FEBRUARY 2023 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the February 2023 issue – OUT NOW!
Adi Oasis
OK, people, pay attention, please: Pronunciation School is [temporarily] open.
‘Adeline’ is henceforth to be pronounced ‘Ah-duh-leen’, to rhyme with ‘funk machine’, and definitely not – absolutely never ever – ‘Ah-der-line’, to rhyme with ‘fine’.
One hopes you’ve all got that, because the talented and likeable singer, songwriter, bassist and more latterly producer and video maker in question has become pretty fed up with people getting it wrong over the years. It’s part of the reason – only part, mind – why Adeline Michèle Petricien recently changed her professional name to ‘Adi Oasis’.
And what’s the other reason? Well, she can tell you that herself…
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BOB ANDY
When Bob Andy died on of pancreatic cancer March 27, 2020, aged 75, Jamaica lost one of its most revered singer/songwriters. In truth his talent extended beyond the Caribbean and it was only a combined failure of the media and music conglomerates – aided and abetted by a self-destructive streak – that denied him comparable status with highly-rated songwriters from other genres. That’s what being born Jamaican does to you: just ask Beres Hammond, another artist deserving to be spoken of in the same breath as some of America’s soul greats.
In more ways than one, it’s unfortunate that he died just as a global pandemic took hold. There were no flights from Florida to Jamaica during the final days of his illness and this prevented two of the closest people to him – Marcia Griffiths and his son Godfrey, aka Bobby – from saying goodbye.
TRISTAN
Back in the dark days of COVID lockdown, when people were scared and/or dying, none of us was allowed to mingle and – in music world – all gigs everywhere were cancelled, four of the members of admired Dutch jazz, funk & soul quintet Tristan came in for quite a shock: lead singer Evelyn Kallansee told them she was leaving the band and moving to Ireland with her husband. It was an unexpected development, the band having been together as a five – that’s Coen Molenaar [keys], Frans Vollink [bass], Sebastiaan Cornelissen [drums] and Guy Nikkels [guitar] plus departing vocalist – since 2014, when their popular debut album, Full Power, first made their name on the European music scene. There was, admits, Coen Molenaar, a fleeting temptation to call it quits…
ETHNIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE
Here is an extraordinary, if not unique, chain of events. In November 2022 Ethnic Heritage Ensemble performed a heavenly concert at the Barbican Centre that was a highlight of the London Jazz Festival. It was a tribute to the great Don Cherry and featured several of his family members, including stepdaughter Neneh and son David Ornette. The latter died just a few hours after the gig. After beauty came tragedy.
“I have honestly never experienced that before, in a very short time after a communion with artists, musicians,” says Kahil El’Zabar, the 69-year-old percussionist-vocalist-composer-leader of Ethnic Heritage Ensemble…
