There’s no real overarching theme other than what it says on the tin and as Heining’s intro makes a point of saying, the music creates its own narrative: you just have to listen to it. On that basis a very few relative duds or departures from the fragile subjectivity of one’s own personal taste are more than made up for by a high proportion of absolute gems. These include obscurities that must have required real crate-digging – check Wynder K. Frog‘s boogaloo-flavoured “Harpsichord Shuffle”, or music biz all-rounder John Cameron‘s “Troublemaker” – as well as classics of the period like Harold McNair‘s “The Hipster”. If there’s anything you don’t like – and warning, there’s a fair bit of flute – don’t worry, another will be along in three minutes.

But what is really impressive is how good most of the selections sound, how various their methods and stylistic models, and how well they fit together through sequential listening. The opening track, “Storm Warning” by the Dick Morrissey Quartet (written by the cult composer and big band leader Harry South, who plays piano) sets a formidable example, being no less swinging than Horace Silver. That it’s followed by Davy Graham‘s great guitar and tabla version of ‘Watermelon Man’ shows how knowledgeably broad a sweep the compilers are taking. As well as the expected Rendell/Carr, Garrick, Hayes and Harriott, we also get into the R&B groove with Graham Bond‘s version of Wade in the Water, a U.S. B-side no less, and Georgie Fame on another B-side. ‘A Greeting’ by the Westbrook Concert Band, from 1967’s Celebration album on Deram, which I didn’t know, already sounds like the work of a master.

The second CD has a fabulous first half with a very congruent run of Graham Collier, John McLaughlin (from Extrapolation), Rendell/Carr (again) to the New Jazz Orchestra, Mike Gibbs and Kenny Wheeler with Dankworth, before we move more into jazz-rock territory with the likes of Keef Hartley, Colosseum, Nucleus and Brian Auger’s Trinity. Whatever the setting, it’s all interesting. The selections are chosen with flair and there are enough obscurities to satisfy all but the most demanding collectors, who may justifiably moan about the lack of full personnel details.

The third CD edges us a little further into prog territory, with Auger’s Oblivion Express, If and a very free interlude by Chris Spedding but overall retains the catholicity of the previous discs. It includes relatively avant-garde offerings by John Surman‘s trio with Stu Martin and Barre Phillips, McLaughlin (whom Colin Harper has written a book about) with Surman, Holland et al, plus the near operatic mash-up of Garrick’s Fairground with Norma Winstone, and Mike Osborne‘s ‘So it Goes’, which concludes the compilation. Halfway through we also get the wonderful track that gives the box-set its title: Julie Driscoll‘s A New Awakening , from her solo album 1969.

As compilations go, this is a class act whose constituent parts offer enough sufficiently interesting material for a solid month’s listening, and more.

The post ‘A New Awakening – Adventures in British Jazz 1966-1971’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Freigeweht was the debut recording of Brüninghaus as a leader and it’s an overlooked treasure that’s remarkable for a number of things. Not least is the presence of Kenny Wheeler as part of a fascinating quartet that also features drummer Jon Christensen together with the unusual choice (suggested by Manfred Eicher) of Brynjar Hoff – principal oboist of the Oslo Symphony Orchestra – on both oboe and English horn.

The contrasting timbres of woodwind and brass make for interesting harmonic variations in the relatively little time the instruments are heard together but it’s as soloists that both Wheeler and Hoff really excel. Indeed, Wheeler-watchers unaware of the album will have to obtain it because Kenny is absolutely on fire. His solos on Side A’s ‘Spielraum’ and Side B’s ‘Die Flüsse Hinauf’, in particular, are of such a high standard that they stand out even within the stellar framework of his most impressive work. He plays flugelhorn throughout and the performances are studded with patent Wheeler-isms in his most recognisable signature style.

Another real point of interest is the way the album reflects the topical influence of minimalism and what was then often called systems music in its flow of repeated motifs and pulsing rhythms. In common with other rather overlooked ECM titles of the Eighties such as Art Lande and Mark Isham’s ‘We Begin’ from 1987, there’s a very Steve Reich-ian concern with overlayed patterns and an almost Motorik-like rhythmic emphasis. Here, the wonderfully supple and indeterminate drumming of Jon Christensen combines with his perfect time-keeping to at once enhance yet break up the even measured metronomic systems set up by Brüninghaus’s synths, which are performed manually rather than sequenced digitally, as would later become the norm. Even so, you can detect the anticipatory ghost of what will become a stand-by of early pop electronica in some of the synth washed voicings here.

