• Music

    Svaneborg Kardyb – Over Tage

    Svaneborg Kardyb is a remarkably cool band Denmark, with elements of nu-jazz, Scandinavian folk and a similarity with more free bands on the ECM label, though these lads call Gondwana Records home these days.  From the band’s Bandcamp site. “Svaneborg Kardyb are Nikolaj Svaneborg – Wurlitzer, Juno, piano and Jonas Kardyb – drums, percussion a multi award winning duo from Denmark, where they won two “grammys” at the Danish Music Awards Jazz 2019: New artist of the year and Composer of the year. 
Drawing on Danish folk music and Scandinavian jazz influences, including Nils Frahm, Esbjörn Svennson and Jan Johansson’s…

  • Music

    Freyja Garbett – MAYA

    Freyja Garbett, a Berklee graduate has made a remarkably innovative album.  From her Bandcamp website: “Garbett’s heady compositions draws influence from a vast range of styles and musicians. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, she lists pianists and composers such as Fred Hersch, Gerald Clayton and Maria Schneider as critical influences to her music, along with the likes of Flying Lotus, J Dilla and Snarky Puppy. “The pieces from my debut album are an exploration of an electro-acoustic approach to jazz composition and improvisation,” begins Garbett. “These compositions are springboards for improvisation and creativity. An added element to…

  • Music

    Rosie Turton – Expansions and Transformations: Part I & II

    Rosie Turton came to my attention a while ago with her EP Rosie’s 5ive, which served as a stellar introduction to her work, but this latest album shows how incredibly expressive a trombone-led band can be.  So many players in London’s Nu-Jazz scene are leaving a mark that there will probably come a day when bands like Rosie’s and others operating today will be referenced in the same way fusion bands of the 1970s are. Truly expansive, a full sound, and utterly engaging.  What a fine sophomore release.

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    Matthew Halsall – Salute to the Sun – Live at Hallé St. Peter’s

    There’s not much to say about Matthew Halsall that hasn’t been thoroughly discussed over the past decade. He deserves the accolades, of course, but this live album is quite a treat. This is really going to appeal to fusion fans, especially Bitches Brew and Live-Evil-era Miles Davis, as well as the More modern works of Paul Schütze’s more free form work. Brilliant, but I expect no less from such a giant. For more info on this release, check out his Bandcamp page here.

  • Music

    High Pulp – Motel Money (feat. Takuya Kuroda)

    High Pulp hail from Seattle, Washington and are currently being published by Anti- Records, best known for releasing albums by Tom Waits, Neko Case and Antibalas.  This sounds like none of them, and it caught my attention in a most pleasant way. Motel Money is a single track, and it’s a burner.  This is an instrumental track, and it mixes in everything from avant-garde jazz to beat-driven R&B to psychedelic synthesizer-heavy electronica, as their release page indicates.  Add to this the stellar trumpet playing by Takuya Kuroda, and you have something that can equal any of the nu jazz bands…

  • Music

    James Lindsay – Torus

    April 23, 2021 is a bit of a long way from today, but waiting three and a half weeks for what is a very impressive album is a small price to pay. James Lindsay is a Scottish folk musician who absolutely transcends the genre.  Having had the pleasure of hearing some of these tracks in advance, I have to say that James not only masters folk music incredibly well, but he manages to shift directions into contemporary jazz, fusion (a touch), Nu-Jazz and even hints of ambient music. I’m old enough to remember Scottish folk as being something quite different…