MAY 2016 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the May 2016 issue – OUT NOW!
Corinne Bailey Rae
There is, as they say, a lot of love in the room tonight. It’s Corinne Bailey Rae’s first gig presenting the music from her third album, The Heart Speaks In Whispers [released May 13], and a capacity crowd at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill couldn’t be more into the vibe. Everyone, it seems, not only knows the words to the first single Been To The Moon, but soon all present are noisily singing along to Green Aphrodisiac, the sexy, Syreeta-ish track we ourselves have championed within these pages of late. If the likeable 30-something Yorkshirewoman had been worried that her public, after her recording absence of more than six years [apart from one EP in early 2011], may have moved on without her, then the reaction to this hour-long set will have swept those fears away. Like Sade, it seems, she has sold sufficient albums – more than five million to date – and made enough confirmed supporters along the way to be afforded the odd extended sabbatical without it troubling her long-term progress. Corinne Bailey Rae can be here as long as she wants…
Alborosie
“He’s the youth from Zion, come to mash down Babylon with him sound. He is the youth from Zion, come to mash down Babylon with him songs… ”
Those lyrics are taken from Alborosie’s latest album Freedom & Fyah, which may just be his best yet – more of which later. They continue a thread that Sicily’s finest musical export has explored before: that of the righteous reggae singer, come to save the music and, ultimately, the world from dark forces. If that sounds like something from a comic book, then cast your mind back to Tony McDermott’s painting of him as Moses, leading musicians of all nations from the ruins of civilisation. The message it sent out was bold and straight as an arrow. It said there’s a new paradigm afoot; that reggae music is no longer confined by race, skin colour or nationality, and the culture it represents has now extended way beyond Jamaica…
Click here to buy and read more…
Chantae Cann
Born – like Bobby Womack and Frank McComb before her – in Cleveland, Ohio, raised on the south side of Chicago and now resident in Atlanta, vocalist and songwriter Chantae Cann has always been keen to make connections on life’s travels. Seemingly from nowhere, her voice has, in recent years, provided tour support to such as Leon Timbo, Darlene McCoy, P.J. Morton, Gramps Morgan, and India Arie, the latter her first noticeable break. She’s collaborated with artists and bands such as Snarky Puppy, Jarrod Lawson, Jonathan McReynolds, Tony Momrelle, Jaspects, The Foreign Exchange, Zo!, Mike Hicks, Sho Baraka and Khari Cabral Simmons too. Now her debut album, Journey To Golden, has made its own mark on Ropeadope Records as one of the best jazzy-soul sets of the year so far. It couldn’t have come a moment earlier, she explains over Skype from Georgia.
“A lot of my career path has been moments laid out for me… ”
Click here to buy and read more…
Empirical
Audience development is something of a Holy Grail in the jazz industry. More people, more gigs, more venues: they are all needed in abundance, but a novel approach to where the music is heard recently took a sharp twist with Empirical. The British quartet literally went underground in February, appearing at a pop-up venue in Old Street tube station in London’s east central area, having rented a shop unit, which enabled them to do 15 gigs in six days. They also held open rehearsals and workshops.
Passersby were welcome, but the operation was far from the cliché of street players blowing for loose shrapnel. There was no hat on the floor.
“As much as I love regular jazz spots to play, it’s very nice to go somewhere else,” says drummer Shane Forbes…
Click here to buy and read more…