It’s as a composer (and an inspired pianist more than a keyboard boffin) that Brüninghaus really shines. As Friedrich Kunzmann’s new sleeve note to accompany this release attest, his classical influences – French Impressionism , Russian Romantics, Edvard Greig – left a definite mark. The often rhapsodic, airy and intensely atmospheric feelings conveyed by the album’s six pieces – all by Brüninghaus – offer enticingly open structures for the soloists to roam in. And roam they do, with Kenny Wheeler particularly memorable throughout.

The post Rainer Brüninghaus – ‘Freigeweht’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

What’s remarkable about Amaryllis is the dreamy, atmospheric feeling that seems to characterise the contents, whoever they are credited to. There are twelve pieces overall: four credited to Motian, three to Peacock, the final piece, ‘Prayer’, written by Mitchell Weiss, and the remaining four by Crispell. But as Crispell’s sleeve note reveals, four of these tunes were not composed in the conventional sense but improvised in response to producer Manfred Eicher’s suggestion that they play some slow, “free” pieces. These songs – which include the title track, ‘Voices’, ‘M.E.’ (named by Motian for Eicher), and ‘Avatar’ (the name of the New York studio they recorded in) – serve to define the often beautiful and stately feel of the album. This is also heard to great effect in Crispell’s ’Silence’, which opens Side 2, and the closing ‘Prayer’.

Other tunes, such as Crispell’s ‘Rounds’, Peacock’s ‘Requiem’ and Motian’s ‘Conception Vessel’, are relative ’standards’ from their respective careers, and there’s plenty of Crispell’s bravura ninety-notes-a-minute pianism if you need it. This reissue, the first ever release for the title on vinyl, can’t help but focus attention on what incomparable musicians both Peacock, who died in 2020, and Motian, who died in 2011, were, separately and together.

The post Marilyn Crispell/ Gary Peacock/ Paul Motian – ‘Amaryllis’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Peacock, of course, is her own composer and lyricist and the album is her response to producer Manfred Eicher’s request that she write for a string quartet despite having no prior experience of this format. The quartet is not given any more extensive a role than Peacock gives to her own extremely spare piano playing, while the pleasing timbre of her accented voice keeps to a similarly narrow range. But as it turns out, these self imposed limits only serve to amplify the magical effect of the whole enterprise, and what could be undersold as charm ends up becoming the purest of art.

It’s difficult to convey just how unusual yet how perfectly constructed and delivered these sort of, I guess, art songs are, and Peacock as both singer and composer is quite unlike anyone else around. But listen to ‘The Heart Keeps’ from the beginning of Side III, and if possible continue to the end of that side’s sequence as there’s a substantial role for the strings before Peacock re-enters on ‘Safe’. If your heart doesn’t melt, maybe you ain’t got one.

For those who don’t know her backstory, it’s quite a trip. Touring Europe aged 20 with Albert Ayler (Gary Peacock, whom she married, was his bassist); taking LSD at Millbrook with Timothy Leary (the only time she did), de-bugging and performing on the then brand new Moog with Paul Bley, and becoming the first jazz vocalist to treat her voice electronically; getting tied up in England with David Bowie’s management company and recording with Mick Ronson, Brian Eno, Alan Holdsworth and many more, with long periods of silence, exile and cunning in between. Everything she’s done is worth hearing, and she’s 80-something and still ahead of the game. Listen to her 70s album ‘X-Dreams’ if you can, but definitely give ‘an acrobat’s heart’ a run around the block. I’ve just listened to it five times in a row and am beginning to see the point of the CD version, when you don’t have to keep getting up to change the record.

