John Shand Posts

November 25, 2013 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

Sydney Theatre, November 23 This is not just a good Godot, it is a wonderful one. It quivers with the pathos-laden humour that inhabits Beckett’s every page, but that can be lost or distorted on the stage. Given that the play’s intended director, Tamas Ascher, was prevented from attending rehearsals…

November 24, 2013 / Album Reviews - Archive

Afro Blue Impressions (Concord) If Louis Armstrong was jazz’s great innovator (and its heart) and Duke Ellington its key composer, John Coltrane remains its supreme improviser. In extending the saxophone’s potential he also stretched the music’s very fabric. Never had such boiling energy been unleashed; never had exultancy and anguish…

November 24, 2013 / Features - Archive

  Sometimes it could be an audience crusher: a sound that gained such mass as to have a physical impact, even though you knew it was just an alto saxophone. But then David Ades (pronounced “Addiss”) generated a singularly wide, wild and potent braying. He also summoned surging joy and…