OLD NEW BLUES (www.timrollinson.com) 3.5 stars There’s a frightful phenomenon that inhabits elevators and airports called smooth jazz, the perpetrators of which should have turned their hands to hanging wallpaper rather than making music. This is not say classy jazz can’t be made while cruising own a road devoid of…
Category: Album Reviews
MUSICAL PROPHET (Resonance/Birdland) 9.5/10 Eric Dolphy was dead at 36. Among jazz’s most innovative improvisers, he died of undiagnosed diabetes; died not knowing his place in history was assured, after suffering such relentless sniping and slurs in New York as drove him to Europe. Some mistook his leaping melodic lines…
THE REELING (River Lea) 9/10 The intricacy of Celtic jewellery, with is maze-like interweaving of lines without apparent end, its recurrent patterns and its mythical creatures swallowing their own tails, finds a sonic mirror in the culture’s traditional music. Brighde Chambeul (pronounced Bree-choo Campbell), who hails from the Isle of…