Er schrieb diesen wundervollen Song, und die Hörer sind sich bis heute im Unklaren, ob da einer Gelassenheit und inneren Frieden gefunden, oder bloß eine innere Leere freigelegt hat. Wenige Tage nach der Aufnahme, 1967, starb Otis Redding bei einem Flugzeugunglück. Die Klanghorizonte entführen in der Nacht von Sonntag auf Montag in eine hinterwäldlerische Kneipe mit Jukebox, tief in die Sümpfen, wo es Krokodilsteaks gibt – Simon Jeffes vom Penguin Cafe hatte ohnehin immer gute Stories parat. Ein neues Lied von David Sylvian lässt für ein zukünftiges, „norwegisches“ Album hoffen – Jan Bang, Erik Honore umd Arve Henriksen (der soeben ein neues Album vorbereitet) gehen Mr. Samtstimme zur Hand. Ein weiterer beachtlicher Songschreiber, Tim Elsenburg, hat mit seiner Formation Sweet Billy Pilgrim dunkle, erhabene Musik eingespielt, am Ende des Songs „Joyful Reunion“ scheint mir ein besoffener Wiener stets „Österreich“ zu gröhlen. Natürlich gibt es noch ein paar andere Klänge in dieser Radiostunde, und wenn Sie erst einmal ganz zu Anfang die „Southern Jukebox Music“ in tiefen Atemzügen inhaliert haben, wird Ihnen alles – hinterher – wie ein kurzer, seltsam nachwirkender Traum, vorkommen. Ein Klassiker der Jazzgeschichte wird auch ins Spiel gebracht, neben einem Liebesgedicht der Konkreten Poesie: Paul Bleys „Open, to Love“.
Archives: Freitag, 18. Mai 2012
2012 18 Mai
Von Krokodilsteaks, Flugzeugabstürzen und betrunkenen Österreichern: die Klanghorizonte am 21. Mai
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2012 18 Mai
Heute in den JazzFacts um 22.05 Uhr im Deutschlandfunk
Michael Engelbrecht | Filed under: Blog | RSS 2.0 | TB | Comments off
Entgegen den mir zur Zeit der Produktion vorliegenden Informationen erscheint das neue Album von John Surman nicht bereits in einer Woche, sondern erst am 6. Juni.
Karl Lippegaus berichtet vom Jazzfestival in Le Mans, ich stelle die neue CD des Klarinettisten Louis Sclavis vor (exzentrisch instrumentalisiert, mit E-Gitarre und Fender Rhodes, resp. Klavier). Zwei gnadenlos gute Trios (Saxofon/Bass/Schlagwerk) mit Mark Turner und Steve Lehman bilden den Rahmen für die Würdigung eines Soloalbums von John Surman, der nach vielen Jahren mal wieder einen Synthesizer umd entlegene englische Küstenzonen ins Spiel bringt. Darüber hinaus findet Anja Buchmann heraus, wieso Daniel Glatzel sein Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra in eine so verrückte Collagenmusik verwandelt hat, dass selbst John Zorn begeistert war. Ganz vertraut dagegen die Wallungen, die Altmeister Kenny Wheeler seiner 19-kopfigen Formation entlockt: ein britischer Big-Band-Schwanengesang des 82-jährigen Gentleman?
2012 18 Mai
Paul Buchanan: Mid Air (reviews and interviews)
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There has been some great reviews in for the album already. We’ve posted a selection of the reviews on the website below some quotes from the reviews
Uncut 9/10 – „Scotland’s greatest living singer“
Sunday Express 4/5 – „14 short pieces are melodic, beautifully crafted and definitely not for the broken hearted“
Time Out 4/5 (Album of the Week) – „exquisitely hushed and extraordinarily intimate listen“
Mojo 4/5 – „A 2am album of sheer devastating beauty“
INTERVIEWS
The Sunday Times and Guardian ran 2 interviews with Paul last weekend that are also available to read on Paul’s website.
There is also a great interview with The Works on RTE in Ireland. https://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1148959 (Here is a YouTube link for those who can’t view the RTE link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roAW6HS90xI)
RADIO
Finally, Paul has 2 radio appearances this weekend. Firstly there will be an interview on the Tom Robinson show on BBC 6 Music at 21:00 on Saturday (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hz2f0) He will then be appearing on Bob Harris’s Radio 2 show on in the early hours of Sunday morning. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wqtf
For further interviews, go to: www.anydecentmusic.com
or, read this one from Chris Roberts, BBC:
The Blue Nile never sold lorry-loads of albums, but for converts to their unique fusion of romantic melancholy and robust hope they remain one of the finest, most quietly righteous bands of all time. The Glasgow trio who floated effacingly onto no scene in particular in the mid-80s have parted, and singer Paul Buchanan, now 56, releases his solo debut. It’s unconscionably beautiful, and may be the most moving, precious record of 2012.
Sparse in texture, it yields an almost-overwhelming emotional kick, best received in the wee small hours. Buchanan carries the torch of Sinatra’s sensitive-masculine phrasing like no other. His wilfully imperfect vocals defy pat resolutions, hanging in the air like smoke plumes. It’s about the notes he leaves out, the spaces between, which, regarding loss, heartbreak and the yearning for beauty, say it all.
