Jazzwise Editor's Choices - March 2023

"Scaled up to a 18-piece orchestra, AEC sounds as powerful, sonically, and as varied, stylistically, as at any point in those eventful decades as it presents material that shows how its distinctive blend of stately, often fraught melody and mercurial improvisation coheres with barrages of African percussion, soaring operatic vocal, whirring strings and passages of rabble rousing spoken word." 

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"Two bands are featured, one based in New York, the other in Montreal, and the leader’s precise rhythmic drive is compelling. Chambers multitracked vibraphone solos are equally gripping, and are scattered throughout this excellent release."

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

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"As its title suggests, this exquisite album serves as a showcase for Elias’ characteristically understated vocal approach, one which eschews vibrato, with phrasing that glides over bar lines such that they dissolve away, and with each note dead centred." 

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"Drifting represents that concentrated focus on the passing moment even more revealingly – and dynamically – than its ECM predecessor, her eponymous 2016 debut for the label."

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

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"Mehldau’s highly expressive touch and use of rubato and dynamics are nothing less than exemplary and unexpected twists add a new dimension to the material without abstracting the original songs. It’s a recipe that’s likely to satisfy both jazz lovers and fussily dedicated Beatles fans alike."

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

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"The Necks' music is sometimes criticised for 'not going anywhere', but that is to miss the point. As ever, Travel – their best album since the aforementioned Unfold – is all about the journey, not the destination." 

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"This session – made at Lugano’s Italian-Swiss radio studio – catches the immediacy of a group that approaches every session afresh, yet demonstrates years of shared understanding of one another’s playing."

Available Format: CD

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"There is not much to choose between the Hanover concert and the Amsterdam concert – this was a remarkably inventive group, and as ever the interplay between Desmond and Brubeck is fascinating, and Joe Morello’s interventions well judged – he was an excellent drummer who never sounded as good away from the quartet." 

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"An essential release if you don’t have a Jones collection, and a good gap-filler if you do, with good clear remastering, and solo contributions from a veritable who’s who of the jazz world at the dawn of the 1960s."

Available Format: 3 CDs

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"A fine issue by one of the great big bands of all time."

Available Format: CD 

"A decade on, RMS still sounds fresh (especially on this new RTI-pressed, George Horn-cut Craft edition); whether or not you approve of the results, Spalding’s laudable ambition and vision, realised here in all its openminded glory, is worthy of praise. Essential listening."

Available Format: 2 Vinyl Records

from www.prestomusic.com