Category: Album Reviews – Archive

July 21, 2015 / Album Reviews - Archive

Made in Chicago (ECM) When jazz migrated north from New Orleans in the 1920s it slept on Chicago’s sofa before lobbing in New York, and the Windy City has remained a major jazz centre ever since. The 1960s were especially fertile: pianist Muhal Richard Abrahams’ ground-breaking Experimental Band led to…

July 9, 2015 / Album Reviews - Archive

Violinair (Violipiano) I like the way Luca Ciarla’s mind works. Music, the Italian seems to suggest, is a game in which one toys with idiom and mood, while appropriating whatever makes it more fun, whether that’s his own superlative facility on the violin, electronic gadgetry, compositional diversity or improvised interaction.…

July 6, 2015 / Album Reviews - Archive

Old Time Sing Song Man (Pound) When Tom Waits first emerged in the 1970s he sounded about 30 years older than he was. Archer somehow doubles that, sounding like his own grandfather, and he writes songs you’d swear were first aired before the recording industry was even born. The weird…