The leaves began to fade
Like promises we made
How could a love that seemed so right go wrong?
– Sammy Cahn from ‘The Things We Did Last Summer’
“I’ll remember all winter long”: Newcomer Alice Milburn (25) is an English jazz singer from Portsmouth, doyenne of the Vaults regular jazz night in Southsea. Much more than a demo or statement of intent First Expressions was recorded in the Hampshire summer at a Gosport studio.
If you like Stacey Kent and Naama you will be in your element dipping into these things she did last summer. Very girl next door it’s the show song type Broadway and bebop “classic” approach to the genre driving things along. So it’s retro and very much a period piece. Milburn has a persuasive voice. She’s an old soul. It’s an enjoyably mercifully uncheesy profile raising start to getting to know her sound.
Covers include the 1930s James F. Hanley Thumbs Up song that Renée Zellweger performed on the soundtrack for brilliant 2019 Judy Garland biopic Judy, ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart.’
First Expressions is not dark as night or torch song fodder which I prefer. But nevertheless I liked her ingénue take on the Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn 1940s classic that Frank Sinatra interpreted ‘The Things We Did Last Summer’ that has a vibrant bass contribution from bassist George Balmont. There’s a throw your head back gleefulness to the Milburn vocal too on the singer’s winning treatment of ‘It’s Almost Like Being in Love’ later on the song when the verse is carefully negotiated and the formidable scatting kicks in so when the words return it’s like she has shed a skin and found a new carefree spirit inside.
With the singer are also keyboardist Saul Hughes and drummer Josh Turn plus musical director trombonist Lloyd Pearce who solos on Milburn original ‘Brief Company’. The lyrics despair at the flakiness of a man desirous perhaps of a one night stand. The voice has confidence and personality.
‘Brief Company’ and ‘Zing Went the Strings of My Heart’ are among tracks streaming so far. The full album is out on 24 October. Scat is this steeped in the romance of the songs jazz thoroughbred’s strongest suit.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
Eliane Elias, Ao Vivo, Candid ***1/2
You kind of know what to expect on an Eliane Elias album. Punchy piano playing, an effortless mastery of bossa nova and more, certainly there is an unhurried elegance to Ao Vivo recorded in San Francisco, at the SFJAZZ Center’s Miner Auditorium.
Elias’ husband Bass Desires legend Marc Johnson is once again on bass on this latest. Rafael Barata is on drums and percussion and there’s space for the confident comping of guitarist Leandro Pellegrino.
The repertoire leans into Elias’ long-standing dialogue between Brazilian songcraft and jazz sophistication. ‘Brasil (Aquarela do Brasil)’ arrives not with carnival exuberance but with measured grace, its rhythmic contours tightened and refined. It’s practically obligatory to play some Jobim and ‘A Felicidade’ ticks that box.
Vocally, Elias remains as persuasive as ever, phrasing with intimacy and understated lyricism. There is less of the airy softness that characterised Quietude and perhaps less rhythmic elasticity than on Bossa Nova Stories. But what emerges instead is a remarkable consistency of mood. Her first class piano playing mirrors this exactly: burnished tone, crystalline articulation and lines that unfold with patient clarity. The exuberant reaction of the audience can be intrusive a bit but you get carried along by their enthusiasm. Eliane Elias, photo: Candid on Bandcamp
MORE FROM MARLBANK
Alexander Hawkins, No Nation but Imagination, Intakt Records ***1/2
For all the haze of electronics and rhythmic clamour surrounding No Nation but Imagination, what lingers most are the Abdullah Ibrahim-meets-Billy Taylor vamps of ‘Coda Over the Fence’.
Emerging late in the album through layers of electronics and dense percussion, they provide the emotional centre of a vivid, searching release from the English pianist Alexander Hawkins, known for his work with Anthony Braxton, Mulatu Astatke and his own longstanding trio with Neil Charles and Steve Davis.
The album opens with ‘Solo Way Far Gone’, its brittle electronic keyboards and stabbing motifs offering little indication of what follows. There is an austere, almost monophonic quality to the piece, Hawkins probing at ideas rather than settling into them.
Things become far more compelling on ‘Resolution Each and Every’, where the album’s Afrojazz leanings come properly into focus. The flute and Hamid Drake’s thundering drums form the pillars around which the tune gathers force, and it is in these rhythmically driven sections that the record feels most alive.
Joined by Rhodri Davies on harp, Drake on drums, Nicole Mitchell on flute and Matthew Wright on turntables and live sampling, Hawkins is once again released by the esoteric Swiss avant label Intakt, which has long championed his work. Wright’s contribution is especially important, his electronics giving the record its distinctive sheen, laundering acoustic sounds through a flickering, unstable surface.
