John Shand Posts

June 30, 2016 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Concert Hall, June 13 9.5/10 This was exhilarating and tinged with greatness. The Wayne Shorter Quartet has been together 16 years, and its unique approach to jazz has developed further since its 2010 visit; grown farther from its antecedents, whether they be Shorter’s own projects (including Weather Report), his association…

June 29, 2016 / Album Reviews - Archive

THE GLOAMING 2 (Real World/Planet) 10/10 No one damages a tradition more than a conservative, whose dry immutability makes it crack and ultimately crumble. Keeping a tradition alive actually requires the moisturizing effect of change. Not that the members of the Gloaming are realising their quiet revolution in Irish traditional…

June 27, 2016 / Album Reviews - Archive

LIVE (Alister Spence Music) 8/10 Whenever the drama, invention, energy and repetition-based voodoo of this band suddenly drops away to Toby Hall’s glockenspiel I am instantly transported back to a world where teddy bears and tip-trucks were as big as I was, and reality was a dull place peopled by…