Category: Album Reviews

July 2, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

ELLA 100 (Verve) 9/10 Ella Fitzgerald was homeless when in 1934 she entered a talent quest at New York’s Apollo Theatre, intending to dance. Changing to singing at the last moment, she won. Her reputation as a queen among jazz singers, however, is predicated on her work from her mid-thirties…

June 29, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

THE CHILD BALLADS (Lamplight) 9/10 It took an American to systematically compile hundreds of English and Scottish ballads from across the centuries. In so doing Francis James Child (1825-1896) performed not only a massively important task in preserving the cultural heritage of the British Isles, he provided composer Andrew Robson…

June 27, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

THE BROLGA (Rouseabout Records) Marcus Holden’s musical vision is so complete that it has become a prism through which almost any music that passes is refracted into his own likeness. His version of O mio babbino caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, for instance, melts all the high drama of a…