jazz
Tim Cumming
Emma Smith, one time Puppini Sister, has established herself over the past decade or so as one of the UK’s most compelling jazz singers, now signed to hip Brooklyn label La Reserve, with Bitter Orange, a new album of classics from the Great American Songbook. The 2024 Parliamentary Jazz Vocalist of the Year launched the album from the stage of Ronnie Scott’s over four sets across two hot, high-summer Soho nights.She’s got artistry and showbiz all sewn up in one body-sculpting outfit, and between songs delivered very funny, sassy and illuminating asides – best of which was a story about her Read more ...
joe.muggs
I like to think I’m open to most things, but even so I never thought that I’d be getting an education in prog metal in the summer of 2025. Let alone that it would be from groovy young Brit jazz players. But so it goes. Last week I interviewed the Wakefield-via-London trumpeter / singer / composer Emma-Jean Thackray and she revealed a youthful penchant for Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment, King Crimson and even Marillion.This provided a suden “ahhh” moment, illuminating certain tendencies in her music. And now comes South Londoner Mansur Brown’s third album proper, which kicks off Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There can be few musicians on the planet from a more storied musical dynasty than Mádé Kuti. He is the son of Femi, the grandson of Fela. He grew up in and around Femi’s New Afrika Shrine in Lagos, international hub of all things Afrobeat. A multi-instrumentalist from an early age, and a member of his father’s band, he now cuts loose on his own. His second solo album showcases a mighty compositional talent.Mádé released an initial solo effort in 2020 but it was part of his father’s Legacy+ double package. So, in some ways, as per its title, Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From? is his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Wheels of Fire was Cream’s third album. Issued in the US in June 1968 and in the UK two months later, it was a double LP. One record was of live recordings, the other of studio material. Of the nine tracks on the latter, three were co-written by the band’s drummer Ginger Baker – who wrote the lyrics – and British jazz pianist/composer Mike Taylor.This was the closest Taylor got to the mainstream. The tracks recorded by Cream – "Passing the Time," "Pressed Rat and Warthog" and "Those Were the Days" – also appeared as the B-sides of singles. In the UK and the US, “Pressed Rat and Warthog” was Read more ...
Guy Oddy
As the name suggests, the Near Jazz Experience owe a huge musical debt to jazz, but that’s not the full story by any means. For a start, the rhythm section has more in common with the motorik groove of Can and the general atmosphere is closer to the soundtracks of ‘60s TV shows and films like The Avengers and Bullitt than any of Miles Davis’ famous ensembles.For those unfamiliar with the band, they are a trio of musical veterans, comprising Madness bassist, Mark Bedford, saxophone slinger for hire, Terry Edwards and his former Higsons’ confederate, Simon Charterton on drums. None of their Read more ...
peter.quinn
This second album from London-based septet Kokoroko welcomes you into its warm embrace with the gorgeous, beatific vocal harmonies of “Never Lost” anchored by drummer Ayo Salawu's pulsating backbeat. A horn-driven celebration of West African disco, the unexpected key change in "Sweetie" catches you delightfully off-guard and epitomises the album's spirit of musical adventure. The hypnotic neo-soul sound-world of "Closer To Me" sees Duane Atherley's fluid bass line providing the foundation for an uplifting summer anthem. Meanwhile, the deeply personal "My Father in Heaven" strips Read more ...
mark.kidel
There's something luminous about the Brad Mehldau Trio. The music they create with such joy shines with a special clarity, in which ever-changing forms constantly reveal lines of shared thought, explicitly, yet purveying an abiding sense of wonder. Intellect – and there is plenty of that – is matched here with the fire of inspiration and the thrill of constant surprise.There are so many facets to the lucid dreaming that’s played out by these three exceptional musicians – Felix Moseholm on bass and Jorge Rossy on drums, and the maestro himself. There’s no end to the thrill of intimate Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHFrank From Blue Velvet I Am Frank (Property of the Lost) + Column258 Interloper (The Workshop Sessions, Volume One) (Property of the Lost)Hastings label Property of the Lost has grown into a potent force, its stable of artists impressive, usually attached to a US-indebted garage aesthetic. Local band Frank From Blue Velvet’s eponymous 2022 debut was a tasty amalgam of southern gothic country filtered through punk sensibilities, its stand-out song, “Church of Prosperity” a deathless hit at Theartsdesk on Vinyl Mansions. I Am Frank steps forward and sideways, offering a Read more ...
Sarah Kent
It’s unusual to leave an exhibition liking an artist’s work less than when you went in, but Tate Britain’s retrospective of Edward Burra manages to achieve just this. I’ve always loved Burra’s limpid late landscapes. Layers of filmy watercolour create sweeping vistas of rolling hills and valleys whose suggestive curves create a sexual frisson.Take Valley and River, Northumberland 1972 (pictured below right), for instance. A spring emerges from a fold in green hills that resemble limbs. The landscape doubles as a body, with an inviting recess nestling between parted thighs.These pastoral Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first time her playing really leaps out on her new album is during second cut “Carved Form,” where it weaves through the arrangement. A guitar solo arrives just over a minute in: precise yet slippery, it complements the early space-age feel of the Pocket Piano synthesiser she also contributes to the track.The album’s cover image aptly captures the interplay defining About Ghosts. Just as the ghosts in the illustration slip through each other, each player Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHEmily Saunders Moon Shifts Oceans (The Mix Sounds)It’s de rigeur nowadays, if you love music, to love Joni Mitchell. She is, of course, a great soul, but her music never connected here. That said, I have a favourite Joni Mitchell song. It’s the 1975 number “The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines”. I also have a soft spot for the parent album, Mingus. Mitchell was accompanied on it by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius. A red hot line-up. Jazz fusion usually goes down like cold sick round here but Mitchell's foray is the exception to the rule. A decade ago Emily Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Songlines Encounters is your round-the-world ticket to great world music and performances, a chance to travel widely in music and culture without the burden of check-ins, passport control, flight delays, or transfers. All you need do is get to Kings Place over this weekend for a festival of world music that encompasses Mali in West Africa, with Rokia Kone from the striking and sensational Amazones d’Afrique on Friday night’s menu, paired in Hall 2 with Kurdish-Anatolian singer Olcay Bahir, who mixes her own songs with Anatolian folk songs.To open on Thursday, audiences had a pairing of Read more ...