Jazz in Elsewhere
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Fly: Year of the Snake (ECM/Ode)
24 Jun 2012 | 1 min read
This sinuous, mysterious, rhythmic and back-to-the-bone album comes from a young trio which has impeccable pedigree. Saxophonist Mark Turner has played with numerous ECM artists (Dave Holland, Paul Motian) as well as Brad Mehldau, Billy Hart and James Moody; bassist Larry Grenadier came through Gary Burton's band to clock up work with Enrico Rava (he and Turner were on the... > Read more
Diorite
AUCKLAND'S FIRST JAZZ CONCERT, 1950: Shedding some bloody light
17 Jun 2012 | 5 min read
The words have written themselves into the history of great New Zealand phrases in the same way as Peter Jones' comment after the 1956 Springbok test, or prime minister Jim Bolger's dismissive words about pollsters after the general election in 1993. For those those who were there on the night though, Peter Young's first words through the microphone in the Auckland Town Hall Concert... > Read more
I Can't Get Started
Sheppard/Benita/Rochford: Trio Libero (ECM/Ode)
28 May 2012 | 1 min read
This elegant and sinuously lyrical album features two generations of British jazz musicians; saxophonist Andy Sheppard who came to prominence in the post-Marsalis years in the Eighties alongside Courtney Pine in the vanguard of UK scene, and drummer/composer Seb Rochford (interviewed here) whose geometric style comes full of odd angles and accents which launched him into the spotlight more... > Read more
When We Live On the Stars
Billy Hart: All Our Reasons (ECM/Ode)
7 May 2012 | 1 min read
Previously Elsewhere has sympathised with those for whom jazz can be a bewildering array of names, and specifically when it comes to groups on the ECM label who seem little more than temporary coagulations of talent. So this album which seems to appear under the name of drummer Billy Hart is just going to add to the confusion. Initially the group was named for the pianist (Ethan Iverson... > Read more
Nigeria
Nathan Haines: The Poet's Embrace (Haven/Warners)
4 Apr 2012 | 1 min read | 1
At the launch of this classy album recently, the graphic designer Andrew B White -- who had done the cover for both this and Kevin Field's Field of Vision -- made an interesting aside. He noted that Haines' new album -- all acoustic -- sounded more like Field's previous one Irony, and that Field of Vision -- with electronic keyboards and vocalists -- sounded like Haines' previous albums.... > Read more
Offering
PATTI AUSTIN INTERVIEWED (2012): Along came Jones . . . and Jacko
23 Mar 2012 | 10 min read
Patti Austin laughs frequently, sounds a world removed from her diva-like peers, makes references to Snoop Dogg and Rod Stewart, and admits her career – now more than five decades long and which has taken her from the dance charts with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to Carnegie Hall – has been rewarding for her. Less so for the music industry which struggles to... > Read more
Cry Me a River
KURT ELLING INTERVIEWED (2004): Moved by the spirit
1 Mar 2012 | 5 min read
There's a strange notion of what passes for singing these days. Blame Whitney Houston if you will, but watch any Idol show and singing seems to have been replaced by a kind of vocal calisthenics where notes are bent and twisted, tossed around with little care where they land, and stretched so that even the most simple phrase can take on an unnatural lifespan. This is singing as... > Read more
KEVIN FIELD PROFILED (2012): The vision thing . . .
