jazz albums
Album Review: Malnoia – ‘Hello Future’: a jazz-classical ode to the dreamers
Jazz is remarkable because it allows a plethora of musical genres to fit wonderfully under an extremely large umbrella. You’re in a field, surrounded by a sense of space travel, yet you need to grab a few chamber musicians, a jazz pianist, and your copy of The HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Enter: Hello Future, …
ALBUM REVIEW: Snowpoet – Wait for Me; Chamber folk-jazz duo return with absorbing album
Third album for the London-based chamber-jazz pair
Album Review: Colin Cannon delivers a majestic tribute to daily life in ‘McGolrick’
If ever you wanted to impersonate your thoughts during lockdown, this is the album to listen to. Critically acclaimed jazz composer and guitarist Colin Cannon delivers an odyssey of collage sounds inspired by his daily lockdown life in the tiny neighborhood facing McGolrick Park. The sounds are the voices of his community, fused with the …
Album Review: Caravela deliver the sparkling fusion of ‘Orla’
Now here’s a new thing beaming out from the London jazz firmament. Caravela, a five-piece multinational band from everywhere (well Portugal, South America and Australia), now based in the capital and delivering their debut LP Orla via None More Records. The record is just a bit different from the burgeoning body of work regularly rolling …
Album Review: Rising bassist Mauricio Morales releases debut long player, ‘Luna’
‘Luna’ is the debut album from rising jazz bassist and composer, Mauricio Morales. It’s a conceptual work that echoes with the sounds of spring, childhood innocence, and a beautiful tapestry of cinematic string arrangements worthy of the highest merit. A odyssey through time, movement and everything in between. Unlike quite a few contemporary instrumental jazz …
Album Review: Femi Kuti + Made Kuti – Legacy +
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no afrobeat scholar, but there’s something undeniably enticing about a double album calling itself Legacy+ that’s attached to the Kuti name. I don’t even think this is necessarily limited or limiting, either, because the work of Fela Kuti is something that you’re likely aware of even if …
Album Review: Coma World – Coma World
The London nu-jazz/electronic scene is one ecosystem that does more than sustain itself. From the Steamdown/Trinity/Deptford/Greenwich source point to the hubbub around Hackney’s Total Refreshment Centre to the outflow from vibrant labels like Walthamstow’s Byrd Out, it’s a community that continues to create through crossovers, connections and collaborations. Cue yet more evidence of the surge, …
Album Review: Lee Ritenour – ‘Dreamcatcher’
OUT RIGHT now on the Players Club label is the new album by one of LA’s finest session guitarists, Lee Ritenour, and his first solo record. The list of who Lee has played for is simply jaw dropping. Aretha Franklin, Art Garfunkel, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, BB King to name only a few, but this …
EP: Mylow – Voyager
Founded by the Berlin band Jazzanova, the Sonar Kollectiv label has been steadily releasing enticing music of the nu-jazz/dance/electronica blend for over 20 years now. So any new name that they sign is always worth a sneak. Cue Milo Tomasovic (a.k.a Mylow) a young DJ, producer and electronic musician from Amsterdam who releases his EP …
Album Review: Tori Handsley – ‘As We Stand’
FOREVER associated with folklore whimsy, celestial mystery and the delicate songstress, maybe the harp will always have an image problem? Of course in jazz there have inevitably been those who have been able to shove this immovable object away from its own clichés – think the improvisational drive of Dorothy Ashby or spiritual lift of …