By John Shand, The Sydney Morning Herald This one instantly passes the hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck test – that slightly creepy chill, not unlike the first waft of cool night air following a hot day in the desert. After a Jewish upbringing, Chicago-based pianist/composer Ryan Cohan only reconnected with his estranged Arab father and the paternal side of … Read More
By John Shand, The Sydney Morning Herald When John Coltrane visited Nagasaki on a Japanese tour in 1966, 21 years after the atomic obliteration, he was not with his band members when they left the train. The panicked promoter found him still on board, absorbed in playing his flute. Asked what he was doing, Coltrane … Read More
By Nathanael Cooper, The Sydney Morning Herald Virtuosic saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin turns her remarkable talent to the works of Alice and John Coltrane in an album to get any jazz lover’s pulse racing. Read the full review here.
By John Shand, The Sydney Morning Herald A LIFE BETWEEN (Soundsabound) ★★★★ Perhaps it was inevitable that Chase Baird would be a jazz saxophonist, with his first name referencing a Coltrane tune (among others) and his second containing “bird”. But making this second album was not easy, with a little serendipity required before his pieces could … Read More
By: John Shand, The Sydney Morning Herald Aaron Whitby – COUSIN FROM ANOTHER PLANET (Ropeadope) ★★★½ Music, like storytelling, is partly the art of balancing the predictable and the unpredictable. You lead someone down the garden path, only to find a chasm, a mountain, a pot of gold, an axe murderer or a lover. No one who … Read More
