Stars rise.
Eavan Boland from ‘This Moment,’ 1994
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.
Hello everyone, happy Friday.
I’ll try to make this new column a regular thing – a Friday letter with notes and observations different in tone and scope to other posts. So here goes.
Firstly a handy look at the popular reviews on marlbank this month runs below.
The first of these is a review of New Vienna that is by far the most popular post, with the 4 that follow quite close in terms of popularity jostling evenly for position. Some are recent posts so these may climb higher and pound for pound the newer ones are doing very well.
5 MOST READ
What do these have in common?
Hard to say as stylistically the albums reviewed are all different. The Jarrett is solo live piano; the Lewis free-jazz sax. By complete contrast there’s groovily soulful acid jazz from keyboardist Matt Johnson. And then there is 1930s-like trad and vintage sounds from Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap. The sole live review is of a fiery progressive jazz-rock flavoured band playing tunes that again are a step removed stylistically from everything else. There’s no one size fits all in jazz. And isn’t it interesting that a fairly new UK sax star Emma Rawicz is generating broad interest when it’s hard to persuade audiences to embrace new names that they don’t much know anything about.
Away from the popular reviews regular readers will realise marlbank has changed a good deal.
I stop off and pause for thought to listen to ‘Illusion’ from Water and the words of Gregory Porter. It remains a sad, love song so wise and so true 15 years on that you can interpret on a personal level in so many ways given its power and perspicacity.
Sometimes you can’t hold on to love that never dies
Gregory Porter
After this brief introduction read the next jazz letter on the 27th when we’ll give you a heads up on the top new albums to be released soon in an exclusive look at what’s in store further ahead.
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