jazz
Track: Swoon for the Mediterranean cafe romance of Violetta Zironi & Ed Prosek’s ‘Come What May’
VIOLETTA ZIRONI is a delicate and lovely cantate from Correggio, in northern Italy’s Po Valley; she’s been releasing digital singles and EPs for nine years or so. More recently she’s been working with guitarist Ed Prosek to produce airy and sunshine-filled lovers’ cafe jazz; music to fall head over heels to on the Adriatic coast. …
Track: Belgium’s North African jazz explorers Black Flower drop the perfumed title track of January’s ‘Magma’ for your delectation
THE WORLD of Belgian Eastern jazz outfit Black Flower is a well-woven and beautiful one; the quintet, shortly to unveil their sixth full-length album for Ghent’s rather groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra imprint, with whom they’ve released two of their past three albums this past five years, has today dropped the organ-led souk beauty of “Magma”, the …
Live review: Ishmael Ensemble, The Cornish Bank, Falmouth, November 24th, 2021: soaring and warming on a chill evening by the water
IF YOU’RE talking of about any kind of chronology of British Black musics down the decades, then it’s arguable really that there’s a triangle of cities which inform and inspire and spur each other on; those cities being London, Birmingham and Bristol. And what a fine tradition that Avon city has in this regard: the …
Live Review: Nathan Somevi Trio – The Blue Lounge, Aberdeen
The Blue Lounge is one of the biggest jazz venues in Scotland and has a dedicated jazz night every Thursday. Tonight we they had the Ghana/scottish guitarist and composer Nathan Somevi and his trio featuring Rachel Duns on saxophone and Alex Palmer on drums. A quaint old fashioned venue the place has a wonderful vibe …
Album Review: Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O – ‘UMDALI’
Sometimes the narrative surrounding a record can make listening seem too intrusive. This prospect might have been a very real challenge for the revered South African jazz composer, Malcolm Jiyane as he put together his debut solo record UMDALI (available now from Mushroom Hour Half Hour) . The conflicting emotions following the death of a …
Track: Cousin Kula bring the chillwave jazz of ‘Something So Sweet’ from the banks of the Avon, with a debut album and dates soon
BRISTOL quintet Cousin Kula ply a line in woozy, chillwave jazz to bliss you out with sophistication, talent and a lazy groove – doubt them not and check out “Something So Sweet”, the first single they’ve dropped today from their debut album, Double Dinners, which is out in a fortnight. Vocalist and guitarist Elliott …
News: Mysterious Bristol breaks scientist Claude Cooper announces a full album for January and drops ‘Stan’s Plan’; it’s so deliciously dirty
IMAGINE for a second we’re sat in a great pub, in Bristol – say The Christmas Steps, maybe, or the Bag O’Nails – and let’s further push the fanciful that I’m Brad Pitt-as-Tyler Durden (yep, I wholly over-flatter myself here, but a scribe can dream); and I lean over, conspiratorially, to whisper to you. And …
Album Review: Chelsea Carmichael – The River Doesn’t Like Strangers
Engineered at London’s iconic RAK studios by Will Purton and recorded with Eddie Hick (Sons of Kemet), Dave Okumu (The Invisible) and Tom Herbert (The Invisible; Polar Bear), The River Doesn’t Like Strangers from start to finish is jazz mastery at its finest. Produced by Shabaka Hutchings and released via his Native Rebel Recordings, a new label …
Album review: Spiritczualic Enhancement Center – ‘Carpet Album’: filmic, psychedelic and enveloping – travel deep, travel wisely
IT’S ONE of those sentences you hear periodically when chewing the fat about the music: “Ooh no, though, I really don’t like jazz”. Which, each to their own, live and let live, vive la difference without question; but, which, you imagine may be based on some particularly untethered, free-associating inversion of the style, say, Coltrane’s …
Track: Chelsea Carmichael – There Is You And You, debut album out now
Saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael has released her debut album, ‘The River Doesn’t Like Strangers’ as the debut signing to Shabaka Hutchings’ (The Comet Is Coming, Sons of Kemet, Shabaka and the Ancestors) new label Native Rebel Recordings. Carmichael has shared one of the tracks taken from the album – ‘There Is You And You’. About the …