Author Archives: Matt P (movingtheriver.com, soundsofsurprise.com)
Allan Holdsworth @ 70: Five Of The Best
There’s an alternative, fantasy version of the BRITS Lifetime Achievement award where the likes of Allan Holdsworth get the recognition they deserve from their native music industry. There would also be gongs for Courtney Pine, Gary Crosby, John McLaughlin, Django Bates, Julian Joseph, Gary Husband, Bill Bruford and a few others. Of course that’ll never happen, […]
Album Review: Jason Rebello’s Held
For a great British musician, pianist Jason Rebello has had one of the more intriguing careers than most. A key figure in the late-’80s jazz revival with his blinding licks and clean-cut looks much to the fore, he released a superb Wayne Shorter-produced debut A Clearer View (much more on that soon) in 1990, then followed […]
David Murray/Geri Allen/Terri Lyne Carrington: Perfection
Either a new Geri Allen or David Murray album would be a cause for celebration, but now the pianist and saxophonist have got together and released Perfection with the very welcome addition of Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. And if that wasn’t enough, the title track is a previously-unrecorded composition by the late great Ornette Coleman. […]
Steve Khan: The Eyewitness Trilogy
I’ve just had the absolute pleasure of writing the liner notes for a brand new Steve Khan 2-CD reissue featuring his three classic albums of the early ’80s, Eyewitness, Modern Times and Casa Loco, just released on BGO Records. It was an honour to work with Steve on this project. He couldn’t have been more generous […]
Jaco Pastorius: Three Views Of ‘Three Views Of A Secret’
First of all, I’ve got to declare an interest: Jaco’s in my all-time top five favourite musicians. Ever since I started really noticing music in the late ’70s, he was always on my radar – my dad would play Weather Report’s Heavy Weather and Mr Gone around the house. Since buying his legendary 1976 debut […]
Rescued From The Vaults: Jan Hammer’s The First Seven Days
Jan Hammer has had one of the strangest careers in music. A gifted jazz piano prodigy, he started out backing up Sarah Vaughan before tearing off the top of his Fender Rhodes and playing some brilliantly deranged stuff with John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He then featured on some great jazz and fusion albums of […]
Album Review: John Abercrombie’s First Quartet Box Set
For some reason (could it be the name?) American guitarist John Abercrombie has never really received the same kind of attention as his contemporaries John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell and Mike Stern. His career has been modest and craftsmanlike in comparison, starting out, in his words, as a ‘John McLaughlin rip-off’, playing on ‘some […]
DVD Review: Jaco
It’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken so long for a major doc about Jaco Pastorius to be released. There have been major biographies of the bass master before – Charles Shaar Murray presented a spirited two-part tribute on BBC Radio, while Bill Milkowski’s book was exhaustive and well-researched but controversial in its unflinching detail. Then, […]
Rescued From The Vaults: John Patitucci’s One More Angel
1997’s One More Angel was a stunning album in which Patitucci finally left behind the influences of his mentor Chick Corea and found a composing style all his own. A period of great upheaval and tragedy in Patitucci’s private life, outlined in detail in the CD’s liner notes, was transformed into some absolutely beautiful music. Featuring […]
Sue And Other Stories: David Bowie’s Jazz Legacy
A cursory scan through David’s career confirms that he was a big jazz fan. His first instrument was the sax (he had some lessons from Ronnie Ross, later employed by David to play the famous solo on Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’) and he loved Mingus, Parker and Coltrane. Check out this interview […]
Phil Gould/Mike Lindup/Wally Badarou @ 606 Club, 11 January 2016
‘Pocket’ is hard to define but you know it when you hear it. Something akin to a drummer’s ‘feel’, musicians often say that you’re either in the pocket or you ain’t, and as such the expression is mostly used in association with great US groovemasters like Richie Hayward, James Gadson, Bernard Purdie and Andy Newmark. […]
Dennis Chambers: Five Of The Best
