John Shand Posts

August 12, 2016 / Features - Archive

At first it was a form of light relief: someone to sing a few songs and break up the real business of playing jazz. Then it became the fashion, so every band in the 1930s – the swing era’s heyday – suddenly had to have a singer. For women it…

August 10, 2016 / Concert Reviews - Archive

City Recital Hall, August 9 7.5/10 Brian Blade must spend a lot of time in airports. Eight weeks after the New Yorker was here with Wayne Shorter he was back, this time with the Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel (with whom he has been playing all this century), in a trio…

August 9, 2016 / Album Reviews - Archive

ON LOVE AND SCIENCE (https://zulyaandthechildrenoftheunderground.bandcamp.com/) 9/10 Here’s a way to break the download addiction: create the most exquisitely packaged album I’ve seen. On Love and Science is a narrative song cycle, with the CD presented in a book containing a dark fairy tale of sorts and lyrics by Zulya Kamalova,…