Category Archives: Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Albums I really like, Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Album review: I Think You’re Awesome: Lift me up so I can reach

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I think youre awesomeI hesitate to put the debut album Lift me up so I can reach by Danish band I Think You’re Awesome into any particular category. But it fits easily into the “I-loved-this-the-moment-I-first-heard-it” box.  In just 36 minutes over 6 tracks and in a live  performance,  Jens Mikkel‘s band has created a unique and complex soundscape with tracks of great beauty and serenity sitting comfortably alongside compositions which are instantly arresting, memorable, witty and fun such as Be Kind to Your Neurosis.   

It is a mature work by a band which brings so many genres into play here – pop, indie, jazz, classical, roots.  The instruments are interesting – when did you last hear a banjo?  And it is the work of equals, everyone brings their strengths and  bass player Jens Mikkel allows them the space to breathe and intermingle within his own affectionate compositions. There are  many influences – to my ears there is sitar and the lilt of kora in the symphonic track called I Think You’re Awesome  (where the wurlitzer provides a very distinctive sound remembered from the Beach Boys) .   Yet it all sounds new and fresh and moves along so effortlessly  and perfectly you can’t believe this is a live performance. The title of the album refers to the idea that you can take pride in your achievements even as you are helped by others (those giant’s shoulders) along the way.

In an album of exquisite performances from everyone, special mention must be made of the sublime lyrical beauty of the cello of Maria Isabel Edlund in Schwartzwald.  This is a haunting piece that could be classical but sounds cinematic and modern with the aid of some subtle electronics, dance-like rhythms and abrupt ending. The sound quality and mixing is beautiful throughout.

If you like the sound of this album you might like to try Elliott Girls with Radical Haircuts and  Alex
 Jønsson
3 The Lost Moose which both feature Jens and Alex and are equally atmospheric.

All music by Jens Mikkel

Kasper Staub,  juno & wurlitzer
Alex Jønsson,  guitar (right side)
Morten Kærup , banjo
Jens Mikkel, bass
Andreas Skamby, drums

with

Scott Westh,  trumpet
Jens Bang , trombone
Maria Isabel Edlund, cello

Recorded live in Aarhus, 30 April 2013

Mixed by Anders Ørbæk and mastered by Emil Thomsen

Artwork by Simon Eskildsen


The album is available as a free download from  Jens Mikkel 

Mary James 11 March 2014

Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Coming up

Preview: Maciek Pysz Trio with Tim Garland, Pizza Express Jazz Soho, 25 March 2014

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Maciek PyszWhy not start a major UK tour with a flourish?  That’s what Maciek Pysz has decided to do in launching his tour at Pizza Express Soho on Tuesday 25 March and he has chosen saxophonist of the moment, Tim Garland, to guest with him.  There have been some very celebrated guitarist/saxophonist partnerships in the past which seem to encompass every possible nuance:  Joe Pass and Zoot Sims (jaunty);  Pat Metheny and Joshua Redman (warm);  Ralph Towner and Jan Garbarek (glacial); and to me, most intriguing of all, Bill Frisell and Tim Berne ( as in M from ‘Theoretically’  –  just plain extraordinary – with its chiming, bell-tolling-like guitar undercurrent,  discordant sax which melts into something quite mellow but still remaining menacing).

What all these partnerships have in common is equality of relationship, you listen for both artists.  So by inviting Tim Garland to be his guest at an important gig, Maciek Pysz is making a very bold statement.   In a recent podcast for London Jazz  News, Maciek said he’d written a syncopated classical piece after being inspired by Chic Corea’s ‘The Continents’. This piece eventually appeared for his trio as Insights on his debut album ‘Insight’.  The Continents featured none other than Tim Garland.  So it is will be very interesting to see and hear how their partnership is presented at Pizza Express.   Buy a ticket and find out!

Book tickets for the gig at Pizza Express here.  If you can’t make Pizza Express then please make an effort to see the Trio at one of the other concerts on the tour, details on Maciek’s website.  You won’t be disappointed, the Trio’s onstage chemistry is electric and deeply wondrous, and the album ‘Insight’ is very beautiful. And lucky people in Edinburgh get a solo performance!