Annette Peacock – vocal, piano
The Cikada String Quartet:
Henrik Hannisdal, Odd Hannisdal – violin
Marek Konstantynowicz – viola
Morten Hannisdal – violoncello

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The music’s mix of Fletcher Henderson-style big band swing (Ra – Herman Blount as was – had played in the Henderson band and a composition by Fletcher’s brother Horace appears on this brand new studio recording) with Les Baxter era exotica, Disneyfied vocal anthems and free jazz influenced blowing from a powerful horn section, made quite an impression, as you would imagine.

The new double album, recorded at New York’s Power Station in June this year with the 24-piece Arkestra “under the direction of Marshall Allen“, reprises a number of classic Ra compositions, together with a small number of tunes associated with the band, like the aforementioned Henderson.

Allen – who turned 100 years old last May – was in that band at Brecon, as was the great tenor saxophonist John Gilmore. Allen’s propulsive alto-sax technique, where he seemed to be strumming the keys like a harp to produce perfectly formed high register squeaks and squeals, was an absolute highlight.

You can hear what remains of that unusual technique here when Allen plays a solo as part of the first LP’s opening number, the titular Lights On A Satellite. It’s an extraordinary rendition of a canonical Arkestra tune, and it gets the album off to a flying start. Against a hypnotic chant-like dirge from the band, first Allen and then two tenor saxophonists, Nasir Dickerson and James Stewart, wail their gospel souls out on long arabesque lines that eventually increase in both speed and intensity until they retreat and resolve into the canon-like backing. Nine minutes long, it’s quite a performance by any criteria and the best track on the album.

As far as the rest goes, it’s well up to the Ra’s own standards although I was less captivated by the novelty vocal numbers, which include new lyrics to ‘Holiday For Strings’ (written by David Rose, and the signature tune to a popular radio show), and the rather tired-sounding ‘Way Down Yonder in New Orleans’, sung by the band’s guitarist, Carl LeBlanc.

Elsewhere, Horace Henderson ‘Big John’s Special’ is a real hoot, and in the central Ra role pianist Farid Barron sounds in top form throughout, excelling on solos in ‘Images’ and the far out and spacey ‘Friendly Galaxy’ – another standout track – where he also plays theremin. Drummer George Gray and percussionists Elson Nascimento and Jose Jorge Da Silva add the necessary weight and welly to the overall ensemble sound.

There are informative sleeve notes by author Sibylle Zerr and the orange vinyl of the two LPs looks good and sounds superb. Produced by Frank Kleinschmidt, who has had a forty year relationship with the Arkestra, this is clearly a labour of love.

The post Sun Ra Arkestra – ‘Lights On A Satellite’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The use of the various pedal-driven loops means that several tracks have an almost orchestral feel, with washes of sound forming the backdrop to Andersen’s virtuoso bass playing. His plucked, pizzicato playing is still astoundingly fast when it needs to be, with impeccable intonation, while his bowing is also used for live sampling that can conjure up the sound of a saxophone or a seal. Whatever he’s doing, Andersen seems able to communicate real lyricism and tenderness in a way that many co-instrumentalists fail to do. Original compositions such as the alluring ‘Dreamhorse’, an absolute stand-out whose insistent riff cues in an almost hypnotic, trance-inducing sense of wellbeing, are coupled with some beautifully chosen standards. Charlie Haden’s ‘Song for Che’, Ornette’s ‘Lonely Woman’ and Albert Ayler’s ‘Ghosts’ share space with a traditional folk tune. ‘Old Stev’, and ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’, which has been part of Andersen’s repertoire for some time.

It’s all very impressive and lovely to listen to without being facile, with a relatively short duration that makes it easy to play again and again. The aforementioned ‘Dreamhorse’ is a true classic that once experienced you might find difficult to leave. Pair it with a listen on Spotify to Andersen’s performance on another classic from more than half a century ago, Karin Krog’s track ‘Mr Joy’ from 1968, and you can see how perfectly poised his art has always been, since way back when. To see Andersen perform ‘Landloper’ live in the UK, where he has toured many times in numerous formats, including in bands with Tommy Smith or Andy Sheppard, would be a real treat.