20 Feb 2012 | 5 min read | 4
Auckland jazz keyboard player Kevin Field has had a couple of major turning points in his career. One came when, at age 18, he realised he didn't want to pursue his classical piano studies to their logical conclusion, the other was more dramatic. “Headlights coming towards me, that whole thing.” In 2008, Field's car was hit by a drunk driver, his lung collapsed and he... > Read more
Ditto (featuring Nathan Haines)
Various artists: Bossa Jazz (Soul Jazz/Southbound)
16 Feb 2012 | 1 min read
The highly regarded reissue label Soul Jazz -- see here for former treats -- again delves into Brazilian sounds of the late Sixties/early Seventies for a double disc which includes famous names like Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Dom Um Romao, Sergio Mendes, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Baden Powell among others. And of course they were all young back then. Subtitled “The Birth of... > Read more
Anoiteceu
Jack DeJohnette: Sound Travels (Shock)
14 Feb 2012 | 1 min read
The great jazz drummer -- who turns 70 this year -- shows no signs of either slowing down or repeating himself, and on the evidence of his performance of Miles Davis' tribute to Jack Johnson last year, his energy levels and creativity are also undiminished. This gentle album finds him exploring Latin styles (with singer/bassist Esmeralda Spalding), working with songwriter and keyboard... > Read more
Oneness
COLIN HEMMINGSEN PROFILED (2012): With his heart in both camps
25 Jan 2012 | 6 min read
In many countries, what Colin Hemmingsen has done all his life would not be considerd so unusual. But in New Zealand he has been a rarity, a musician who has had successful careers in both classical music and jazz. Hemmingsen was for many years the principal bassoonist in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra but also worked extensively playing jazz saxophone (tenor and soprano, he also plays... > Read more
Playing Defense
Campbell, Rae, Dyne: Storm in a Teacup (Rattle Jazz)
18 Jan 2012 | 1 min read
For an album which swing as much as it edges towards fluid bop, this outing by guitarist Al Campbell, drummer John Rae and bassist Paul Dyne, teases you into it with the opener, Rae's rhythmical stop-start Just Me Just Me, during which you are never quite sure where it is headed. Campbell's guitar hits a repeated figure, then bends notes while Dyne (presumably) scratches his strings before... > Read more
No Show Blues
Olivier Holland: Duets (Ode)
15 Dec 2011 | 1 min read
Perhaps because it is a challengingly naked form, there has not been a great tradition in New Zealand jazz for duet recordings. In fact the only one that immediately springs to mind is Open Door by Frank Gibson and Mike Nock, and that was released in 1987. Open Door had some small advantage in the genre in that Gibson is a drummer so the pulse, such as it might be, could be held down.... > Read more
Song for Bommel
Tim Hopkins: Seven (Rattle Jazz)
1 Dec 2011 | 2 min read
As with the Rattle album Ancient Astronaut Theory by Dave Lisik (interviewed here) and Richard Nunns, I was invited to write the liner notes for this release on Rattle's jazz imprint. I was such a fine album, how could I refuse? So here is an expanded version of what appeared in the handsome CD sleeve . . . “Jazz and freedom go hand in hand” – Thelonious Monk... > Read more
All Black and Blues
Tom Dennison: Zoo (Rattle Jazz)
18 Nov 2011 | 1 min read
While it is admirable that jazz musicians put out their own albums (especially in New Zealand where the market is small), it is even more so that any start-up label -- especially in New Zealand -- would firmly get behind an art form which has an audience which redefines the word "minority". Rattle -- not a start-up label since it has been going 20 years, but only more recently... > Read more
The Secret History of Islands
Alan Brown: Between the Spaces (Ode)
8 Nov 2011 | 1 min read
New Zealand keyboard player Alan Brown -- who has previously been in Blue Train and is currently in the Grand Central Band -- is on record saying that rather than writing a jazz album he wanted all his influences, classical to electronica and rock, to find their voice with his quartet for this release. And with saxophonist Nathan Haines guesting and string players alongside guitarist Andy... > Read more
Phonology
NILS-HENNING ORSTED PEDERSEN INTERVIEWED (2001): All basses covered
31 Oct 2011 | 4 min read
Think jazz and you invariably think the saxophone. Or trumpet. Or piano. Rarely does the acoustic bass, that pulse and often warm soul of this difficult improvised art form, come to mind. And even if it did, who could immediately conjure up the staggeringly long name of Denmark's pre-eminent practitioner? Yet the CV of Nils-Henning Orsted Pedersen lists performances alongside some... > Read more
Konitz, Mehldau, Haden, Motian: Live at Birdland (ECM/Ode)
9 Aug 2011 | <1 min read
A 2009 ECM superstar session where Lee, Brad, Charlie and Paul played standards (Lover Man, Lullaby of Birdland, Oleo etc) from which this finely wrought, sensitive selection was drawn. Pianist Mehldau offers exquisite, refined and sometimes dissonant solos which seduce or bring astringency in the turn of phrase. Some of this is so spare as to barely be there (Lover Man), at other... > Read more
Lullaby of Birdland
The New Fuse Box: The Wakem/Nielson Project (LGW)
8 Jul 2011 | 1 min read
A little clarifying chronology here might be useful when teasing out the threads of this Auckland jazz group. As I recall their debut album The Politiks of Jazz (just credited to Fuse Box) arrived in about 2000 and the group consisted of keyboard player Lindsay Wakem (who composed eight of the 10 tracks), guitarist Frans Huysmans, drummer Jason Orme and bassist Phil Scorgie. That was... > Read more
You Are Further and Further Away
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MILES DAVIS; TUTU 25 YEARS ON: Hope you like my new direction?
13 Jun 2011 | 4 min read
Depending on when he was talking and the mood he was in, Miles Davis would claim to have changed the direction of music three – or four – times. No one would doubt the impact of Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew – which might make the “three”. But the fourth? Although it didn't change the course of music as he might have wanted to... > Read more