jazz with a raised fist and a copy of Malcolm X speeches in the other hand
31 Jan 2011 | 3 min read
Few people today -- musicians included -- consider rock or jazz as “political”, even in the broadest sense of the word. Yet back in the late 60s and through the 70s large areas of both certainly were. Less than a year after that remarkable year 1968 (student demonstrations, assassinations, political oppression and revolutionary activity) the dialogue changed. Jefferson... > Read more
Archie Shepp: Attica Blues
Blood and Burger: Guitar Music (Derniere Bande)
24 Jan 2011 | 1 min read
The great jazz, post-Hendrix and entirely Elsewhere guitarist James Blood Ulmer delivered exceptional albums of post-Ornette Coleman harmolodic music such as Tales of Captain Black and Are You Glad To Be In America on John Snyder's short-lived but creditable Artist House label. But then he slowly evaporated from critical sight. His albums on CBS in the... > Read more
Blood and Burger: Long Legged Fly
JOE LA BARBERA PROFILED: Counting the beats
24 Jan 2011 | 5 min read
For some reason - perhaps because they work in a loud profession - you expect drummers to shout. Few do, and while Joe La Barbera may have started his career in the appropriately named Thundering Herd led by Woody Herman, the quietly spoken drummer doesn't shout about it, and doesn't bellow about his illustrious career either. For the past decade he has taught percussion at the... > Read more
Trygve Seim/Andreas Utnem: Purcor; Songs for Saxophone and Piano (ECM/Ode)
23 Jan 2011 | <1 min read
On a blindfold test -- "What record label is this on?" -- my money would be on greater than 90 percent of music-aware Elsewhere people saying immediately "ECM", and about half of those left over making an inspired guess and saying the same. Much as this is all things which its oddly under-claiming promo makes for it ("a thoughtful and reflective album, of great... > Read more
Siem/Utnem: Bhavana
MILES DAVIS, A TRIBUTE TO JACK JOHNSON: And a fighter by his trade . . .
14 Jan 2011 | 4 min read | 3
An inch over six feet and usually weighing in just under 200 pounds. Jack Johnson was perfectly proportioned for a heavyweight fighter. But as a kid in Galveston, Texas in the 1880s, he let his older sisters fight for him. At 12, Johnson jumped a ship for New York, returning a year later to work on the docks where he had his share of beatings. So he took boxing... > Read more
Right Off (extract only)
DAVE BRUBECK (2011): A jazz life of constant discovery
10 Jan 2011 | 3 min read
Dave Brubeck, whose hit album in 1958 was Time Out, understands time better than most of us. In December 2010 he turned 90 and although ailing, as expected, he had been playing right up until his late 80s – and been collecting awards and accolades. For many jazz listeners and critics Brubeck was always considered an intellectual rather than an instinctive musician, although the... > Read more
Dave Brubeck Quartet: Three To Get Ready (from At Carnegie Hall, 1963)
FREE JAZZ WITH A BLEEP: The Norwegian electronic-jazz label Rune Grammofone
23 Dec 2010 | 5 min read
Thelonious Monk said, "Jazz and freedom go hand in hand”. We can guess he meant freedom in a political sense, because jazz is about individual expression and in that regard was a vehicle for the aspirations of his people. It's about freedom and post-Monk found its voice in free jazz. Free jazz is much maligned, largely because it’s difficult to assimilate and... > Read more
Arve Henriksen: Inside Tea-House
John Niland: Barnett Lane (Eelman/Jayrem)
5 Dec 2010 | 1 min read | 1
Here's a surprise: I hadn't heard of pianist Niland since his Inside album of the mid Eighties which he recorded with drummer Ross Burge and bassist Rob Mahoney in Wellington's Marmalade Studios. It was nomintaed for Jazz Album of the Year at the annual music awards (I'm sure I voted for it) and then Niland was off to Sydney. And here he is again after al these decades. Although this... > Read more
John Niland: Barnett Lane
THE ACT LABEL, SIGNATURE EDITION (2010): Getting their ACT acts together
5 Dec 2010 | 5 min read
There is something smart about a record label adopting the idea of generic covers: certainly the distinctive Reid Miles design for covers for Blue Note (frequently using Frank Wolff's photos) became a hallmark of quality, and ECM came into the world (after a false start) with those cool, enigmatic photos which gave little away but sugested interesting contents within the sleeve. The Rattle... > Read more
Nguyen Le and Dhafer Youssef (on oud): Zafaran (2006)
MILES DAVIS AND QUINCY JONES AT MONTREUX: The circle is unbroken
29 Nov 2010 | 4 min read
It was emblematic of the soul rebel career of Miles Davis that in his final years he was painting as much as he was playing, had a cameo spot in a movie (Dingo) playing a pre-electric period jazz trumpeter, exchanging tapes with Prince, recorded with rapper Eazy Mo Bee and – most surprising of all turned up at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991 to play some classic tunes from his... > Read more