At its best, the writing – all Hawkins’ and, while free-jazz, not simply improvised rigidly spontaneously on the spot – carries genuine joy. The ensemble shifts fluidly between sketch-like textures, rhythmic propulsion and floating, spacious episodes. The music breathes. Yet the more brittle, tension-heavy sections can feel suspended rather than cumulative, interrupting the momentum generated elsewhere by the album’s vamps and uptempo movements. At times I found myself skipping ahead in search of those more rhythmic sections, growing impatient with what Hawkins’ fellow avant pianist Steve Beresford once described as the “roughage” of improvisation: passages where texture and gesture substitute for forward motion.
Still, beyond a few longueurs, the record remains curious, alert and humane. Even when the ensemble’s natural pulse seems to grind bafflingly to a halt — as on ‘Mirror No Border’ – the underlying spirit of inquiry revives often enough to sustain interest.
The album’s spiritual jazz dimension is most apparent on the spare ‘Circles in the Celestial Garden’, though Mitchell’s playing on ‘Joy Beyond Blazing’ ultimately provides the record’s strongest moments. At its best, No Nation but Imagination finds a rare balance between abstraction and physicality, and proves exploratory without ever entirely losing its more visceral pulse.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
- Eliane Elias, Ao Vivo, Candid ***1/2
- Alexander Hawkins, No Nation but Imagination, Intakt Records ***1/2
- Track of the Day – ‘C’è’ sung by Tosca and Silvia Pérez Cruz
- Jasmine Myra, Where Light Settles, Gondwana ****
- Polygon Portal in Soho – McCaslin & Spaven bank holiday balm is a draw
Track of the Day – ‘C’è’ sung by Tosca and Silvia Pérez Cruz
I am pretty obsessed at the moment by nearly everything on Feminae new on BMG from Italian singer Tosca.
The difficulty is to pick out just one song. And I have featured others on this site in recent weeks.
But I got into it – songs are largely in Italian – because of Soledad featuring jazz singer Stacey Kent which is superb.
Another song I like is today’s track of the day (above) -‘C’è’ that reveals Tosca duetting with Spanish singer Silvia Pérez Cruz.
Described as a poetic reflection on spiritual connection, gratitude, and reconciliation, the song which can explode into a Moorish decorative flourish somehow it struck me after trying to work out why it is so distinctive, explores the idea of finding inner peace and unwavering strength when you allow yourself to trust in and surrender to a deeply cherished bond. Reader no matter how, if being uncharitable, such a saccharine gloss sounds, it works. C’è, translates as “there is” or “it is there.”The lyrics embrace a sacra sincronia “holy synchronicity” between two people. Soppy or not – it isn’t really and doesn’t go too bats operatic although that’s perhaps a moot point – the song, woo woo alert (but is not really a song to chill to down the mindfulness spa in Surbiton on a wet Thursday), “is a celebration of what one person can teach another; helping them find the harmony needed to navigate life’s challenges.”
Sung in both Italian and Spanish the track was produced by Joe Barbieri with Pietro Cantarelli on piano plus strings wrap around the sound not too lushly.
To pick out another couple of songs that are right up my street, ‘Primavera‘ is wonderful and there’s a lovely version on the album (even with the whistling later, plot spoiler) of the famed Puerto Rican Rafael Hernández Marín 1930s bolero ‘Silencio’ that Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo of Buena Vista Social Club fame interpreted so luminously in the 1990s. It’s called in the Tosca rendering ‘Il Giglio, la verbena, il glicine e la rosa’ meaning “The Lily, the Verbena, the Wisteria, and the Rose”. It is a song about deeply held secrets and unspoken grief. It proves suprisingly jolly as it turns out, especially in the harmonising passages with Carmen Consoli.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
Jasmine Myra, Where Light Settles, Gondwana ****
The Leeds born twentysomething Jasmine Myra is sounding in fine fettle,
Habitually spiritual jazz bedecked, floaty harp and flute flicker and stir among the blend used in the compositional palette most obviously on ‘Breath.’
Where Light Settles is on another level. It is easily the English alto saxophonist-composer’s most convincing album to date.
What to expect are bittersweet reveries, oodles of strings and a sound that’s brimful of a certain spiritual mindfulness that lands mercifully far from whimsy or, worse, sententiousness. Tunes are wrapped in emotion and prove poignant arrived at organically.
The Satie-esque piano riff played simply and effectively by Jasper Green on the title track is a glimpse of the essence of it all, just one of the compositional building blocks that are meticulously pieced together by Myra. But you’ll only discover that when you arrive at the last track. What a breakthrough.
More listening and reading
Horizons (2022) review
MORE FROM MARLBANK
Polygon Portal in Soho – McCaslin & Spaven bank holiday balm is a draw
Beneath Dean Street in Soho, a new venue is trying to change the way people hear music.
The Polygon Portal, described as London’s first dedicated 360-degree spatial audio listening room, has opened as a space built around concentration rather than distraction. Audiences sit together in near darkness while albums and performances unfold inside an immersive multi-speaker environment.
