Spondance is a 1986 octet performance of a jazz suite written by the pianist Jim Doherty, featuring his close friend Louis Stewart on guitar, plus six Los Angeles musicians: Bobby Shew (trumpet, flugelhorn), Bob Sheppard (alto sax), Gordon Brisker (tenor [...]
Anyone who knows Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset for his jazz-classical crossovers is in for a surprise with Cabaret – a joyous, often boisterous album that sounds deeply inspired by eighties fusion music such as Weather Report and Michael Brecker-era Steps [...]
Safe Place sees brothers Julian Wasserfuhr (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Roman Wasserfuhr (piano) joined by cellist Jörg Brinkmann for a set of originals played with the intimacy of a family fireside chat. It’s the trio’s second recording after Relaxin’ in Ireland [...]
On Portraits, his eighth album on the ACT label, violinist Adam Bałdych has formed an all-Polish quintet with tenor saxophone, piano, double bass and drums to play original compositions informed equally by jazz and contemporary classical chamber music. Bałdych was [...]
Dermot Rogers tells the story of how he relaunched Ireland’s first jazz label Livia Records, and discovered a trove of landmark recordings by Irish guitar legend Louis Stewart. Several have been remastered and reissued, with recordings from other notable Irish [...]
The East London Community Band (ELCB) is a volunteer-run charity that gives musicians of any age, ability or instrument the chance to play music: from jazz, to early music, to classical. To celebrate their 50th anniversary they performed a multi-media [...]
Trygve Seim plays tenor and soprano saxophone and Frode Haltli button accordion. It’s a rare combination but one these two players have had plenty of time to hone: Our Time is their second ECM outing as a duo after Yeraz [...]
The album cover for Unfolding is a black-and-white photo of a cup of coffee on shade-dappled planks. It’s a good visual analogue for these musical conversations between Louis Sclavis (Bb and bass clarinets) and Benjamin Moussay (piano): intimate, relaxed, tenebrous [...]
A couple of months ago, Livia Records issued The Dublin Concert, a previously unreleased live recording of Louis Stewart with Jim Hall in 1982. Livia has now released another album of the great Irish guitarist in a guitar duo setting: [...]
Norwegian trio Elephant9 creates a 21st-century schizoid child of the heaviest, riffiest elements of seventies prog and jazz-rock: something akin to early King Crimson and ELP crossed with Miles Davis’s Live Evil and Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Between Nothingness and Eternity. They [...]
