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Chris Spedding
Karl Jenkins: Penumbra II
by Chris May
Multi-instrumentalist Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) is a successful composer of classical, film and TV music. But before he went over to the Dark Side, the then plain old Karl Jenkins was a member of the Rebel Alliance and a pivotal presence in British jazz rock. He was a founding member of the pioneering Nucleus in 1969 and a member of Soft Machine from 1972 until the early 1980s.
read moreMike Westbrook Concert Band: Marching Song Volumes 1 & 2 Plus Bonus Tracks
by Maurizio Comandini
Mike Westbrook, pianista e soprattutto direttore di orchestra, è nato il 21 marzo del 1936 a High Wycombe, 50 chilometri a nord-ovest di Londra. Dapprima tentato dalla Art School di Plymouth, si dedica poi con decisione alla musica, dalla fine degli anni cinquanta. Nel 1958 forma la sua prima band per la quale gli capita di reclutare il sedicenne John Surman, giovane talento emergente che stava terminando il suo percorso scolastico. Quattro anni dopo Westbrook si sposta a Londra per ...
read moreNucleus: Nucleus Live at the BBC
by Maurizio Comandini
Dio salvi la regina. E la BBC. L'emittente di stato britannica ha capito fin da subito che da quelle belle energie musicali, che spuntavano come l'erba di Hyde Park sotto al tiepido sole di quelle latitudini, passavano le scelte esistenziali e culturali delle nuove generazioni e sin dagli anni sessanta ha dato ampio spazio alla musica, premiando non solo il pop ma anche le proposte più articolate e di nicchia e ha conservato in archivio una buona parte di quelle ...
read moreMike Gibbs: Revisiting Tanglewood 63: The Early Tapes
by Chris May
With British jazz in 2021 in better shape than ever before, record companies are being emboldened to revisit their tape libraries and reissue historic but long deleted albums. At the same time, recently formed specialist labels such as Jazz In Britain are making available club and radio broadcast recordings which have never been released before. The Rhodesian-born, Berklee-schooled orchestral-jazz composer Michael Gibbs, a truly iconic figure who continues to inspire young British musicians, is receiving attention on both fronts.
read moreIan Carr: Solar Session
by Chris May
One of the first European jazz bandleaders to embrace synthesizers, bass guitars and other electric instruments, trumpeter, composer and author Ian Carr forged a singularly British style of jazz-rock with his band Nucleus, which he formed in 1969 and with which he recorded a dozen albums through the 1970s. Carr had previously paid extensive dues in acoustic jazz, most notably as co-leader with saxophonist Don Rendell of the highly regarded, culturally inclusive Rendell-Carr Quintet from 1964 to 1969.
read moreMike Westbrook Concert Band: Marching Song Volumes 1 & 2 Plus Bonus Tracks
by Roger Farbey
It's hardly surprising that Mike Westbrook reigned supreme in the latter quarter of the 1960s and early 70s. His big band was voted top of that category in the late-lamented Melody Maker British jazz polls for 1970 (and the two years either side of that). In the same year, his third album, Marching Song, recorded a year earlier came third in the category LP Of The Year" (the number one album that year was John McLaughlin's seminal Extrapolation so there ...
read moreChris Spedding: Songs Without Words
by Duncan Heining
Recorded for Harvest in 1970, Songs Without Words was only originally released in Japan. At the time, Chris Spedding was a much sought after guitarist in jazz and rock with one of the most impressive of CVs--Mike Westbrook, Michael Gibbs, Jack Bruce, Ian Carr's Nucleus, Pete Brown and Frank Ricotti amongst others. The reason for its shelving/limited release seems to resulted from the guitarist's desire to move his career in other directions than the jazz-rock with which he was increasingly ...
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