John Shand Posts

June 6, 2015 / Concert Reviews - Archive

The Basement, May 27 The mating of music and venue is always critical. The last time I heard New York’s The Bad Plus they were on an outdoor festival stage, and all the nuance so in evidence here was lost: nuance that is not just the icing on their cake,…

June 3, 2015 / Album Reviews - Archive

1966 (Sarang Bang) What a rare treasure! Few would dispute that Bernie McGann was the most distinctive jazz musician Australia has produced, and this provides a chance to hear how fully-formed that singularity was back in 1966. Although his two tracks on the 1967 Jazz Australia album might have already…

June 1, 2015 / Features - Archive

One afternoon in 1977 Herbie Hancock drove to Chick Corea’s house in Los Angeles. As Hancock recounts in in his autobiography Possibilities, the plan was to see what (if anything) happened when the pair – at the pinnacle of their generation’s jazz pianists – duetted on two grand pianos. After…