Mary James 5 March 2014

Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Gigs I've enjoyed

Gig review: Maciek Pysz and Gianluca Corona, 14 Feb 2014, London

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It was Valentine’s Day in London, the perfect evening for some romantic music and a glass or two of good wine, and what better than two guitars to relax you. But wait!  If the audience had been expecting gentle background music that they could chat over, they got something unexpectedly deep. From the very first chord of Manha de Carnaval (L. Bonfa) the audience were perfectly attentive, rapt by the magic that unfolded. The guitarists in question were Maciek Pysz and Gianluca Corona, two masters of classical and acoustic guitars, and quite obviously two old friends. Unlike other gigs I go to, the people around me listened harder because the music, and perhaps the experience of live music in an intimate venue, was new to them.

We concentrated hard and were rewarded with a wide repertoire from the catchy familiar Manha  which was given a glorious rolling gait, to compositions by Maciek from his album Insight and new work from an upcoming duo album. Jokes such as “Guess what this composition is called?  Lost in London!” had particular resonance for many in the room, foreigners in a big city. I was particularly moved by Amici,  their joint composition, it ranged over many emotions and was about their friendship which goes back many years.   And we had a taster of an upcoming album of the duo – Fresh Look – which they record this summer and will be released on 33Jazz later this year.

These two masters of the guitar completely trashed the idea that guitar music is something you have as background music.  You have to see it to marvel at the delicate intricate sounds, the dazzle of flashing fingers, the glorious melodies, the effortlessness of it all. Afterwards you just smile. What better way to spend Valentine’s Day?

You can catch up with the Maciek Pysz Trio on their tour March – May 2014 – for details see http://www.maciekpysz.com/

and if you have 21 minutes there is an interesting podcast with Maciek Pysz here  with London Jazz News.

Mary James 19 February 2014

Bands/Artists I rate very highly, Coming up

Preview: Festival of the guitar: Stratford Jazz March-June 2014

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guitaristI am calling it a Festival of the Guitar: It was a masterly stroke of scheduling – Stratford Jazz features some of the most exciting guitarists on the UK scene in the next few months so here’s my preview of six gigs worth turning out for.  What’s thrilling for me is that we get to hear very different styles of music, guitars, guitar playing and influences.

First up we host John Law’s Boink! on 12 March. The guitarist in question is Rob Palmer  who I last saw at Sherborne Jazz with Jon Lloyd and John Law. Boink!  is the latest project from John Law  which takes him away from acoustic pianos and into the world of electronica and interactive visuals. Intrigued?   In a recent interview in Jazz UK (issue 115) Rob said that the electronic backing tracks are composed leaving the musicians free to improvise 90% of the time.  It will be a combination of total freedom and totally composed music, he says.

No sign of electronics with our next guitarist, the acoustic and classical guitarist Maciek Pysz who makes his debut appearance at Stratford Jazz with his stellar trio of Yuri Goloubev on double bass and Asaf Sirkis on percussion on 26 March. Maciek is on an extensive UK tour promoting his album Insight  which received rave reviews across the globe last year. He appears at Stratford the day after an important gig at Pizza Express Jazz Club, Dean Street, London with a guest appearance by Tim Garland who recently signed to Edition Records.  Insight was my album of 2013 so I can’t really add more other than to say that the last time I saw this trio they blew the roof off Kings Place, gathering a larger crowd in the foyer than in some of the concert halls.  They filled the huge space, just as they filled the windy park at Ealing Jazz Festival last year. We can expect a more intimate, conversational evening of Maciek’s beautiful lyrical compositions, exquisite arco bowing from Yuri and sensitive percussion from Asaf.  As Maciek said in an interview in 2011,  ‘I do not want to be perceived only as a jazz guitarist, I’m an acoustic guitarist who mixes genres’ and therein lies his attraction. His influences are John McLaughlin, Ralph Towner and Al Di Meola yet he sounds like none of these, he has his own voice.

