Jazz Reviews
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Kayhan Kalhor
17th Jun 2019
Matt enjoys a collaboration between master kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor and the dutch Rembrandt Frerichs Trio on their evocative new album.
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Naked City
13th Jun 2019
The first in Matt's more self-indulgent, pretentiously titled Tangents series of articles. Join him back in 1989, for a sunday encounter with New York's finest improvisers at a rep theatre in the east midlands.
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Jimmy Giuffre 3 - Live in Graz, 1961
10th Jun 2019
A fascinating document of this groundbreaking trio live in Switzerland in 1961, this offers plenty of nourishment for those willing to enter an abstract musical world.
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Charlie Parker - Early Recordings
7th Jun 2019
Charlie Parker's game changing sessions heralded the arrival of bebop and remained unsurpassed to this day... in Matt's opinion anyway. Read the full article to find out why.
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Mosambique - Big City Moves
3rd Jun 2019
This exciting young quintet from Norway release a memorable album of jazz fusion with tongue-firmly in cheek.
Featured product
Big City Moves
Mosambique
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Stan Getz - Focus
31st May 2019
Stan Getz's Focus gets a reappraisal, that rare thing, a jazz with strings album that challenges, thanks to Eddie Sauter's sophisticated arrangements.
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Alexi Tuomarila Trio - Sphere
24th May 2019
Alexi Tuomarila and his group prove there is plenty of scope of innovation in the jazz piano trio, forging their own unique sound on Sphere.
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Thelonious Monk Trio
23rd May 2019
Thelonious Monk roughed up some of his best known tunes on these exciting and spiky trio sessions, recorded during a troubled period in the pianists life, just before he would break through with some of his definitive albums.
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Pacifica from Australian quartet The Vampires
17th May 2019
Matt delights in the refreshingly breezy new album from The Vampires, an Australian collective blending jazz with exotica, dub and much more.
Featured product
Pacifica
The Vampires
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Hilde Louise Asbjørnsen - Red Lips, Knuckles and Bones
10th May 2019
Hilde Louise Asbjørnsen delivers a moving album of her own material, genre hopping from jazz to americana with style and humour, despite personal losses that inspired many of the songs.
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Miles Davis - Milestones
8th May 2019
One of the pinnacles of hard-bop, Milestones showcases some of the finest musicians at work in the fifties - John Coltrane, Julian `Cannonball' Adderley, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Jo Jones, as well as Miles Davis's first steps into modal jazz.
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Claire Martin
2nd May 2019
Claire Martin celebrates her twentieth album in style with this collection of modern day standards recorded with her Swedish trio.
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Trish Clowes - Ninety Degrees Gravity
26th Apr 2019
A vivid and compelling new album from Trish Clowes' quartet My Iris, Matt has been enjoying the sci-fi mind-flip that is Ninety Degrees Gravity on Basho Records.
Featured product
Ninety Degrees Gravity
Trish Clowes My Iris
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Sonny Rollins - The Bridge
25th Apr 2019
In 1959 Sonny Rollins decided he needed a break in order to grow as a musician and left the New York music scene. After two years of practising every day on the Williamsburg Bridge, accompanied only by the cry of seagulls and trains rolling by, he returned with this terrific album.
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Elliot Galvin - Modern Times
19th Apr 2019
My Recording of the Week is Elliot Galvin's hugely enjoyable Modern Times. I recently chatted with Elliot about his inspiration for recording direct to vinyl.
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Dave Holland - Conference of the Birds
18th Apr 2019
A conference of the finest players on the free music scene in the early seventies, Matt argues that Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds is one of the great seventies jazz albums.
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Herlin Riley Perpetual Optimism
12th Apr 2019
Matt is buzzing off Herlin Riley's Perpetual Optimism. This addictive new album is our Recording of the Week - read on to find out why.
Featured product
Perpetual Optimism
Herlin Riley (drums)
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Orbit Folks
5th Apr 2019
Bright and breezy jazz fusions on the latest album from globetrotting bassist Martijn Vanbuel and his group Orbit Folks.
Featured product
Orbit Folks
Orbit Folks Martijn Vanbuel
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Ellington at Newport 1956
3rd Apr 2019
Let us journey back to the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, to witness a demoralised Ellington Band find its mojo in realtime, thanks to a storming Paul Gonsalves solo that runs for 27 choruses, and caused a mini-riot.
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Daniel Herskedal - Voyage
29th Mar 2019
Matt takes a Voyage with Daniel Herskedal, a vivid series of seafaring tone poems for tuba, bass trumpet, viola, oud, piano and bass.
