The Morning Star writes, “This is a record of many vistas and soundscapes, beautifully and movingly played, recorded defiantly in May 2020 in the very gut of the pandemic.”
JAZZVIEW'S BEST OF 2021
Ubuntu Music’s Artists Shine Bright!
Jazz Views: Albums of The Year
Will Glaser and Nigel Price take top honours.
REVIEW: Jay Phelps 'Live At The Cockpit’ / 4.5 Stars
Jazz Journal’s Dave Jones writes, “it’s a great set – very contemporary sounding in its variety of grooves, and besides the perhaps more obvious relatively recent influences to be heard in Phelps’s playing, I hear a bit of Chet Baker.”
It’s refreshing to hear some live jazz at the moment, albeit in this case in recorded form, but this is a very real live recording for radio, taken from one set at The Cockpit Theatre in London, with Phelps and his quartet supported by a couple of other bands. Hence the length is a bit more like a studio recording rather than live.
It was recorded by Steve Lowe for BBC Radio 3’s J to Z programme, and we have Chris Phillips and Jez Nelson of Jazz FM to thank for the actual programme of gigs at The Cockpit – a nice concept presenting several high-quality jazz groups in one evening, enabling them to showcase themselves to a live audience in the round, and also to a national radio audience.
As it’s a live album, the sound isn’t quite what you might expect from a studio recording, but this doesn’t affect enjoyment of the music if you listen to it like a gig, which is the whole point here. Phelps’s trumpet sounds a bit distant at times, but I suspect that’s just inherent in the sound of the room.
Anyway, it’s a great set – very contemporary sounding in its variety of grooves, and besides the perhaps more obvious relatively recent influences to be heard in Phelps’s playing, I hear a bit of Chet Baker – not because Phelps sings as well as plays, but because of certain aspects of his sound at times (although he has a bigger sound than Chet), and his phrasing.
The rhythmically interesting Rick Simpson excels on piano, with a hint of Mehldau in his style, and a nod to Debussy’s Clair De Lune at the end of Angel, the penultimate track. Glaser and Ireland’s grooves help the set to really take off in the second half, and Simpson and Phelps fly with them. Buy this album, and once again enjoy the sound of four guys playing in the same room to a packed audience.
REVIEW: Will Glaser / 'Climbing in Circles'
The Jazz Mann’s Ian Mann writes, “Glaser himself performs brilliantly throughout and is rightly credited as leader, but in truth this is genuinely a trio of equals. In the event of some degree of normality ever returning one suspects that this band would also represent a very intriguing and exciting live prospect.”
For the full review, please click on the image, above.
Ubuntu Artists in February's Jazzwise Magazine
Solstice, Joshua Jaswon, Will Glaser and QOW TRIO are all there!
Solstice Feature
Joshua Jaswon
QOW TRIO
Solstice Album Review
Three Ubuntu Artists Selected by jazzwise Magazine as Best Albums of 2021 (so far)
These outstanding albums were reviewed in the 2021 issues of Jazzwise and all were selected as Editor's Choice.
The new release from Japanese pianist Yoko Miwa has an appealing lockdown title. Who couldn’t do with a little joy right about now? And this 11-cut disc certainly delivers on its titular promise. The recording comes out of Miwa’s response to the pandemic, which, the Berklee professor explains, was to compose every day. Accordingly there are five new originals, paired with six covers. ‘The one emotion that unites all the songs is one of JOY,’ Miwa says, not at all misleadingly: there’s a splendid, irrepressible energy about these tracks... Robert Shore
This completes an unusual trilogy of releases, following Glaser’s duo albums with saxophonist Matthew Herd, then pianist Liam Noble on Climbing in Circles Part 1 and 2, whose near identical tracklists tried to tease out how players’ personalities impact material. The MO is loosened here, letting the combined trio relax into musical friendship, playing covers and originals. ‘Mood Indigo’ is dismantled for inspection, in a thankfully less extreme version of Douglas Gordon’s Hitchcock art installation deconstruction 24 Hour Psycho, as Noble slows and delays the melody, only to find it indestructible. Nick Hasted
Nigel Price (g), Tony Kofi (as), Vasilis Xenopoulos (ts), Ross Stanley (org), Joel Barford (d), Snowboy (perc), Callum Au (arr, tb), plus the Phonograph Effect Strings: Kay Stephen, Anna Brigham (vn), Elitsa Bogdanova (vla) and Chris Terepin (clo). Rec. 7-8 September, 30 September, 20 October 2020
As its title implies, this is Price looking afresh at compositions by his hero Wes Montgomery, and re-casting them in ways that he feels Wes might well have considered. Or welcomed. Add to that, Price’s decision to enlist Au to create discrete string arrangements for three of the 10 numbers and then to enlist Snowboy to splice in percussion effects, and you can see that this surpasses anything else that he has done up to now. Peter Vacher
REVIEW: Will Glaser / 'Climbing in Circles'
Jazz Journal’s Thomas Fletcher writes, “this album presents a trio made up of three equally talented performers.”
Jazzwise Magazine: March 2021
Ubuntu Music Artists are everywhere!
Ubuntu Music Advert
Ubuntu Music 2021 Releases
O’Higgins & Luft at Scarborough Jazz Festival
QOW Hits the Jazzwise Office Chart
Yoko Miwa Hits the Somethin’ Else Chart
Yoko Miwa & Shez Raja Hit the Jazzed Chart
QOQ in Taking Off
Will Glaser ‘Climbing in Circles’ Review
QOW TRIO Review
REVIEW: Will Glaser 'Climbing in Circles'
BBC Music writes, “forthright, gently knowing and sonicly detailed.” ★★★★