 On 9 April we host Phil Robson with his new organ trio featuring Gene Calderazzo on drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond organ.  Phil Robson’s discography contains a jazz who’s who of musicians from both sides of the Atlantic – Mark Turner, Michael Janisch, Christine Tobin (the celebrated Sailing to Byzantium), John Taylor, Liam Noble – and he brings a breath of New York to Stratford with his drummer, whose drumming John Fordham described as scalding!  Listening to their demo clip on Soundcloud I was minded of Steely Dan  – that was just the organ I imagine, but we can expect what Roy Stevens is already predicting will be the gig of the year at Stratford!

On 14 May we are joined by a newly formed band called The Orient Quartet. This features Dan Messore on guitar. Dan’s own quartet called Indigo Kid features none other than Iain Ballamy. Kevin le Gendre said of Dan ‘It’s fair to quote names like Pat Metheny and Frissell as references but the seam of jazz Messore is mining goes back further to such as Charlie Byrd and Jim Hall’.  Combine this with Steve Waterman‘s trumpet (as heard on Carla Bley’s albums on ECM) and you can see we have a very heavyweight new band.

On 11 June we feature Nic Meier who brings his glissentar with its eleven fretless strings which provides more than a touch of the orient to the sound, a heady mix of Turkey, central Europe, Iberia and the Americas.  His quartet features the artists who appear on his recent album Kismet. Look out for his flamenco treatment of Coltrane’s Giant Steps!

Our final guitarist is Jon Dalton on 25 June. Jon has been playing guitar since he was seven and cites Wes Montgomery as an influence. He brings a trio with a Hammond organ virtuoso so we can expect a vibrant set. If you like Gibson guitars then come along!

So join us for these wonderful gigs, and keep jazz alive outside London.

All gigs start at 8pm and tickets on the door are £10/£12 for Phil Robson, half price for students. We look forward to welcoming you to our jazz club and our Festival of the Guitar.

https://www.facebook.com/stratfordjazz.org.uk  

http://www.stratfordjazz.org.uk/ and https://twitter.com/StratfordJazz

Image by Joep Olthuis
Mary James 22 February 2014
Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Album review: Dhafer Youssef: Birds Requiem

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Dhafer Youssef

It is the day you scan the grey skies for swallows and there are none, there will be none for at least seven months, no more their joyful wheeling and swooping at dusk, their calls audible above city noise. Easy then to lapse into sadness at this tiny loss, which is, you tell yourself, insignificant when compared to the eternity of bereavement. Sometimes you want someone to express that loss, not with words but with pure sound, what the poet Robert Frost called the Sound of Sense – when you understand what is being said from the sound of it, just as you understand the tenor of a conversation heard through a wall without being able to distinguish distinct words. That someone is oud virtuoso and vocalist Dhafer Youssef in this beautiful impressionistic album, Birds Requiem where his extraordinary voice soars like one of those swallows, leaving you, earthbound and wistful, content just to have witnessed the flight.

There are diamonds strewn across this album – the oud which sets out slow dance rhythms (the Birds Requiem) which are repeated throughout the album and are picked up by the sympathetic piano of Kristjan Randalu; the very far away landscape of Nils Petter Molvær’s trumpet;  times when voice and clarinet blend so skillfully so you don’t know which you are listening to.  And the remoteness embodied in the kanun, a zither played in Turkey.   Then prepare yourself for the searing pain of  Khira “Indicium Divinum” Elegy for My Mother, its simplicity and dignity are overwhelming.   Someone has expressed your own loss, far better than you can yourself, with or without words.

Dhafer Youssef, oud, vocals
Nils Petter Molvær, trumpet
Eivind Aarset, guitar
Phil Donkin, double bass
Hüsnü Şenlendirici, clarinet
Aytaç Doğan, kanun
Kristjan Randalu, piano
Chander Sardjoe, drums

Mary James  26 January 2014