Fred Grand

United Kingdom

Contributor at Freelance

I write about jazz. Muckrack Profile: https://t.co/sJ5tqswQA7

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Articles

Reviewed: Benjamin Boone | Krokofant | Prepared | Tuomo & Markus with Verneri Pohjola

1 month ago | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

American saxophonist, composer and educator Benjamin Boone is a virtuoso performer equally at home in the worlds of jazz and contemporary classical music. A series of recordings with leading poets, including the late Philip Levine, revealed a keen interest in social justice, while extended overseas trips to Moldova (2015), Ghana (2017-18) and Ireland (2022-23) as a Fulbright Scholar have allowed him to immerse himself in local cultures.
Reviewed: Inge Weatherhead Breistein | Sigurd Hole | Spinifex | Alexi Tuomarila

2 months ago | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

Bergen-based saxophonist and composer Inge Weatherhead Breistein first came to my attention through his collaborations with Jazzland label-mate John Derek Bishop (aka Tortusa), their 2022 album Ro revealing a lyrical player with a penchant for long melodic lines and circular breathing. It turns out that he’s also a noted producer of electronic and ambient music, and this EP-length collection draws together the various strands of his musical persona.
Reviewed: Mike Chillingworth | Felix Henkelhausen | Kjetil Møster | Marius Neset & Leif Ove Andsnes

Dec 5, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

If there’s a common theme linking this month’s releases then it must surely be rhythm. The first two come from composers experimenting with complex polyrhythms, Møster’s beats are rather more rudimentary but devastatingly effective, while Neset’s percussion-less chamber quartet play with the kind of gusto that generates its own momentum.
Reviewed: Kjetil Husebø | Lampen | Pericopes+1 | Jenny Scheinman

Nov 17, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

Ever since the first jazz musician entered a recording studio or found the need for amplification, the music’s long and sometimes controversial relationship with technology was sealed. This month’s quartet of recordings is fairly representative of the ways in which today’s musicians are harnessing its potential, and even an ostensibly traditional work such as violinist Jenny Scheinman’s latest bears the indelible sonic thumbprint of its justly celebrated producer.
Reviewed: Jessica Ackerley, Orson Claeys, Joe Sanders, Superposition

Oct 1, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

Given my longstanding appreciation of jazz that traverses the genre boundaries, it’s perhaps not surprising that each of the albums I’ve reviewed this month is open to external influences. Enriched but not engulfed by the absorption of other dialects, each to a greater or lesser degree provides testament as to jazz’s extraordinary ability to evolve and renew.
Phil Merriman Trio: The Roots Beneath

Sep 12, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

The somewhat cryptic album title of this debut by pianist Phil Merriman’s new trio describes the ways in which the sum of an artist’s lived experience imperceptibly shapes the creative process. Merriman’s own root structures run deep. A classically trained pianist who graduated from the University of York in 2006, Merriman also studied improvisation with the late John Taylor.
Olli Ahvenlahti: Euro Visions

Sep 5, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

It was once the received wisdom that jazz, if it didn’t die, certainly took a series of wrong turns during the 1970s. Yet the number of today’s next generation artists drawing inspiration from the era, and the continued industry scramble to reissue lost treasures, tells an altogether different story. A recent new issue prompted the idea to check in with Olli Ahvenlahti, one of Europe’s great “fusion” pioneers, to reflect on a truly remarkable life in music.
Bjørn Charles Dreyer: Fourth Wave And The Moon

Sep 2, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

I knew little of the US-Norwegian guitarist Bjørn Charles Dreyer before his 2021 album Time And Mass (NXN Records), a beautifully poignant set of electro-acoustic soundscapes recorded and mixed at the Punkt Studio by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré. Born in New York in 1968 and moving to Norway as a child, Dreyer has appeared as a freelance on more than 170 genre-spanning recordings, and his list of credits reads like a who’s who of the new Scandinavian jazz.
Devin Gray: To The Point

Aug 24, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

Drummer-composer Devin Gray’s latest group can loosely be described as a European project, though pan-Atlantic would perhaps be more accurate. Gray himself divides his time between New York and Berlin, while Belgians Nicolas Thys, Robin Verheyen and Bram De Looze have each spent significant chunks of time studying and working in New York. The five short compositions, all from Gray, are open to influences from both sides of the Atlantic, and for the most part they defy easy categorisation.
Søren Lee: Hope - Jazz Journal

Aug 16, 2024 | jazzjournal.co.uk | Fred Grand

Reviewing Danish guitarist Søren Lee’s Diversity Trio back in 2019 I was struck by his raw power and quicksilver virtuosity, which I found redolent of John Scofield and Mike Stern at the height of their electric powers. This latest release, dedicated to Lee’s late wife Eva who was extremely ill at the time of the recording, walks a slightly different beat but is no less powerful.