Romance De La Luna Tucumana (Cigala Music) This is how you do it. All those players who cherry-pick from musical cultures, like cooks foolishly adding ingredients to save a sorry dish, should hang their heads in shame. And listen. It helps when you have a voice that is how…
Category: Album Reviews
Paul Motian (ECM) It was none other than Keith Jarrett who, around 1970, sold a piano to Paul Motian. Motian, already one of jazz’s key drummers, had a head swimming with melodies, many of them carrying echoes of his Armenian/Turkish heritage. Now he learned notation and began to formalise them.…
Down Deep (Winter & Winter/Birdland) This extraordinary album is the most thorough integration of jazz, African and classical elements I have heard, with the end result as visceral as flamenco singing or Hound Dog Taylor’s guitar. The trio consists of Ernst Reijseger (cello, voice), Harmen Fraanje (piano) and Mola…