Oriole

10/05/2006 Kerstan Mackness - Timeout

“Guitarist Jonny Phillips might just be the next big star to emerge from the F- IRE Collective, the loose confederation of forward-looking musicians that include the Mercury- nominated Polar Bear and the hip-punk Jazz outfit Acoustic Ladyland, But while those bands embrace electronica, funk and rock influences, Phillips who played on the Polar Bear album and who regularly collaborates with folky songstress Julia Biel is a different beast altogether. His music is a pastoral, impressionistic mix of soaring melodies and South American folklore that strives to create an aural form of magical realism. Dreamlike and beautiful, it sounds simultaneously contemporary and yet centuaries old.

His band Oriole are something of a F-IRE collective supergroup with big haired drummer Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland, Fulbourn, Taversham), cellist Ben Davis (Julia Biel, Django Bates), Lee Konitz-ish saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock (Monica Vasconcellos), claranetist Idris Rahman (Soothsayers), Danish bass player Anders Christensen (Paul Motion) and Brazilian Percussionist Adriano Adawali Itauna.

Their new Album 'Migration' is an early contender for jazz release of the year, a sublime, slightly unsettling but emotionally rewarding work that draws on folk, north Brazilian, West African and Mediterranean music. Like the Norwegian pianist Christian Wallumrod, Phillips conjures music that is quietly intense, beguilingly beautiful and full of pleasingly robust tunes that stay with you long after you hear them

Every New Day by Bruce Lindsay

Extended Analysis

Oriole: Every New Day

Album Reviews

Tribute to Hoagy Carmichael by AAJ Italy Staff
Migration by Chris May

”As forceful as it is subtle, Oriole have in the space of two albums found something that most groups spend many moons searching for--a sound of their own.” --Kevin Le Gendre

Jazz At Ronnie Scotts

“This album delivers those light hearted and playful moments we expect of the summer, its skillfully and wholeheartedly composed and performed by an exceptional band.” --Miriam Hempel

Straight No Chaser

“a musical mosaic that feels as spiritualy uplifting as a Paulo Coelho novel” --Tom Barlow, Jazzwise ****

“an early contender for jazz release of the year - uplifting melodies that'll make you smile, think and want to dance.” --Kerstan Macness-Timeout-London

“This is a beautiful album, flawlessly written, arranged, played and produced - A joy to listen to and it should be a contender for the album of the year” -- Chris Mann, 24dash.com

“the entire album is entrancing, affecting and compulsively playable. Unreservedly recommended.” Chris Parker “ Vortex website

“If the lineup sounds like a dream made real, so does the music - I can't think of a better way to celebrate the return of warmth and sunshine than to spin Migration.” -- All About Jazz