I’m pleased to add this to my blog as it reminds me of their gig at Wigmore Hall in Sept 2011 when Chris stunned the normally staid audience into whoops of delight! And Chris’s delight in performing without amplification was a joy too!
Category Archives: Bands/Artists I rate very highly
Bands/Artists I rate very highly
Review: Marius Neset – Birds – released March 2013
So, just how do you follow up a five star album and rave reviews for your live performances? Well, with another five star album of course. And that’s what Marius Neset has done with Birds, released shortly on Edition Records. If anything, Birds is even more joyous and expansive than Golden Xplosion, the cover photo of a leaping-for-joy Marius does more than hint at his energy and youth, it proclaims that being alive is the most precious thing we all have. There are tracks of exuberance and tracks as delicate as a feather, they fuse and meld creating a very satisfying mix. When you have listened to this album, I dare you not to feel happy and optimistic.
Marius has assembled a super-group – the flawless members of Phronesis plus Jim Hart on vibes. And a supporting crew that includes an accordion, his sister Ingrid (a flute virtuoso) and Daniel Herskedal (recently heard with Marius on Neck of the Woods which I reviewed last year). Marius composed all the compositions, it is through-composed and he knew exactly what it would sound like before it was recorded. Yet each musician sounds himself, nothing is forced or artificial. Maybe it is because they can read each other’s minds?
Bird sounds, motifs and allusions infuse this album from the triumphant and joyous title track to the close. All the rhythms of a bird’s life are here from quiet feeding to noisy roosting. Take the climax to Reprise – you can hear a flock of birds taking off, thousands of flapping wings, then suddenly they are gone. There are birds that sound like parrots or parakeets. Jasper’s bass is a strong, strutting crow in Birds, yet warm in The Place of Welcome alongside Jim’s most delicate vibes. Ivo’s piano is a nightingale’s song at twilight.
The celestial, moving, Math of Mars is like looking into a starry sky, a myriad galaxies stretch out for ever, it is a wonderful near-climax to an album which teems with gems and gently slides into the closing Fanfare with military drum beat and reeds. All the glossy birds line up for a farewell, they trill, preen themselves. whistle, squawk, bicker raucously and show off in glorious colour. It’s fantastic fun and we are so fortunate to eavesdrop on it.
Marius will be touring to promote the album from April onwards. I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing him at Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 3 May 2013, I think it could be my gig of the festival. It is already in my top 5 albums for 2013.
Marius Neset, tenor and soprano saxophones, and all compositions
Ivo Neame, piano
Jasper Høiby, bass
Anton Eger, drums
Jim Hart, vibes
and many others
Birds is available on Edition Records http://www.editionrecords.com/ and other stores
Review – Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, London Vocal Project – Mirrors – released Feb 2013
You might be forgiven for thinking this latest album by Kenny Wheeler is a jaunty, happy album. Well, it is at first listening and on many levels. I defy anyone not to want to join in with the vocals, the melodies float and soar, the London Vocal Project sound so light and airy, their voices young, reminding me of the Sixties. Then you listen to the words. This is music set by Kenny Wheeler to a series of poems by Stevie Smith, Lewis Carroll and WB Yeats. Some are whimsy such as those by Lewis Carroll – the title of the album Mirrors refers to Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland. But Mirrors could also refer to holding up a glass to the human heart because so many moods are explored in this album. So the bright numbers like Humpty Dumpty and Tweedledum are broadly balanced by the sad, wistful poems of Stevie Smith and WB Yeats. I’m glad they chose not to put Stevie’s most famous poem, Not Waving but Drowning to music, perhaps that would have been too obvious?
The more I listen to this album the more I discover it is an extremely complex affair. Within each composition I might hear words which I’d usually understand as melancholy or bitter and then I hear the voices and the rhythm section and they seem to be saying the opposite of what I hear in the words. Hence the initial impression of an upbeat album. Take a poem like The Broken Heart by Stevie. It’s a very bitter poem – he told me he loved me – the voices are sweet and upbeat. Then an ironic sax enters, mocking the voices. It leaves you as confused as life, that you must smile at grief.
Jazz set to poetry demands you listen to the words. Take He is dressed in grey chiffon. At least I think it is chiffon. It has a peculiar look, like smoke. An evocative image – you wonder how you would read these words aloud yourself and then you realise that what is so perfect about this album is that the music suits the poems so perfectly you forget which came first. The pacing, emphasis and intonation all are so perfect I can see teachers of ‘A’ level English reaching for this album to introduce their classes to these poets and they will thank Kenny Wheeler for his beautiful compositions.
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll is absolutely perfect. Norma’s wistful, fragile voice perfectly captures a lazy July evening in a boat, you are lulled into a doze. But wait, what is coming? A sense of anxiety in the fading notes then Kenny’s brittle flugelhorn and a beautiful solo by Mark Lockheart on sax. Discordant voices lead us forward in time and we realise we have been dreaming. It’s magical.
