Jazz in Elsewhere
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Alan Brown: Between the Spaces (Ode)
8 Nov 2011 | 1 min read
New Zealand keyboard player Alan Brown -- who has previously been in Blue Train and is currently in the Grand Central Band -- is on record saying that rather than writing a jazz album he wanted all his influences, classical to electronica and rock, to find their voice with his quartet for this release. And with saxophonist Nathan Haines guesting and string players alongside guitarist Andy... > Read more
Phonology
NILS-HENNING ORSTED PEDERSEN INTERVIEWED (2001): All basses covered
31 Oct 2011 | 4 min read
Think jazz and you invariably think the saxophone. Or trumpet. Or piano. Rarely does the acoustic bass, that pulse and often warm soul of this difficult improvised art form, come to mind. And even if it did, who could immediately conjure up the staggeringly long name of Denmark's pre-eminent practitioner? Yet the CV of Nils-Henning Orsted Pedersen lists performances alongside some... > Read more
Konitz, Mehldau, Haden, Motian: Live at Birdland (ECM/Ode)
9 Aug 2011 | <1 min read
A 2009 ECM superstar session where Lee, Brad, Charlie and Paul played standards (Lover Man, Lullaby of Birdland, Oleo etc) from which this finely wrought, sensitive selection was drawn. Pianist Mehldau offers exquisite, refined and sometimes dissonant solos which seduce or bring astringency in the turn of phrase. Some of this is so spare as to barely be there (Lover Man), at other... > Read more
Lullaby of Birdland
The New Fuse Box: The Wakem/Nielson Project (LGW)
8 Jul 2011 | 1 min read
A little clarifying chronology here might be useful when teasing out the threads of this Auckland jazz group. As I recall their debut album The Politiks of Jazz (just credited to Fuse Box) arrived in about 2000 and the group consisted of keyboard player Lindsay Wakem (who composed eight of the 10 tracks), guitarist Frans Huysmans, drummer Jason Orme and bassist Phil Scorgie. That was... > Read more
You Are Further and Further Away
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MILES DAVIS; TUTU 25 YEARS ON: Hope you like my new direction?
13 Jun 2011 | 4 min read
Depending on when he was talking and the mood he was in, Miles Davis would claim to have changed the direction of music three – or four – times. No one would doubt the impact of Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew – which might make the “three”. But the fourth? Although it didn't change the course of music as he might have wanted to... > Read more
Miles Davis: Splatch
Mathias Eick: Skala (ECM/Ode)
23 May 2011 | 1 min read
As mentioned in a review of one his earlier albums, The Door (here), Norwegian trumpeter Eick has an inclusive approach to his art and has played in many different contexts, from big bands to psychedelic rock groups and in small, introverted jazz outfits. This time out he gets in two drummers (very discreet, you'd hardly know it), electric bass and piano (and guests on sax, harp and... > Read more
Matthias Eick: June
SONNY ROLLINS INTERVIEWED (2011): The old lion still prowling
16 May 2011 | 6 min read
Gary Giddins, the authoritative US jazz critic, said of tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins that he was “one of the last immortÂals, the most powerful presence in jazz today. He is its most cunning, surprising and unpredictable improviser – the one musician whose infrequent concert appearances foster intense anticipation and heated postmortems.” Giddins wrote that in 1996.... > Read more
Various Artists: Chris Barber; Memories from My Trip (Proper)
16 May 2011 | 1 min read
People like the great British bandleader/singer/trombonist and bassist Chris Barber were all but washed away when the British blues explosion and the Beatles/Stones et al came along in the early Sixties. As one associated with British jazz and blues, Barber -- by then terminally old because he was in his early 30s -- just seemed like a man from another era. And he was: Lonnie Donegan's big... > Read more
Chris Barber and Rory Gallagher: Can't be Satisfied
Dave Lisik: The Curse of the Queen's Diamond (Rattle Jazz)
2 May 2011 | 1 min read | 2
Yet another fine addition to the Rattle Jazz imprint, this beautifully packaged album by Canadian-born, New Zealand-based trumpeter Lisik (and others) explores that profitable margin between chamber jazz and classical music. And in that he has unimpeachable assistance; Amy Rempel is on piano and her improvisations are at the heart here, bass clarinettist Colin Hemmingsen has always played... > Read more
Dave Lisik: Mercy
TAL FARLOW (1921- 1998): Fading, like notes in the breeze
21 Apr 2011 | 2 min read
It is a very curious thing that as pop and rock music -- which never used to argue for longevity -- are constantly excavating their pasts and delivering collections of their most minor or ephemeral talents, that jazz --- which Leonard Feather famously called "the classical music of the 20th century" -- is letting many of finest practitioners fade from memory. Guitarist Tal Farlow... > Read more
Tal Farlow Trio: Yesterdays
Trombone Shorty: Backatown (Verve Forecast)
17 Apr 2011 | <1 min read | 1
This hot young trombonist, trumpeter and singer from New Orleans -- who plays the National Jazz Festival in Tauranga at Easter, and is interviewed here -- brings more than just the local funk and groove to his style. There is a gritty guitar part all over the urgent opener Hurricane Season here (and on the political/socially responsible Right to Complain, and metal-edged Suburbia) and he... > Read more
Trombone Shorty: In the 6th
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