LOVE AND LIBERATION (Concord/Planet) 8.5/10 A month ago Veronica Swift’s incandescent singing lit up the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival, yet her recent album, Confessions, provided no preparation for this in-person agility, power, beauty, commitment and excitement, it being overproduced and her singing relatively constrained. What has this to do…
Category: Album Reviews
GOOD HOPE (Edition/Planet) 9/10 Zakir Hussain has done it again. The tabla master – among the great living musicians – has form in helping make unlikely jazz trios work brilliantly, including 2006’s Sangam with saxophonist Charles Lloyd and drummer Eric Harland. Here his fingerprints are all over an enthralling dialogue…
WE LIKE IKE (Triangle 7/Planet) 7/10 The late Ike Isaacs’ supple interweaving of beautifully-voiced chords and melodic lines laden with a pensive longing made him beloved by such guitar giants as Jim Hall and George Benson. Because the Rangoon-born Isaacs, who became preeminent in British jazz before moving to Australia,…