John Shand Posts

November 5, 2014 / Features - Archive

  It was the music she heard each week when her mother was ironing: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Abbey Lincoln, Miles Davis and more. They seeped into Dee Alexander’s pre-school consciousness and heart and stayed there. So years later, when she took to singing, perhaps it was inevitable…

November 4, 2014 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Foundry 616, October 29 His almost serene, middle-distance stare was a mask. Boiling from his limbs was an intensity behind the drums that few have matched. Even when the stare was punctuated by eye contact with a colleague, or a grin of mischievous delight, Jeff “Tain” Watts’ drumming remained ferocious.…

November 2, 2014 / Concert Reviews - Archive

  Concert Hall, October 27 Here was a concert to blaze in the memory. Rather than settling for being one of the great fiddlers of Irish music, Martin Hayes had to ask “What if…?”, and assemble a band to shroud that music in a fine mizzle of mystery once more.…