Around three months ago, I wrote about what to me seemed a fairly transformative experience of joining a local choir to sing some music by Brahms. I certainly don’t intend to post a blog after every concert I take part in – this will probably be the last – but in the hope of encouraging … Continue reading Singing Beethoven (or how to have fun)
Frequent readers will probably have registered my admiration for the various musical offerings of saxophonist Trygve Seim and trumpeter Arve Henriksen, so are unlikely to be surprised by my enthusiasm for Arcanum, a newly released quartet album they made with bassist Anders Jormin and percussionist Markku Ounaskari. The four have played together in various configurations … Continue reading But Is It Jazz? Three New Albums
I can’t recall precisely when I first heard the music of the Tunisian oud maestro Anouar Brahem; it was probably when I bought Madar, an album of duets with Jan Garbarek, released in early 1994, which was some months before I saw Moufida Tlatli’s film The Silences of the Palace, for which he wrote and … Continue reading But Is It Jazz? Cool Music in a World on Fire…
If you have any interest at all in the extraordinary work of the Quay Brothers, you should certainly be sure to visit the exhibition Dormitorium - The Film Décors of The Quay Brothers, currently at Bloomsbury’s Swedenborg House until Friday 4 April. But even if you’ve never heard of the Pennsylvania-born, London-based, Central-and-Eastern-Europe-obsessed twins and … Continue reading Impossible Worlds Made Real: The Quay Brothers in Bloomsbury
With the perhaps partial exception of my best-of-the-year lists, my writing here has always been about what other people have done – filmmakers, musicians, artists, photographers, writers – rather than about myself. For once, however, I am going to deal with my own actions, simply because I’d like to encourage anyone out there who’s considering … Continue reading Singing Brahms (and how to survive)
As regular readers may be aware, I’ve been a great admirer of the composer, bandleader and pianist Mike Westbrook for many years. If memory serves, the first music I ever heard by him (thanks to John Peel, I suspect) was the 1972 jazz-rock album Solid Gold Cadillac; certainly the first time I saw Westbrook perform … Continue reading Piano Magic: Mike Westbrook’s Intimate Epic
A few weeks ago, enthused by the release of an impressive album of duets by Thomas Strønen, I followed my review with a list of some of my favourite duet CDs released by ECM over the years. Perhaps one of the least known of the albums I included was Poros, a 1998 release by the … Continue reading But Is It Jazz? Another Fine Album of Duets…
If by any chance you read my recent ‘best of 2024’ post, you may have noticed, among the new musical releases, the inclusion of an album entitled Relations, attributed to Thomas Strønen, Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy. That would be a rather eccentric line-up for a group – a Norwegian percussionist, … Continue reading It Takes Two to Tango… or the Magic of Musical Duets
I’ve been posting my ‘best of the year’ lists since I first started writing here in 2016, and on each occasion I felt a need to mention in passing the state of the UK and of the world. Well, we may have got rid of the wretched Tories, but what with Trump, Musk et al, … Continue reading My Best Movies, Music, Books, etc, in 2024
It’s strange: the Norwegians Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli undoubtedly count among my favourite musicians, and both – the former a saxophonist, the latter an accordionist – have been mentioned fairly frequently on this website. (Indeed, Haltli featured in my very first blog.) Nonetheless, while preparing a few notes for the following piece about Our … Continue reading Their Time: Trygve Seim and Frode Haltli on Stunning Form
notes and observations by Geoff Andrew 