It’s mostly just voice and piano, with simple, effective melodies knowingly offering glimpses and echoes of earlier peaks. On My True Country, he sings „far above the chimney tops / take me where the bus don’t stop,“ channelling the essence of his former band’s A Walk Across the Rooftops. The lyrics throughout breathe fresh life into time-honoured imagery: snow, starlight, sky. „I want to live forever,“ he sings on the title-track, „and watch you dancing in the air.“
Part eulogy (for a friend who died), part celebration of peripheral moments which inform the everyday with flecks of epiphany, the songs (titles like Half the World, Wedding Party and Summer’s on Its Way are as evocative as the work of Edward Hopper) bleed into a poised, tingling whole. Fin de Siecle is a gorgeous Nyman-esque instrumental, but this voice can sing „the cars are in the garden now“ over and over and leave you marvelling at its poetic accuracy. On the closing After Dark he offers, „Life goes by and you learn / How to watch your bridges burn,“ and gently brooks no argument. Louis MacNeice famously used the phrase „time was away and somewhere else“ to describe the feeling of love. It equally well describes the 36 minutes of Mid Air, a masterpiece.
2012 18 Mai
My favourite albums of the second quarter of 2012 (April, May, June) – well, there might be some changes, but not too much!
Michael Engelbrecht | Filed under: Blog,Musik aus 2012 | RSS 2.0 | TB | 1 Comment
No. 12 FLY: YEAR OF THE SNAKE – West Coast Jazz, cool, refreshed, no cliches, and a tenor player named Mark Turner who can create long, cool and warming tones in the high register of his horn. A subtile affair.
No. 11 MONTY ADKINS: FOUR SHIBUSA – A haunting and moving album that moves seamlessly between the clarinets of Jonathan Sage and Heather Roche and exquisitely crafted electronic soundworlds. This studio album takes as its starting-point the Japanese concept of ‘shibusa’ – a term that describes the inherent simplicity and beauty in everyday objects. Heard as a whole this is an enveloping musical tour de force.
No. 10 ALABAMA SHAKES: BOYS AND GIRLS – Shades of early Aretha Franklin on one track, definitely some Janis Joplin in the vocals at times, but good old fashioned, honest, rocking, soulful tunes all round. Normally not my cup of Darjeeling, but it feels irresistible.
No. 9 DEXYS: ONE DAY I’M GOING TO SOAR – a surprising comeback. I have heared only two songs yet, but I have sympathies for the eccentric Kevin Rowland, so I’m sure the return of the man who wrote „Come on, Eileen“, will make it on the list with lyrical sharpness, and, well,for sentimental reasons.
No. 8 ANDROMEDA MEGA EXPRESS ORCHESTRA: BUM BUM – Daniel
deconstructs orchestral sounds, his fragmented Big Band sound turns H. G. Wells‘ Time Machine into a surreal jukebox in full flight! Gamelan? Exotica? Easy listening? Sun Ra laughing in Andromeda’s fog? Serious ingredients from fucking old Vienna? You never know.
No. 7 SWEET BILLY PILGRIM: CROWN AND TREATY – you know Sweet Billy Pilgrim, don’t you? You recall their awesome album, TWICE BORN MEN, a great release on David Sylvian’s samadhisoumd. No? Well, join the club: here’s a British band that few people are aware of. Their fortunes could change with Crown and Treaty; this is a stone-cold cracker of a record that has depth, layers and rugged charm. Opening track Joyful Reunion sets the tone: here be crescendos, choirs, choruses and choons that bands with a far higher profile would envy.
No. 6 GEOFF BARROW / BEN SALISBURY: DROKK – MUSIC INSPIRED BY MEGA- CITY ONE – brilliant trip through a dystopian world with haunting echoes of old 70s sci-fi-soundtracks (Vangelis, Carpenter) and radical twists and turns. Much more than a nostagic ride, though two old Oberheim synthesizers from the golden seventies set the tone.
No. 5 LOUIS SCLAVIS ATLAS TRIO: SOURCES – Another „mini laboratory“ of
French clarinet virtuoso Louis Sclavis. The weird combination of piano, Fender Rhodes piano and electric guitar might produce headaches in the hands of less-gifted musicians, but here we go for a wild ride, full of eccentricities, grooves, and pieces children might love.
No. 4 MIRRORING: FOREIGN BODY: Dead echoes, lost stories on a long and winding road, folk laments from old America, drone songs sending shivers down your spine, everything on the verge of falling apart. Gimme ten words for „heartbreaking“!
No. 3 JOHN SURMAN: SALTASH BELLS – finally another pure solo work by the neo-romantic jazz man playing everything himself: saxes, clarinets, synthesizers! Strolling through landscapes of the English southwest (and the spaces of his childhood). Might as well be his imagination running wild. Surman finds the right balance between ascetic forms of introspection and uninhibited joie de vivre.
No. 2 ASTRID: HIGH BLUES – the spirits of Erik Satie and the No-Neck-Blues-Band rarely mix in a singular vision, but this French quartet even uses moments of the enigmatic moods of Mark Hollis and some Eno-esque abstractions to create unique chamber-like atmospheres that never soumd like a sum of their inspirations.
No. 1 PAUL BUCHANAN: MID AIR – The late night-voice of Mr. „Blue Nile“, Paul Buchanan, a piano, some shades of strings and electronics, the most intimate song cycle next to silence; so do not believe anybody who asks for some proper arrangements. Excellent lyrics, for example in the title song:
The buttons on your color
The color on your hair
I think I see you everywhere
I want to live forever,
And watch you dancing in the air
… lies and make believe,
The very things that one leave
But I can see you standing in mid air
The girl I want to marry, upon the high trapeze
The day she fell and hurt her knees
And only time can make here
The wind that blows away with
Forever think the life was worth
The fallen snow, the virgin birth
Yeah I can see her standing in mid air
I can see you standing in mid air.