THE AMERICAN NEGRO (Jazz is Dead/Planet) 8.5/10 Is this the most confronting cover image in recording history? It depicts a lynched African American with composer Adrian Younge’s face: an image that cuts to the core of the treatment of people of colour in the US. Sonically the album traces the…
Category: Album Reviews – Archive
LET IT SHINE (Ear Up) 7.5/10 Jeff Coffin and Helen Gillet can fill in the holes with multi-tracking, or they can let their lines twist about each other like two vines. The Sun Never Says has Coffin’s soprano saxophone and Gillet’s cello pursuing contrapuntal lines akin to twin prayers, while…
BLACKHOLES AND MODULATIONS (www.ephemeraensemble.com) 8/10 Ephemera, always outward-reaching conceptually, has now expanded in size from a trio to a quartet with the addition of violist Carl St Jacques, and the sonic options have grown exponentially. As on the band’s first album, composer Keyna Wilkins takes her inspiration from the wonders…