John Shand Posts

September 4, 2013 / Album Reviews - Archive

Paul Motian (ECM) It was none other than Keith Jarrett who, around 1970, sold a piano to Paul Motian. Motian, already one of jazz’s key drummers, had a head swimming with melodies, many of them carrying echoes of his Armenian/Turkish heritage. Now he learned notation and began to formalise them.…

August 28, 2013 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Art Gallery of NSW, August 23 At his best Tim Draxl is so far ahead of whoever is second in Australian cabaret that were it a horse-race the stewards would hold an inquiry. His instincts as a singer shame most pedlars of either jazz or musical theatre. In fact why…

August 27, 2013 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Venue 505, August 22          If there is a goddess of music she was smiling on this. Ra-Kalam Bob Moses has been among jazz’s key drummers for 50 years, his associates including Pharoah Sanders, Roland Kirk, Pat Metheny and Gary Burton. In the heady 1960s his regular collaborators…