jazz
theartsdesk at Salzburg Jazz & the City Festival - perfection in free venuesTuesday, 24 October 2023
As a cultural destination, Salzburg really is hard to beat. Each year, a million and a half tourists descend on this compact city with its baroque architectural delights, and a population of just 150,000. The city of Mozart and of the Salzburger... Read more... |
Album: Melanie De Biasio - Il ViaggioWednesday, 11 October 2023
Il Viaggio is a form of soundtrack. Its lyrics, music and soundscapes are created in response to the journey referenced in the title. Though born and raised in Belgium, Melanie De Biasio’s paternal grandfather was Italian. After the Europalia arts... Read more... |
Album: Nils Petter Molvær - Certainty of TidesThursday, 05 October 2023
With beautiful playing from the Norwegian Radio Orchestra conducted by Ingar Berby, sumptuous arrangements which hint at everything from the great jazz orchestrator Gil Evans to the haunting "night music" of Béla Bartók, and – at its heart – the... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 79: Primal Scream, Girl Ray, Mort Garson, Barbie, Nina Simone, Dengue Fever and moreThursday, 07 September 2023
VINYL OF THE MONTHAfrican Head Charge A Trip to Bolgatanga (On-U Sound)The latest album from percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and On-U Sound producer-par-excellence Adrian Sherwood is stunning. 40-something years into their collaborative career,... Read more... |
We Out Here Festival, Wimborne St Giles review: it's a family affair, and then some...Friday, 18 August 2023
We Out Here Festival, now in its fifth year (and fourth edition, as 2020 was of course cancelled for Covid), has become an institution. Curated by jazz-centric veteran DJ Gilles Peterson and actualised by Noah Ball – best known for his role in... Read more... |
Album: Erol Josue - Pelerinaj (Pilgrimage)Friday, 04 August 2023
I first saw Erol Josue on stage in Essaouria, Morocco, during the Gnawa Festival of 2011, when he fronted Jazz-Racine Haiti. The Haitian-born voudou priest turned R&B singer struck me as one of the most flamboyant frontmen ever to hit a... Read more... |
Bluedot Festival 2023 review - monsoon weather can't defeat the music'n'science extravaganzaWednesday, 26 July 2023
“This wasn’t the day to wear white suede boots,” says Django Django’s singer Vincent Neff, midway through the band’s Friday evening set.He’s not kidding.Mud can be worse (Glastonbury ’97, ’98, ‘07 & ’16). Wet weather can wreck the vibe (Nova ’12... Read more... |
Album: Kaidi Taitham - The Only WayThursday, 20 July 2023
The broken beat movement, centred on West London around the turn of the millennium, wasn’t super press friendly. Its complex rhythms were eclipsed in the populism stakes by its close cousin UK garage, and serious commentators didn’t really know what... Read more... |
Appraising Billie Holiday's 'Fine and Mellow' - anatomy of a jazz masterpieceTuesday, 11 July 2023
On December 8th 1957 there was a heavy snowstorm in New York. Ten elderly jazz musicians struggled to make their way through the drifts to a television studio on 10th Avenue. One of them – the bass player – collapsed in the street, and died in... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Montreal - the world's largest jazz festival just got youngerTuesday, 11 July 2023
The Festival International de Jazz de Montreal (FIJM), the largest in the world, is genuinely on a roll. The head of programming of the huge event, which takes place all around the Quartier des Spectacles in the centre of the city, says in this year... Read more... |
Album: Barb Jungr and Her Trio - My MarqueeWednesday, 28 June 2023
Barb Jungr has made a speciality – some might even say her own art form – out of taking well-known songs, and discovering far more subtlety and meaning in them than people ever knew they had. As she explains in the notes accompanying My Marquee: “ I... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Blossom Dearie - Discover Who I AmSunday, 25 June 2023
Had Blossom Dearie overtly embraced pop, her vocal style could be characterised as along the lines of Priscilla Paris, Jane Birkin or Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell – intimate, a little breathy, oxygenated. However, jazz was her bag and June... Read more... |
