John Shand Posts

January 21, 2014 / Concert Reviews - Archive

State Theatre, January 18  Perhaps it’s the absence of gravity, but exploring outer space via the music of Sun Ra for 57 years has made Marshall Allen the youngest 89-year-old man I’ve seen. Each time he detonated the incendiary device known as his alto saxophone the State Theatre’s glorious ceiling…

January 21, 2014 / Album Reviews - Archive

Live in Latin America Vol. 1 (FMR) This project was perfectly titled, given that the weave of percussion instruments provides a backdrop in constant flux both texturally and rhythmically, as if affected by the play of light or the direction of the wind. It is a mouth-watering fabric of sound…

January 17, 2014 / Concert Reviews - Archive

City Recital Hall, January 11   Had Ernest Rutherford not worked out how to split the atom science would only have had to wait until Ambrose Akinmusire came along. Where Rutherford used alpha particles Akinmusire uses something much more lethal: a trumpet. No other instrument seems to scythe through the…