American pianist and psychiatrist Denny Zeitlin has a body of work that is second to none, including winning several jazz awards and scoring films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but this album was hidden away at Zeitlin’s insistence, which is a shame, as it blends avant-jazz, funk, rock and some works that would feel …
Read more “Denny Zeitlin with George Marsh & Mel Graves – The Name Of This Terrain”
Again, a very Merry Christmas to friends and readers of this blog! We celebrate the day with the usual festive tunes, but add one extra courtesy of Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), who synths up a few seasonal classics.
Jokamies (‘Everyman’ in Finnish) is a collection of tracks for a television series of the same name composed by the Finnish bassist Pekka Pohjola. After his work with the hard-rock/progressive outfit Wigwam, he ventured into jazz fusion (perhaps New Age as well) and made some of the most impressive albums in the genre during …
Richard Dawson’s latest album is a fascinating listen. It mixes vocals that could fit in well with English folk, psychedelic rock, prog and AOR music, while being musically underpinned by something that could almost pass for freak folk at times, while falling back now and again on progressive rock structures. The album shapes and shifts …
Zhuang Zhou is the pinyin transliteration of Chuang Tzu, the Chinese taoist philospher who lived some time during the 4th century B.C. during the Warring States Period, and was part of a movement where Chinese philosophy enjoyed an explosive period of development. He is the subject of the album being reviewed, and it’s nice to …
I’m not sure if one can rightly call this a free-improv classic, but it’s hard to find two musicians who gel together as well as Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley do. The piano playing is fierce and powerful, matched stroke-for-stroke by Oxley’s percussion and drumming. A fine live disc.
Though these tracks are from 2014, this scorcher by Vadou Game, one of Togo’s funkiest bands, features two tracks that will appeal to funk aficionados, especially the title track. Also, James Brown fans, take note. You’re going to love the grooves on this tune.
The Spanish ambient music label Faint brings together some of the best modern electronic music composers like David Cordero, Pepo Galán and Robert Farrugia.
As we near the year’s end, I wish to thank my friend who goes by the name of Corvus who turned my on this group from the Czech Republic called Kalle. They sound like a mashup of post-rock, Celtic or even folk-rock and alternative music, but still managing to sound fresh. The female vocals are …
Peru was an absolute hotbed of garage rock activity during the 1960s, and one of the finest bands to come out of the country at the time were Los Yorks. Perhaps not as savage as some of their contemporaries, they were still able to write some mean hooks while writing their own material alongside some …