Brian Morton, Author at Jazz Journal

Roberto Bonati Chironomic Orchestra: Whirling Leaves

Brian Morton — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 10:42:54 +0000

“Improvised chironomy” is Bonati’s term, respectful of copyright, for what Butch Morris called “conduction”. The word itself refers to the science of gesture. The concert documented on Whirling Leaves (it seems there is also a DVD) was given shortly after an edition of Morris’s book was presented at the ParmaJazz Frontiere, of which Bonati is […]

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Cecilie Grundt: Order And Chaos

Brian Morton — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 10:31:39 +0000

Superior modern jazz from the saxophonist, making her second appearance as leader on CD. She grew up in Stavanger and came to jazz the familiar way, listening to the family’s record collection. Though she started out on alto and soprano, the tenor has been her mainstay for most of her playing career so far, with […]

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Ronnie’s: Ronnie Scott and His World-Famous Jazz Club

Brian Morton — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 20:10:44 +0000

Ronnie Scott was, as someone once put it, a very interesting bunch of guys and Oliver Murray has got together a very interesting bunch of guys to build a composite portrait of a great British institution. Its problem, of course, is that it rapidly became an institution, and as someone (this time it was Oscar […]

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Jamil Sheriff: The Ilkley Suite

Brian Morton — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 19:56:59 +0000

Going hatless on Ilkley Moor can be a bracing experience, or a fatal one, if you know the song, and if you’re from Yorkshire you certainly will. It’s thought that the song was “written”, to a much older melody, by a chapel choir on a picnic sometime in the mid to late 19th century. No […]

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Gospel Truth / Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Brian Morton — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 12:19:04 +0000

Until Mahalia Jackson came along, Rosetta Tharpe was the voice of gospel, though some of the black churches shunned her after she played in nightclubs. She’d started out, pre-school, as Little Rosetta Nubin but later took a version of her husband’s name Thorpe and stuck with that to the end. The first recordings were backed […]

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Nicholas Brust: Frozen In Time

Brian Morton — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 15:16:34 +0000

Time slows down with the absence of heat. You have this direct from the great physicist Carlo Rovelli, but it’s one of the ideas behind the title track here. Time and heat, sometimes more heat than light (whose speed is constant, Rovelli would also tell you), are important values in jazz. There’s a constant tension […]

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Craig Green: Love Notes In Binary Code

Brian Morton — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 00:31:12 +0000

This couldn’t have been a moment longer and preserved its fragile beauty. If 25 minutes sounds like short commons, it’s pretty much perfect and would that a few more artists would see the virtue of going back to LP durations, even if they don’t want the fuss of vinyl. Green comes from the same approximate […]

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Meson, Archer: 288 – The Idiolect Twixt Goethe And Rasputin / A Horizontal Babel

Brian Morton — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:16:34 +0000

The title will already have frightened off all those who habitually bleat “Can’t they just play Sweet Sue, It’s You?”, but it’s not meant to be taken altogether seriously. It probably helps to have some idea of what’s being played around with on titles like Cat On A Hot Tin Drum or Deutschland’s Greatest Love […]

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Roberto Magris: Suite!

Brian Morton — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:16:17 +0000

Magris continues on his warmly imperious way. There are few more exciting and satisfying composers around at the moment and it’s a measure of his gifts in that direction that he also chooses fascinating material to cover. This two CD set kicks off with a reading of In The Wake of Poseidon, which King Crimson […]

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Sean Noonan, Alex Ward: Noonward

Brian Morton — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 16:50:08 +0000

Alex Ward emerged out of the Derek Bailey circle as a free improviser of pleasingly other-worldly aspect, and it was something of a surprise when he turned to electric guitar as well as clarinet and started showing an interest in more rock-inflected situations. Noonan, by contrast, was born eclectic and seems to fit in to […]

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