Death and bereavement stalk these poems but so gently. I particularly love Nikki’s piano on The Bereaved Swan, it is so delicate. It goes without saying that every note of Kenny’s is inspired and haunting. This perfect album is the jewel in the crown for Edition Records.
Kenny Wheeler, flugelhorn
Norma Winstone, vocals
London Vocal Project directed by Pete Churchill
Nikki Iles, piano
Mark Lockheart, saxophones
Steve Watts, double bass
James Maddren, drums
Mirrors is available on Edition Records
Review: Mats Eilertsen Trio – Sails Set – released Feb 2013
The Mats Eilertsen Trio’s latest album Sails Set is an exquisite album as contemplative as a quiet Flemish interior or a walk in fresh snow. The trio consists of Mats on double bass, Thomas Strønen on drums and Harmen Fraanje on piano and voice. None of the compositions is attributed to any one musician, the album is a deliberate attempt at equality, but in an unforced way. Most of the eleven tracks are quite short, like delicate Japanese poems. They create individual moods, you can listen to them separately or from start to finish, each complements the others.
The album opens with the title track Sails Set, a gentle piano like a breath of wind in a sail, water ripples beneath the boat, there is a sense of possibility, space, exploration and tranquility which pervades the whole album. You are in very safe hands here, like a well-established crew on a ship, each member trusts the others, no-one feels the need to lead or dominate, there are no raised voices. There is perfect empathy, the result is playing as delicate as a spider’s web. On this journey you look at the stars, orbit our earth, make friends with a stray dog, pass a lighthouse, are bathed in moonlight, safely navigate currents, make landfall and feel sand on your toes, listen to some music and finally realise you are alone but you are not lonely, just as it is hard to feel lonely looking at a starry sky.
Sails Set is Mats Eilertsen’s fourth release on the Norwegian label, Hubro. Hubro’s website says the label is dedicated to the album as a physical object. I like that. I appreciate an album as an art work. Have we not all, on occasion, bought an ECM album for the cover alone? This album comes in a simple cardboard sleeve, the liner notes are sparce and cool as glacial ice. Hubro’s website is clean, effective, it does the job without fuss. This extreme simplicity in presentation enables the music to speak, and it does, perfectly. This is music to meditate to. It clears your mind of everyday clutter, leaving you at peace. Highly recommended.
Mats Eilertsen, double bass
Thomas Strønen, drums
Harman Fraanje, piano and voice
http://www.matseilertsen.com/
http://www.thomasstronen.com/
http://harmenfraanje.nl/
www.hubromusic.com
Review: Alexi Tuomarila Trio, Warwick Arts Centre, 27 January 2013
It’s not every day that you get taken by surprise by a piano trio but that’s what happened to me last night at Warwick Arts Centre. The Alexi Tuomarila Trio are due to release their new album on Edition Records in April so it was a great thrill and a coup for Jazz Coventry to host them so early in the year. Alexi’s trio consists of Mats Eilertsen on bass and Olavi Louhivuori on drums and himself on piano. As a trio comprised of a Norwegian and two Finns, they speak to each other in English but there the compromise ends. Each of them is a star in their own firmament. From a very early age, Alexi won prizes and over the years has played with Tomasz Stanko ( I believe I saw him at WAC with Tomasz Stanko in 2009). Mats leads his own projects (notably with Thomas Strønen and Harmen Fraanje, in addition to playing with Tord Gustavsen). Olavi leads Oddarrang (you will know about my enthusiasm for this project) and he also plays with Tomasz Stanko. There isn’t space to list all their achievements here but the sum total of all their experience means when you see all three on stage together you have an almost limitless depth.
So what was so great last night? Well, what most struck me was that I was listening to very dense sound, on the piano and the bass, but it didn’t feel heavy or overwhelming. It may have been Alexi’s exquisite sparkling touch on the piano, he could play a lot of notes at once and yet they felt airy. On the drums, a friend commented that he was impressed at how much sound Olavi could produce from so few drums. And Mats seemed to be always there, supporting, leading or progressing complex tunes that hung in the air at their ending. And together they created a beautiful sound. It was captivating.
So a composition like Pearl by Alexi or Cyan (?) by Olavi was able to be simultaneously dense and shimmering yet full of space. Magical. There were sounds like creaking timber, I felt I was on a ship going down, there was a feeling of dread and fear and then it was lifted so gently. One composition started with a lovely piano melody like the remembrance of summers past, wistful and gentle. I think this may have morphed into Bob Dylan’s The times they are a-changin but like Brad Mehldau, Alexi keeps standards very well hidden.
Their new album will be out in April on Edition Records. It is called Seven Hills and features the Portuguese guitarist André Fernandes. If anything, the album is more accessible than the performance last night but I like being challenged and I got the feeling that the band relished being in the same room for a few hours, an occurrence that is unlikely to be repeated often from now on as they pursue their other projects. Their modesty as a band was overwhelming and it was a great privilege to hear them live. Five stars.
Alexi Tumarila, piano
Mats Eilertsen, bass
Olavi Louhivuori, drums
only jazz 