Release Date is today, 29 November 2024

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The young band Charles Lloyd was leading was quite an outfit too, with Keith Jarrett on piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Ron McClure on double bass. Recorded by Radio Television Suisse at the festival’s venue of Montreux Casino, they sound absolutely at the top of their form, playing a repertoire of tunes taken from Lloyd’s albums, including ‘Love Ship’ from ‘Dream Weaver’, and epic versions of ‘Sweet Georgia Bright’ from ‘Discovery’ and ‘Forest Flower’ from the album of the same name, recorded live at Monterey. This being Lloyd there’s a fair bit of flute as well as tenor sax, too, with notable versions of ‘Lady Gabor’ and ‘Love Song to a Baby’, tunes that would later be released on ‘Charles Lloyd in the Soviet Union’ from performances in Tallin, Estonia.

The sense of occasion represented by the concert and its storied place in what was to become one of the greatest, longest-lasting and most forward looking of all jazz festivals can perhaps only be hinted at by an audio presentation, and there are elements of Lloyd’s showmanship that don’t really come across on record. In particular, the entire second LP is taken up with two sides of ‘Sweet Georgia Bright’, where Lloyd’s Ornette-ish free-jazz experiments – including a longish unaccompanied solo – don’t quite make their mark and seem closer to a novelty number than the New Thing.

The two sides of ‘Forest Flower’, however, which make up the third and final LP are unfailingly interesting on a number of levels. They also help to answer the question of who was leading who in the quartet’s personnel. On the one hand there’s evidence to suggest that with such a commanding rhythm section behind him, and all too ready to take up the slack when Lloyd wanted to lay back and take a break, it’s the rhythm team who are the driving force. And they are really wailing here, full of energy and fun.

Conversely, it’s largely because Lloyd is such a bravura leader whose solo features carry real musical and theatrical weight, that his young band get the present of a free pass to go where they wish, as it were. There’s some ordinary Jarrett pianism here as well as the oft-touted genius, but perhaps like all live albums to some extent, you probably really need to have been there, front and centre, to recapture the full effect. But when Jarrett takes over from a fabulous talking in-tongues style circular breathing showcase by Lloyd on ‘Forest Flower’s foundational latin vamp, for instance, you can’t help thinking that his improviser’s invention has got stuck in the chords of ‘La Bamba’ or ‘Hang on Sloopy’. Although maybe that’s a quibble: DeJohnette is drumming up a storm, Jarrett is hammering away like a man possessed and even at a distance of 57 years you can feel the excitement building, and imagine the sweat running down the players’ necks.

When all the constituent parts are working together – and DeJohnette sounds absolutely immense throughout, with McClure the perfect steady straight-man foil – you have to shake your head in wonder and, sometimes, in disbelief. What a band. What a moment. What joy.

The post Charles Lloyd Quartet – ‘1967 – Recorded Live at Montreux Jazz Festival’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

While all of the seven pieces are composed by Jakob Bro, their interpretation is arrived at jointly, with each of the players combining to create an emphatically ego-less feel that proves very winning. The stylistic roots definitely owe something to drummer Paul Motian’s trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano, which treated often familiar tunes with great freedom amid acres of acoustic space, and who Bro has recalled seeing in New York and marvelling at such unforced mastery. The presence of the legendary Lee Konitz – a great hero of Bro’s, who is heard playing soprano sax as well as alto – also inevitably recalls the influence of various historic cool school recordings, and perhaps that whole alternative tradition of jazz aesthetics that’s sometimes traced back to Lennie Tristano.

Whatever the antecedents, ’Taking Turns’ is a landmark recording, even if that landmark should be a decade in the past. The influence of Bill Frisell is also a double one, as Jakob Bro is a notable follower of the older guitarist, to the extent that it’s difficult to tell one from the other. The less-is-more approach and a penchant for pedal-driven atmospherics that Frisell has said owes something his admiration for the ambient recordings of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, are significant features here, heard to superb effect on the final track, ‘Mar Del Plata’. It’s a gorgeous tune led by the sound of two sinuously entwining electric guitars, and on which Konitz does not appear to play, leaving the field even more open than usual. Jason Moran – as throughout here – is content to pick out a few delicate and entirely congruent piano patterns that greatly enhance the peaceful and meditative audio landscape.

