National Youth Jazz Orchestra -][- THE CHANGE – [NYJO, 2012] –

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Bill Ashton, British, National Youth Jazz Orchestra

National Youth Jazz Orchestra, CHANGE

National Youth Jazz Orchestra -][- THE CHANGE –Mp3– [NYJO, 2012] –

NYJO is world-famous as a glittering showcase for the country’s best young musicians. Since NYJO’s founding, by Music Director Bill Ashton OBE in 1965, most of the current generation of top British jazz musicians have risen through its ranks, often becoming established jazz stars whilst still playing with the band. One of NYJO’s aims is to share the talents of exciting young players with as wide a potential audience as possible.

Phronesis -][- WALKING DARK – [Edition Records, 2012] –

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Acoustic Bass, Anton Eger, British, European Jazz, Ivo Neame, Jasper Høiby, Phronesis, Scandinavian

Phronesis, Walking Dark

Phronesis-][- WALKING DARK –MP3– [Edition Records, 2012] –

Jasper Høiby (Denmark) – (double bass),
Ivo Neame (UK) – piano, Anton Eger (Sweden) – drums.

Scandinavian/British jazz trio Phronesis have the ability to excite, inspire and move people in a way that few bands are able to do. Led by Danish double-bassist Jasper Høiby, their charismatic live performances have prompted Jon Newey (Editor of Jazzwise Magazine) to describe them as ‘the most exciting and imaginative piano trio since EST’.

Kit Downes Trio -||- Golden [Basho Records]

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British, European Jazz, Jazz, Kit Downes Trio

Kit Downes Trio - Golden

Kit Downes Trio -//- Golden – [Basho Records, 2009]

After studying at both the Purcell School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music – Kit now plays regularly with his own trio, Stan Sulzman, Troyka, The Golden Age of Steam, Sam Crockatt and Clark Tracey – and has played with Joe Locke, Gilad Atzmon, Empirical, Gerard Presencer, Seb Rochford, Ian Ballamy, Peter Ind, Gwyneth Herbert, John Warren and Eugene Skeef. He has also performed with leading British bands Fraud, Asaf Sirkis’ Inner Noise, Gilad Atzmon’s Orient House Ensemble, Acoustic Ladyland, Nostalgia 77, 2000 Black, Silhouette Brown and Dennis Rollins’ Badbone and Co. He has also worked with up and coming Composer / Songwriter Micachu, with whome he recorded in Abbey Road for Matthew Herbert, recorded for BBC Radio 6 and played at the Sonar Music Festival ’07 in Barcelona. Kit’s work with Empirical has taken him to The North Sea Jazz Festival, The JVC Festivals in New York, Montreal and Newport, and Vancouver Jazz Festival. Empirical won ‘Best Album of the Year 2007’ in Jazzwise and the EBU Award at the North Sea Festival.

Courtney Pine | Destiny’s Song + The Imagine of Pursuance

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African American, Bebop, British, Courtney Pine, European Jazz, Saxophone

TVOne has a quarterly award winning series called “Unsung,” which airs on Sunday evenings during that period. Furthermore, when I hear the innovative, visionary and planetary sounds of true renaissance players like saxophonist Courtney Pine from Great Britain monstrous tonality and Trane influence echoes perfectly within the restrains of under appreciated artists. Perhaps, it’s the media’s fault or is it that we really haven’t heard jazz until you’ve listen to masterful voice of Courtney Pine?? ~ The Urban Flux

Courtney Pine | Destiny’s Song + The Imagine of Pursuance – [Island/Antilles New Direction, 1988]

Courtney Pine, Destiny's Song

Courtney Pine’s second album stays very much within the Marsalis-imposed boundaries of post-Miles post-bop; indeed, a Marsalis brother, Delfeayo, is the producer, and the album’s subtitle uses the patented kind of wordplay that the New Orleans dynasty indulges in. As before, Pine’s guiding star is John Coltrane, of whom he had become a fervent and skillful acolyte, tossing off endless streams of heated playing on tenor and soprano inside and outside. Pine also uses alternating expert teams of English acoustic jazz specialists — Julian Joseph or Joe Bashorun on piano, Paul Hunt or Gary Crosby on bass, and Mark Mondesir on drums — as backup.

There are some really good Pine compositions here; “Sacrifice” sounds as if it could have made it as a standard in mainstream and/or electric jazz. Although the novelty of a young black Englishman playing Afro-American acoustic jazz has long since worn off, much of this CD repays repeated latter-day listening. —Richard S. Ginell

Source: AllMusic.com

Ronny Jordan | The Rough and The Smooth

Tags

African American, British, Guitar, Jazz

Ronny Jordan | The Rough and The Smooth – [Private & Public Music, 2009]

Ronny Jordan, The Rough and The Smooth

“The Rough & The Smooth” is the fulfillment of a long held dream of mine to add “my two cents” to the timeless legacy of Soul Groove Jazz. This CD is not only a personal tribute to my primary jazz guitar heroes – the late Wes Montgomery, the late Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, George Benson and not to forget, the lesser known masters like the late Thornel Schwartz, Jimmy Ponder, Melvin Sparks, the late Ted Dunbar, Wilbert Longmire, Eric Gale and many others – but also to the jazz organ legends such as the late Jimmy Smith, the late Larry Young, the late Brother Jack McDuff, the late Jimmy McGriff, the late Richard “Groove” Holmes, the late “Big” John Patton, Rueben Wilson, Melvin Rhyne, Dr Lonnie Smith, the late Charles Earland, Booker T. Jones and others, the many great drummers, percussionists, horn men and the other great musicians, all too numerous to name, who each made, in their own very unique way, a massive contribution to Soul Groove Jazz Music .

ObliqSound News: Michael Olatuja at CMJ Music Marathon

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African, African American, Bass, British, Michael Olatuja

Michael Olatuja Speaks