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1 month ago | 
thetimes.com | Neil Fisher |Richard Morrison |Chris Pearson
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
thetimes.com | Chris Pearson
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Chris Pearson
This was an exceptional Pat Metheny concert with which to launch the EFG London Jazz Festival at the Barbican. We are used to a bit of spectacle from the American guitarist but he kept it simple: alone on a dark stage, plainly dressed in black T-shirt and jeans. He also talked, a lot — a rarity, as he acknowledged. He reminisced about discovering the guitar as a child and described his instruments. It illuminated his music like never before. The repertoire was surprisingly traditional.
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May 21, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Chris Pearson
Reviewed here are the jazz albums our critic has deemed the finest so far this year. A new review will be added regularly. What has been your favourite in recent months? Is there anything we are missing? Let us know in the commentsSilent, ListeningECMIs the ECM label looking for a successor to its retired superstar Keith Jarrett? If it is, Fred Hersch could be the man. The Cincinnati pianist certainly has the cerebral chops and taste for tradition the gig requires.
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May 8, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Chris Pearson
The death of Ron Miles at 58 in 2022 was especially poignant since he was at last on the verge of achieving the fame he deserved. After spending much of his career in his native Denver, the trumpeter made his first appearance as a bandleader at the Village Vanguard in New York in 2021, and his major label debut in 2022. This newly released concert with Bill Frisell and Brian Blade is a bittersweet reminder of what we have lost.
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May 1, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Chris Pearson
Warm nostalgia and the heady atmosphere of New York City’s jazz clubs envelop these albums by two of America’s best alto saxophonists. Charles McPherson was in Charles Mingus’s band for 12 years before making a string of sideman and leader appearances. He is heard in fine form live at Smoke on Broadway. Jon Gordon’s studio date celebrates the club scene five miles away on 7th Avenue as it was in the Eighties. McPherson’s album title, Reverence, is in reference to the musicians he has worked with.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Chris Pearson
Art Tatum was one of the most influential jazz musicians, but you rarely see an overt recreation of his work as you do with Django, Trane or Miles. He was inimitable. When the Ohio-born pianist walked in on a Fats Waller gig, Waller said: “I play piano, but tonight God is in the house.” Herbie Hancock says: “Tatum played a lot of things which are still ahead of what I’m doing.” To Teddy Wilson he was “in a category by himself”.
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Apr 10, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Chris Pearson
To be reliable yet surprising is a tough trick to pull off, but Bill Frisell keeps on doing it. The Baltimore-born guitarist is consistent in style, applying his eerie, echoey vibrato to all forms of Americana from ancient folk to modern rock. Yet his music is as outward looking as it is reflective. With Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums in this offbeat double album, Frisell is backed on one disc by the Brussels Philharmonic and on the other by Umbria Jazz Orchestra.
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Mar 27, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Chris Pearson
Alice Coltrane was once dismissively referred to as “the Yoko Ono of jazz”, having gained fame by marrying her own iconic John. Now, just as Ono is getting the praise she deserves for her art, so Coltrane has been reassessed. A Year of Alice began in February for apparently no reason other than to celebrate the pianist and harpist, and it continues with this rather wonderful first-time release of her 1971 debut at Carnegie Hall.
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Mar 25, 2024 | 
thetimes.co.uk | Richard Morrison |Neil Fisher |Chris Pearson |Clive Davis
The sun is shining, the violins are tuning up, you have a glass of crémant in your hand … there’s little that beats the bucolic experience of a classy summer music festival in the UK. Plan your calendar carefully, but don’t forget the all-important picnic and corkscrew. Most classical festivals are spread out over some weeks, with tickets available for individual performances. Buxton has an acclaimed literary strand as well as its own fringe.