Elsewhere, Konitz plays a lot and sounds absolutely great, his trademark style relatively intact at the advanced age of 86. He died six years after the recording, in 2020. The album’s second track, ‘Haiti’, features Konitz playing soprano sax against a very West African-sounding rhythmic backing, and sounding perfectly at home, while his solo on the opener, ‘Black is All Colors At Once’ is a lyrical gem. That the players sound so good together must owe a huge debt to the rhythm team of Thomas Morgan on double bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. In apparent lock-step throughout, they never force the pace or depart from a sympathetic background role, while when listened to intently one grows aware of how much artistry it takes to appear so self-effacing. This may well be one of the albums of the year, ten years late.

Release Date  29 Nov 2024

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When Shorter replaces Coleman, it’s as if after assembling the most perfect machine imaginable, a musical form capable of anything, at any tempo and of communicating emotion at whatever intensity might be required, the members of the group then decide to smash it up and start again. When Shorter begins his solo on “So What” (the third and final version of the tune in the box, from the Paris Jazz Festival at the Salle Pleyel in January 1964), following Davis’s already deconstructive, neighing like a donkey take on the melody that immediately precedes him, the beautifully flowing, bluesy style of Coleman – who sounds at the top of his marvellous form throughout his sides – gives way to a typically Shorterian (Shorteresque?), almost parodic, loony-tune approach, boldly going into the outer reaches of who knows where. And the band just has to go with him. With the rhythm section hammering along at ninety miles an hour, and an 18 year old Tony Williams dropping explosive bombs all over the place, Shorter first slows things down with some heavily Coltrane-influenced deep growls before building up a new head of steam with a bravura series of clustered repetitions, gospel wails and almost Ayleresque squawks before passing the baton over to pianist Herbie Hancock. And as if to show what an absolutely perfect all-rounder Shorter is, he then plays an infinitely tender solo on the impeccably in the tradition version of “Stella by Starlight” that follows. Wow. 

Previously, as on the version of “So What” that opens the first disc of the box, and “All Blues” that immediately follows it, it’s the contemporary Miles Davis repertoire including those two Kind of Blue modal classics, plus “Autumn Leaves”, “Walkin’”, “Joshua”, “Bye Bye Blackbird”, etc., but played at hard-bop tempos with plenty of intensity. The sense of all-out attack is relentless, with Tony Williams – only seventeen then! – driving things on at a ferocious pace. “I’m really in the nosebleed territory”, Ron Carter says of his high-register playing on “If I Were a Bell” in a brief interview included in the box. “And it got faster every night, I think….I had never played with anyone like that, of course, and certainly not for this extended period of time. It was just stunning to hear him play like this, play with that intensity, play with that tempo, play with that direction night in and night out and not turn it on to the band and say ‘Stop that.’ He allowed us to do whatever the chemist allowed his proteges in the lab to do.”

And, indeed, Miles Davis himself sounds audaciously good throughout, perhaps as good as one has ever heard him, and in complete control of his instrumental gifts, fiery and contemplative by turn, but with more fire than contemplation. “Being with these young guys”, George Coleman remembers for the box, “he could do his thing and they’d be right there with him. They listened to him and he listened to them. That’s why we were able to play with spontaneity…And he was stepping into another realm too, because before, he was playing straight bebop. But when I joined the band, he started stretching out. This was a transition for Miles, too.”

All in all, this box is quite a listen, and a stretching intellectual exercise just to hear and then process what you have heard. There’s an illuminating essay, ‘Miles in France’, by Marcus J. Moore, some excellent photos and a few contemporary quotes from Downbeat. The box was produced by Steve Berkowitz, Michael Cuscuna and Richard Seidel, and dedicated to Cuscuna, who died earlier this year, and whose scholarship and taste lay behind so many great releases over the last decades. The late Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams receive dedications too. One feels truly gratified that such great historic music should be packaged with such evident love and care, which is not always the case.

Miles in France 1963 & 1964 releases today, 8 November.

The post Miles Davis Quintet – ‘Miles in France 1963 & 1964’ first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Much of the well-deserved attention for ‘Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace’, the debut solo album by Shabaka – the artist previously known as Shabaka Hutchings – was about his forsaking the earthy saxophone for the transcendental qualities of the flute. What partly got lost in this concern about what horn he was choosing to play – and its flutes plural in this case, because there were lots of them, plus clarinet – was how astonishingly original a suite of music the album was. And how daring: a jazz artist from the UK making his first release of a highly-anticipated signing to a big US label with barely a walking bassline or a conventional solo in sight, let alone a cheesy standard or pop song.

