Below you will find extracts from the original Jazzwise reviews from the July 2021 issue, which you can enjoy in full (along with many thousands more) in the new Jazzwise Reviews Database. For more information, please visit: jazzwise.com/subscribe

Rubén Blades y Roberto Delgado y Orquesta

Salswing!

Ruben Blades Productions        

Ruben Blades (v), Robert Delgado (b, bv), Juan Berna (p), Juan Carlos ‘Wichy’ Lopez (t), Alejandro ‘Chichisin’ Castello (t, tb, bs), Francisco Delvecchio, Avenicio Nunez (t), Carlos Ubarte (f, saxes), Carlos Agrazal (as), Ivan Navarro, Luis Carlos Perez (ts), Ademir Berrocal, Raul Rivera (perc), Carlos Perez Bido (timb, perc) plus guests. Rec. March 2021

Here the multi-faceted Blades presents as a Latin-minded big band crooner, giving his swaggering (if high register) Sinatra-esque all on standards including a gloriously horn-cocky ‘Pennies From Heaven’ and Nelson-Riddle-style ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. Jane Cornwell

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Archipelago

Echoes To The Sky

New Jazz & Improvised Music Recordings 

Faye MacCalman (ts, cl, syn, v), John Pope (b, v, effects) and Christian Alderson (d, perc). Rec. December 2020

Tyneside trio Archipelago introduced their unique sound on their 2017 debut Weightless: a heady mix of post-rock drumming, free-bop saxophone and punchy bass guitar riffing spiced with electronica, like 1970s mavericks (and fellow North Easterners) Back Door thoroughly updated with an infusion of the indie-jazz sensibility of Polar Bear or Trio VD. This new record expands their musical horizon still further to include the songs and singing of saxophonist MacCalman. Eddie Myer

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Rosie Frater-Taylor

Bloom

i2i/Bridge the Gap/Bandcamp 

Rosie Frater-Taylor (v, g, uke), Chris Hyson, Matt Piper (p), Conor Albert (ky), Hugo Piper, Seth Tackaberry (b) and Steve Taylor (d, perc)

Bloom is differently edged from her debut, On My Mind, which by her own description was “folky” in texture. The singer-songwriter mode remains, but now the melodies are celebratorily poppy as on the opening ‘I Think About You’. The vocal range is richer too, a soulish feel having joined with those Joni style higher registers. Andy Robson

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Dave Holland

Another Land

Edition

Dave Holland (b, el b), Kevin Eubanks (g) and Obed Calvaire (d). Rec. 2020.

This marks Dave Holland’s return to bass guitar on some tracks (notably a piece called ‘The Village’ that opens out into a long almost stream-of-consciousness development) along with some of his best recent work on double bass. His solos on tracks such as ‘Grave Walker’ and ‘Gentle Warrior’ are exemplary. Alyn Shipton

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Nigel Price Organ Trio

Wes Reimagined

Ubuntu

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

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Lars Danielsson Liberetto

Cloudland

ACT Music 

Lars Danielsson (b, cl), Grégory Privat (p), John Parricelli (g), Magnus Öström (d, perc) with guests Arve Henriksen (t), Kinan Azmeh (cl). Rec. 2019 & Sept 2020.

On this fourth album by the group, Danielsson again comes up with a collection of well crafted original songs, not just vehicles for improvisation, but songs in their own right that demand the improvisor respect the songwriter’s intentions in terms of mood and melody. Each musician is tuned-in to Danielsson’s wavelength with players responding to the challenge the context of Danielsson’s music imposes on them. Stuart Nicholson

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