Dawn (Cuneiform) A certain virtuoso local drummer, now deceased, used to think British jazz was a joke. I doubt he had heard much. The US Cuneiform label continues its inestimable retrospective on British jazz’s golden era, stretching roughly from 1965 until 1980, and this new instalment of recordings from the…
Category: Album Reviews – Archive
The Half-Finished Heaven (ECM) I have always loved music that ensnares the listener in a spell. These days, alas, the prevailing aesthetic, almost regardless of idiom, is to pummel audiences into submission. I have not heard Sinikka Langeland live, but her albums present sounds finely engraved upon the surrounding silence;…
Various Artists: It Takes Two to Tango (W&W/Birdland) Paul Motian: Standards Plus One (W&W/Birdland) Various Artists: Introducing M-Base (W&W/Birdland) Reijseger/Fraanje/Sylla: Count Till Zen (W&W/Birdland) Record companies are routinely depicted as the music business’s evil exploiters, the tales of rip-offs, mismanagement, bullying and cocaine being legion. Thankfully there are also many…