It also concealed the bigger story of how Shabaka, now aged 40 and a veteran of several bands and projects over the last 20 years, is now a worldwide star. Chosen as a guest by the biggest names in jazz such as  Esperanza Spalding, he has a larger international profile than that of anyone here since the pomp of Courtney Pine, with whom he shares an Anglo-Caribbean background as well as prodigious talent. Last year Shabaka shared top co-billing with the producer Floating Points in a one-off live performance of the album ‘Promises’ in front of 17,500 people at a sold-out Hollywood Bowl, taking on the role created by his spiritual jazz mentor, the late Pharoah Sanders.

What ‘Perceive Its Beauty…’ did give us other than the flute was an intensely worked, intricately structured series of largely meditative, downtempo tunes – some using spoken or sung words, and some not – and a lyrical subtext dealing with, among other things, the meaning of blackness in contemporary society. It didn’t immediately lay all of its treasures out on the table before you, but retained a vital air of mystery throughout, so the meanings were released slowly over repeated listening. The music didn’t really sound like anyone else either, despite using a number of guest artists. Recorded over a week at the legendary Van Gelder studio in New York and then assembled in post-production following the method established by producer Teo Macero with Miles Davis on ‘Bitches Brew’, the album also sounded startlingly new. Tracks retained the tentative air of experimental demo recordings combined with a highly-finished surface where every note or vocal consonant was made to feel exactly right. It was a success, too. Critics liked it, people bought it and a live outing at London’s Barbican earlier this year proved a sold out hot ticket.

Now, the album gets another live outing in the larger and grander setting of the Royal Festival Hall, on Saturday 30 November, presented by the South Bank in association with promoters AEG Presents and Eat Your Own Ears. The upcoming date will be similar to the Barbican performance in the range of instruments and performers called upon, with a repertoire largely based on the album, and some special guests yet to be named. “For the live show I’m using double harp, synthesiser and piano which is a real sonic treat for me to play within”, Shabaka says of the plans for the RFH. “There’s a similarity in how two harps interact together that reminds me of the conversation double drums enact, but with a melodic element as opposed to the purely rhythmic (which is also contained within the melodic framework of the harp lines). Then, with the other piano instruments, there’s this convolution of melodies which makes me dream of the ancient Central African polyphonic music I’m yet to hear.”

As to the influence of record labels and public expectations about his music, Shabaka appears admirably unconcerned. “What I’m doing is simple, working on what I consider to be the best music I can produce under the circumstances that I find myself in”, he says. “That might mean having the audio information from particular studio sessions as much as it could mean having portable electronic music-making devices. I’m quite particular and discerning in the music that I like. Centring and awareness and following my own musical taste as it develops in real time with all the experiences I gather though a life in music, is my main consideration artistically.” This attitude extends, therefore, to considerations over what instruments he chooses to play, and to what purpose. “The different instruments I play all have their particular roles in my personal practice in terms of what I’m working on in my personal technical progression”, he continues. “But most importantly they reveal a sound world that I like. This is the primary concern for me in deciding to deal with an instrument. Do I truly enjoy both the sound being created and the effort enacted to create it?”

Nor is the record label a particular influence in determining which musical direction he chooses to follow. “No, the label doesn’t really have much input into what direction I go down artistically. I just work on material and present it to them. They’re pretty open to that being the dynamic and that’s the only way i can work effectively. I just work on my music and follow whatever pathways the music suggests. I’m too deep into the areas I’m exploring to have any other considerations that centre around music I made years ago.” Doing what he likes, playing what he feels, and following his own muse while alert to inequality and injustice in society, Shabaka is very much his own man, and an emblematic artist for the age. Now, it seems, really is his time.

PP features are part of marketing packages.

Shabaka at the Royal Festival Hall, Sat 30 November, 7.30pm
(this tour also has UK dates in Bristol and Manchester)

The post Shabaka at the Royal Festival Hall, 30 Nov. first appeared on UK Jazz News.