The November 2015 issue of JazzTimes magazine featured a long-overdue interview with master-drummer Dennis Chambers. I’ll never forget first hearing his playing on the title track of John Scofield’s brilliant Blue Matter album as a highly-impressionable 15-year-old. I had never heard anyone play a kick drum like that. His grooves were tasty, funky and solid, […]
New Year’s Eve Jazz @ Coq D’Argent
Around five years ago, at the behest of good friend/good pianist James Hayes, I began doing a yearly NYE gig at Coq D’Argent, a beautiful restaurant sitting atop 1 Poultry, one of the most iconic buildings in the City. They treat us very well there, we always have a good time and this year was […]
Rescued From The Vaults: Steely Dan’s Katy Lied
They’re the ‘singer-songwriters who love jazz’, as described by guitarist and occasional collaborator Lee Ritenour. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker AKA Steely Dan have been pushing the musical boundaries for five decades now, marrying jazz chords to funk/R’n’B backbeats, rock guitars and classic pop songcraft. Although sometimes neglected, coming as it does between the ‘Rikki Don’t […]
Album Review: The James Taylor Quartet’s Rochester Mass
Here’s a real curveball that gives a new meaning to the word ‘fusion’. The James Taylor Quartet have always been known for their reliable brand of Brit jazz/funk but now they’ve come up with one of the most surprising and impressive releases of the year. Jazz has been fused with all kinds of music styles […]
Rescued From The Vaults: Vinnie Colaiuta (1994)
Many solo albums by ‘studio drummers’ are disappointments – not this one. It goes way beyond the call of duty. Vinnie’s obviously been a great listener during his time playing with Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Sting and Chick Corea because he’s assimilated their compositional styles, analysed what works for him and come up with his […]
David Sinclair: 25 Years Of Jazz Photography @ Royal Albert Hall
There’s still time to see a rare exhibition of David Sinclair’s jazz photography at the Royal Albert Hall. It is showing as part of the London Jazz Festival and runs until Saturday 28th November. He is possibly best-known for his striking black-and-white photographs which make the most of light and shadow, such as the image […]
DVD Review: Tubby Hayes
It isn’t easy to make a documentary about jazz these days, and that’s an understatement. BBC Four will very occasionally shoehorn some jazz into their output, usually a bought-in product from the States or something from the vaults, but the chances of getting the funding for a new documentary are slim or none. After ‘Whiplash’ […]
Jarrod Lawson @ Shepherds Bush Empire, 14 November 2015
The vacuum left by North London genius Lewis Taylor’s virtual disappearance from the music scene has left space for various young blue-eyed soulsters (Bo Saris, Allen Stone, Mayer Hawthorne et al), but Jarrod Lawson has surely emerged as the pick of the bunch. His assured, ambitious and well-received 2014 debut album announced a major new talent, […]
Hans Groiner: Does Humour Belong In Jazz?
Does humour belong in jazz? It’s a tough one, whichever way you slice it. Jazz and comedy were certainly frequently intertwined in the ’30s. Later, Spike Jones‘ incredible bands often featured jazz musicians and consistently tickled the funny bone though rarely at the expense of jazz itself – he mainly used the virtuosity of his […]
Album Review: Christian McBride Trio’s Live At The Village Vanguard
When we think of ‘groove’, we probably think of funk or soul music. But jazz can groove too, and the new Christian McBride Trio live album grooves like a mother. 43-year-old bassist McBride is of course something of a prodigy, already a world-renowned bandleader and collaborator with Dr Billy Taylor, Sting, Pat Metheny, Wynton Marsalis, Chick […]
The New Miles Movie: First Impressions
So we finally get a sneak preview of the new Miles Davis movie ‘Miles Ahead’, which wrapped in August 2014 and gets a worldwide release in January. It has also just closed the New York Film Festival and the reviews are in. First, the positives – Don Cheadle, who also directed, co-wrote and co-produced, has […]
An Interview With Leo Sidran
You could count on one hand the number of jazz writers who also happen to be great players, and you’d probably have several fingers left over. Let’s face it, it’s not an easy gig. But a few months ago I came across a podcast called The Third Story that immediately intrigued me. For a start, […]
Working Week: Does Jazz Go Into Pop?
