Reviews that mention Keith Tippett
January 1, 2022
Keith Tippett & Matthew Bourne
Aeolian
Discus 120 CD
Lisa Ullén/Sten Sandell
Double Music
Clean Feed CF 579 CD
Challenging or comforting, the piano duo can be as rewarding as the series of duo discs and tours by Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea in the 1970s proved; or as mismatched as Cecil Taylor and Mary Lou Williams’ recorded collaboration of 1977. Keyboard discrepancy is avoided and comfort replaced by experimentation on these discs however. Distinctively both sets involve veterans working with younger pianists. The Swedish Double Music for instance features Sten Sandell, who has been recording since 1985 with the likes of Raymond Strid, with developing keyboardist Lisa Ullén, whose 21st Century projects are with different sized ensembles. A two-CD set from the UK, Aeolian captures the final public statement and a studio date by Keith Tippett (1947-2020) with younger colleague Matthew Bourne. Experienced in this configuration, Tippett had already recorded piano duets with Howard Riley and Stan Tracey. Meanwhile keyboardist Bourne’s work was in bands with Paul Dunmall and Laurent Dehors among many others. MORE
October 13, 2019
The Unlonely Raindancer
Discus 81 CD
ICP 10-tet
Tetterettet
Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsD CD 060
Detail
Day Two
NoBusiness Records CD 114
Jimmy Giuffe3
Graz Live 1961
ezz-thetics 1001
Sounds of Liberation
Sounds of Liberation
Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsD CD 057
Something in the Air: Reassessing 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Jazz through via New Reissues
By Ken Waxman
Reissues of recorded music serve a variety of functions. Allowing us to experience sounds from the past is just one of them. More crucially, and this is especially important in terms of Free Jazz and Free Music, it restores to circulation sounds that were overlooked and/or spottily distributed on first appearance. Listening to those projects now not only provides an alternate view of musical history, but in many cases also provides a fuller understanding of music’s past. MORE
July 6, 2014
Different Times, Different Places
Ogun OGCD 041
Via flamboyant performances from 1973 and 1976, Different Times, Different Places celebrates a particularly fertile period in British Free Jazz by unearthing hitherto unissued performances by two top-flight combos under the leadership of bassist Harry Miller. Importantly, the CD also adds material to the catalogue of three players who have since died. South African-born Miller (1941-1983), killed in an auto accident in the Netherlands; alto saxophonist Mike Osborne (1941-2007), whose mental illness prevented him from playing after the early 1980s; and pianist Chris McGregor (1936-1990), another South African, whose London-based Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band was a meeting ground for advanced African and European jazzers. MORE
December 5, 2011
Label Spotlight
By Ken Waxman
Nearly 40 years after it released its first disc – and after pressing about 40 LPs and 30 CDs – London-based Ogun Records is still chugging along, with managing director Hazel Miller maintaining it as a one-woman show. Strongly identified with the South African musicians who fled Apartheid for the United Kingdom during the 1960s as well as with the British innovators affiliated with them, Ogun puts out three to four CDs annually. The discs are a mixture of CD transfers of important LPs; newly recorded discs; plus never-before-released historical sessions. MORE
October 30, 2011
Suite
Jazzwerkstatt JW 107
Louis Moholo-Moholo/Dudu Pukwana/Johnny Dyani/Rev. Frank Wright
Spiritual Knowledge And Grace
Ogun OGCD 035
Prime, hitherto-unreleased slices of Jazz’s past, these CDs not only bring into circulation historically important live performances, but also confirm the skills of featured percussionist Louis Moholo-Moholo. One of the last surviving members of the many South African improvisers who left the country in the early 1960s because of Apartheid, Moholo, 71, still plays in fine form, and has returned to live in South Africa. MORE
August 16, 2011
Double Trouble
Reel Recordings RR018/019/020
Unbeknownst to most Jazz fans the musical influence of the South African Blue Notes combo and Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band extended much further into Jazz’s lingua franca than evidenced by the groups subsequently led by the original expatriates. Part of the appeal of Dreamtime, for instance, founded in 1981 by three Englishmen and two London-domiciled expatriates – one Italian and one American – is the many of the themes pulse with that mixture of Townships and experimental sounds which characterized the BOB. MORE
