nigel gavin

Slide guitarist Cox from Canada and Indian veena player Bhatt appeared at Elsewhere a couple of years back with the first of their Indo-blues crossover albums, Slide to Freedom. And Cox reappeared with a fine compilation album Without Words of some of his instrumentals. For this sequel to Slide to Freedom, he and Bhatt have brought in...
> world-music/2709/doug-cox-and-salil-bhatt-slide-to-freedom-2-northern-blues/

Quite why this 2004 instrumental album -- actually guitarist Rose's two even earlier albums on a single disc, appparently -- has turned up now is a bit of a mystery, but those with a taste for Anglo-folk blues, Davey Graham, John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch, Doug Cox and others will find a lot to enjoy in this six and 12-string...
> music/3191/jack-rose-two-originals-of-red-horse-white-music-and-opium-musick-vhf/

The previous album, Pacifi Celta, by this increasingly interesting trio of singer, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Kim Halliday, singer/percussionist Ora Barlow and fiddle player Sarah Beattie lifted them right out of that special corner of te reo-cum-folk/women's music where they could have languished away from more mainstream attention....
> world-music/3095/pacific-curls-te-kore-ode/

Not being a great watcher of mainstream television means I happily get to miss things like Australia's Got Talent. (I didn't doubt it, the Easybeats, the Church and AC/DC are great.) But that also means people like me miss someone like 18-year old acoustic guitarist Robinson who won the "play-off" in 2008. Let it be said...
> music/2820/joe-robinson-time-jumpin-universal/

The music of Auckland-based, New York-raised pianist/composer Jonathan Besser -- often with the group Bravura -- has long deserved a broader audience than the classical world which it inhabits. Working with guitarist Nigel Gavin, bassist Peter Scott and violin player Miranda Adams (among others) whose reach stretches to experimental music,...
> music/2822/besser-and-bravura-decadence-live-atoll/

This exotic blend of flamenco guitar and oud alternates between the thrilling and the exotic, and succeeds on both counts. Libertad, driven by urgent clapping and with the vocals of Doris Farhat keening and soaring, is a standout. It is the last track and the journey to it is utterly rewarding.  Muller (from the Netherlands...
> world-music/2706/jacco-muller-and-victor-ghannam-viento-del-desierto-mihrab/

For the first two-thirds of this album featuring guitarist Abercrombie, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Joey Baron, the more vigorous emotions are kept in check: the tunes breeze by on Abercrombie's fluid and smooth, warm tone, Feldman offers the barests of suggestions of gypsy violin (and its attendant humours) -- and...
> jazz/2690/john-abercrombie-quartet-wait-till-you-see-her-ecm-ode/

When I wrote the liner notes for Nigel Gavin's excellent Visitation album from late 06 I described him as "a musician without portfolio, a guitarist/composer whose work comfortably commands many different styles". Confirming that assessment were the list of people/bands he had worked with to that point: the Nairobi Trio, the Jews...
> music/1925/nigel-gavin-a-job-with-the-circus-dvd-by-costa-botes/

In a recent conversation this German-born Auckland-based guitarist mentioned an album of his I had forgotten about: it was Kling-Klang (on Ode) and at a guess came from some time in the early-to-mid 90s. His mention of it prompted me to get it out again because I had been very taken with it at the time. It was Haeder in a variety of...
> absoluteelsewhere/1156/peter-haeder-profiled-portrait-of-the-artist-as-musical-itinerant/

One of the many joys of Elsewhere is the unsolicited and unexpected mail, not the least when a CD like this -- dobro-meets-Indian music -- arrives all the way from a subscriber in Canada. Guitarist Doug Cox -- who produces the Vancouver Island MusicFest and has been a long-time subscriber to Elsewhere -- sent me this terrific album which has...
> world-music/1254/doug-cox-and-salil-bhatt-slide-to-freedom-northern-blues/

Auckland-based guitarist Nigel Gavin has appeared previously on Elsewhere -- see tag -- so it would be remiss if not downright rude to overlook this reissue of his excellent '03 solo album, which went largely ignored at the time as it came out on the small, independent Rouge label. Now getting national distribution through Ode, Thrum...
> music/1255/nigel-gavin-thrum-ode/

Guitarist Gavin is probably well known to more people than they realise: he has played with the Nairobi Trio, the Jews Brothers, created the guitar orchestra Gitbox Rebellion, and has been on albums by Wayne Gillespie, Ross Mullins and Whirimako Black. But it has always been his own albums -- limited edition and so under the radar for most...
> music/983/nigel-gavin-visitation-thrum-rhythmethod/