HEARING THE BLOOD (Extra Celestial) 9/10 As an improvising pianist Barney McAll has long been a master of the fine art of fulfilling and subverting expectations. This album shows that same mastery as a composer. Hearing the Blood contains not just his finest batch of compositions to date, but his…
John Shand Posts
City Recital Hall, January 25 6.5/10 Here was a decade-long collaboration stripped back to something elemental: just Daniel Wilfred’s voice and bilma (clapsticks), David Wilfred’s yidaki (didjeridu) and Paul Grabowsky’s piano. At the end Grabowsky described the Wilfred brothers (from South East Arnhem Land) as his favourite musicians with whom…
City Recital Hall, January 24 8.5/10 In the 1960s South Africa became a crucible for some of the world’s most vibrant jazz. Apartheid drove away many of the key musicians, mostly to London (electrifying that city’s jazz scene), while the great pianist-composer Abdullah Ibrahim and the trumpeter Hugh Masekela (who…