June 11, 2010
A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor
Ogun OGCD 030
Elton Dean’s Ninesense
Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge
Ogun OGCD 032
Although the principal lure of these two reissues may be the availability of prime slices of 1970s and 1980s British Free Jazz, unexpected revelations appear while listening. The facility of the session leaders and most sidemen on these discs by pianist Keith Tippett’s septet plus the ensembles led by saxophonist Elton Dean is widely known. But one musician whose talents seem to have slipped below the radar since that time is Welsh jazz trombonist Nick Evans. MORE
June 11, 2010
Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge
Ogun OGCD 032
Keith Tippett Septet
A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor
Ogun OGCD 030
Although the principal lure of these two reissues may be the availability of prime slices of 1970s and 1980s British Free Jazz, unexpected revelations appear while listening. The facility of the session leaders and most sidemen on these discs by pianist Keith Tippett’s septet plus the ensembles led by saxophonist Elton Dean is widely known. But one musician whose talents seem to have slipped below the radar since that time is Welsh jazz trombonist Nick Evans. MORE
August 21, 2006
Which Way Now
Cuneiform Records Rune 233
By Ken Waxman
Free Bop with a touch with kwela is probably the best way to describe this CD of never-before-released tracks from bassist Harry Miller’s 1975 Isipingo sextet. But this high quality session consisting of four of Miller’s compositions is more than that. It adds another document to the underrepresented story of South African/British improv.
Starting in the 1960s, usually fed up or fleeing apartheid, a variety of South African musicians abandoned their homeland and set up shop in the United Kingdom. Soon they interacted with some of the more advanced British players to develop a variant of Hard Bop mixed with transformed homeland melodies and touches of Free Jazz. Most – including trumpeter Mongezi Feza and drummer Louis Moholo featured here – were graduates of Chris McGregor’s Blue Notes combo. MORE
August 4, 2006
Bra Louis-Bra Bra-Tebs/Spirits Rejoice
Ogun CD017/018
Sole survivor of the legendary Blue Notes band that left Apartheid-era South Africa in the mid-1960s, drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo finally returned permanently to Cape Town in 2004. But during the three decades that he and his fellow exiled countrymen lived in Europe they added an undiluted tincture of African sensibility to the developing Free Music scene.
This CD assembles two important large group sessions. Spirits Rejoice, released on LP in 1978, is an octet date, which finds the drummer and two other expatriate South Africans – bassist Johnny Dyani, another former Blue Note, and bassist Harry Miller, who left the country on his own – working out with the ne plus ultra of BritImprov including trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, tenor saxophonist Evan Parker and pianist Keith Tippett. Elaborated are five longish pieces that mix Xhosa tribe rhythmic inflections, revivalist hymns and freeform Energy Music. MORE
April 4, 2005
I Wish You Peace
Cuneiform RUNE 203
Unquestionably a 50th birthday present to himself – and his listeners – there’s a tendency to hear I WISH YOU PEACE as an attempt by British saxophonist Paul Dunmall to sum up his musical experiences after a half century of life. Yet it’s a much a reflection of the present and future as the past.
Writing the three-part suite at a time when the war in Iraq was in full battle mode, Dunmall’s spiritual preoccupations seem a bit overcome by bellicose motifs in this recording, initially premiered on BBC Radio 3. Still the title reflects the reedman’s desire for humankind to achieve a non-war-like serenity. MORE
March 22, 2002
Spacetime
Cuneiform Rune 162
Together for almost a decade and a half, the sound of the British quartet Mujician, is, if anything more exhilarating than it has ever been.
Working within the instrumental parametres of the standard post-bop combo -- piano, bass, drums and saxophone -- the band situates itself in a space midway between what could be called BritImprov and American energy music. In other words, while some sections of the more than 72½ minutes of music on this disc are given over to microscopic instrumental evisceration through extended technique and emphasis, others spew out molten-hot slabs of intense, protracted, multi-faceted free jazz assertions. MORE