Excerpts taken from my liner notes for the new Working Week live album: Does jazz go into pop? Judging by the current music scene, the answer would appear to be an unequivocal ‘no’, but, for a golden period in the early-to-mid ’80s, it seemed as if the two styles could happily co-exist. Artists like David […]
Wayne Shorter’s Atlantis: 30 Years Old Today
It’s not easy to write about an album that’s so much part of your musical DNA that it haunts you in the middle of the night and yet reveals fresh nuances each time you listen to it. Wayne is one of my all-time musical heroes and has been since I was a teenager when his […]
John Taylor 1942-2015
John Taylor, the gifted pianist, composer and educator who has died aged 72, was one of the key British jazz musicians of his generation, a versatile sideman and occasional leader whose work featured on many key albums of the last 40 years. Born in Manchester in 1942, he also featured in not one but two […]
My Favourite Jazz Books (Of The Last Few Months…)
‘But Beautiful’ by Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer is probably best known as the witty, urbane writer of ‘Jeff in Venice’, ‘Paris, Trance’ and ‘Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It’, but he started off his career with this stunning series of vignettes based on the lives of jazz greats including Chet Baker, […]
Steve Khan On His Classic 1983 Album ‘Casa Loco’
Drummers and bassists: this album’s for you. And it’s for guitarists/percussionists/fans of great music too. Put simply, Steve Khan’s Casa Loco has enthralled me and a whole generation of jazz and jazz/rock aficionados for over 30 years. The compositions and performances of guitarist/leader Khan, bassist Anthony Jackson, drummer Steve Jordan and ex-Weather Report percussionist/vocalist Manolo […]
Ornette: Made In America
Ornette Coleman’s sad recent passing reminded me of an amazing, almost totally forgotten ‘documentary’ that is begging for a DVD re-release (though it may be available in the US). Shirley Clarke’s 1985 film ‘Ornette: Made In America‘ centres around Coleman’s 1983 return to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, to receive the keys to the city from […]
Billy Cobham @ Ronnie Scott’s, 6 February 2014
If 1959 is generally considered jazz’s annus mirabilis, you could make a pretty good case for 1973 as fusion’s apogee with key releases from Mahavishnu, Santana, Zappa and Herbie’s Headhunters. But for sheer energy and wow factor, drum master Cobham’s Spectrum might just trump them all, and he celebrated the classic album here at Ronnie’s […]
Book Review: Gil Scott-Heron’s The Last Holiday
‘I admit that I never had given much thought As to how much of a battle would have to be fought To get most Americans to agree and then say That there actually should be a Black holiday…’ The death of Gil Scott-Heron in May 2011 silenced one of the most potent social commentators of […]
Rescued From The Vaults: Weather Report’s Mr Gone
Dateline 1977: After seven years of hard work with a serious album/tour itinerary and drummer issues to rival even Spinal Tap, Weather Report, the legendary jazz/rock band led by keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, finally hit gold. They had a dynamite new bass player in Jaco Pastorius, a US FM radio community that […]
Rescued From The Vaults: Lewis Taylor’s Lewis II
Soul music has a pretty rich tradition of ‘one-man bands’, musicians who have chosen to play the lion’s share of the instruments themselves thanks to liberal use of studio multi-tracking (see Sly, Marvin, Stevie, Johnny Guitar Watson). Sometimes it’s a time-and-money-saving device, sometimes it’s a bid for creative freedom in the face of record company […]
Book Review: Nica’s Dream by David Kastin
Interviewer: What is jazz? Thelonious Monk: New York, man. You can feel it. It’s around in the air… If the ‘Jazz Baroness’ Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild de Koenigswarter hadn’t existed, would the great beboppers have had to invent her? The benefactor and friend to the stars was an important figure in the jazz lexicon but […]
Album Review: Jazz Soul Seven’s Impressions of Curtis Mayfield
Soul legend Curtis Mayfield may not seem like the most obvious candidate for the jazz tribute album. Though his music occasionally used swinging rhythms and horn sections, his ingenious, self-imposed harmonic strictures (he composed on an electric guitar tuned to an F# chord) didn’t readily embrace jazz and blues songforms, rather leaning on gospel, Latin […]
Sounds Of Surprise 