At a time when live music often competes with conversation, phones and crowded bars, Polygon’s approach feels unusually focused. The idea is simple enough: listen properly.
The venue has been created by Polygon Productions and sits below 75 Dean Street in Soho. The room uses one of the UK’s most advanced spatial audio systems, designed to place listeners inside the music rather than directly in front of it. The emphasis is less on spectacle and more on detail, texture and space.
For jazz audiences, one forthcoming session stands out. On Monday 25 May, Donny McCaslin and Richard Spaven come together for immersive playbacks of their recent albums Lullaby for the Lost and Light Of Day. McCaslin, still widely associated with David Bowie’s Blackstar period, has long explored the territory between contemporary jazz and electronics, while Spaven’s work connects broken beat, fusion and UK club music. The session also includes a live Q&A with both musicians.
That event fits neatly with Polygon Portal’s wider programme, which mixes landmark album playbacks, essay-led listening sessions and sound-based wellbeing events. Planned presentations include immersive explorations of Grace by Jeff Buckley and Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, alongside themed sessions such as Jazz: The Turning Point 1959 and Inherited Trance & Sacred Rhythms.
The jazz connection makes sense. Spatial audio technology can easily become gimmicky, but jazz has always depended on close listening, interaction and sonic detail. In the right setting, hearing ensemble music unfold with greater physical depth could be genuinely revealing rather than merely novel.
Polygon Portal may not suit everyone. Silence and attention are now oddly demanding things to ask of an audience. Still, the venue’s commitment to communal listening feels refreshing. Soho has no shortage of places to hear music. Fewer spaces are designed simply to let people absorb it.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
Jeremy Siskind, Seeking Balance, Outside in Music **** recommended
I was drawn to this truth be told because of the guest vocals by English jazz singer Claire Martin. But I am not familiar however with American pianist and composer Jeremy Siskind who leads proceedings. Seeking information about him a Google search revealed he was a student of Fred Hersch, and is the author of a number of piano instructional books.
Recorded with expat Pole bassist Darek Oles and late period Bill Evans American drummer Joe LaBarbera, and featuring Martin rewardingly sprinkled about, the album moves comfortably between contemporary piano trio jazz and pop song influenced vocal material. The title track and ‘Murakami’ reveal Siskind’s gift for melodic development and understated harmonic colour, while ‘Greedy Capitalism’ introduces a sharper political edge without jarring. Jaw jaw is better than war, war any day.
There’s a clear influence on Siskind of Hersch on ‘Snow’. Oles and LaBarbera know that terrain so well, LaBarbera learning it in his turn from Bill Evans most perhaps.
Claire Martin’s contributions add warmth and emotional depth, especially on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’ and the Siskind/Martin original ‘A Photograph’. Her Shirley Horn influenced phrasing suits the album’s introspective atmosphere. The vocal tracks do not disrupt the momentum established by the instrumental pieces. If anything they enhance these. I love the version of Paul Simon’s ‘René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War‘ which was on Simon’s 1983 album Hearts and Bones, a ballad that on that album had an orchestration by the great French film composer Georges Delerue.
The approach here is more pared back. Certainly Seeking Balance succeeds because of its maturity and intelligence, factors that are often forgotten about in a dumbed down world by people who truly believe you can polish a turd and seem bizarrely to applaud both the process and the outcome.
So beautiful is a version of Tom Harrell and Lisa Michel’s ‘Snow’ that Jane Monheit sang on Harrell’s 2003 album Wise Children. Martin’s vocal is every bit as good as Monheit’s. My instinct is to emerge from this album with this track as the one that moved me most.
Siskind’s accompaniment has a lot of tenderness and I can imagine Richard Rodney Bennett, someone Martin worked with extensively, smiling down on this in approval from the great on high as Siskind inhabits his domain so wonderfully well.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
The Phoenix Trio, Tomorrow is Today, Giant Step Arts ****
Long tracks. That’s typically the case with a random live album. And so it proves. But there is nothing random about what each of the trio bring to the performance. All are strong on narrative and you feel that there is a shape to each piece no matter how many diversions are taken. The main “voice” is Mark Turner on tenor sax but there is a lot of intertwining, overlapping going on. It’s not collective free improvisation but instead there is a complex band counterpoint formed by curling rhythms, and steady pulsing push and shove occasionally upending your expectations with little silences you never saw coming.
Each of the trio contribute tunes. The recording was made over two nights at a place called Ornithology in Brooklyn in March last year.
Tunes include ‘1946’ which is a tribute to Tom Harrell – the trumpeter and flugel player was born on 16 June 1946.
Gilmore definitely delivers live. Remember his own Vanguard album from last year, Journey to the New? It was stimulating. Far more in the jazz-rock fusion space than here the style on this new one is more post-bop perhaps and nevertheless is just as convincing.
You can easily sense that the album belongs to a recent lineage of modern small-group jazz that values spontaneity over polish and dialogue over display. What makes it compelling is the way the trio builds tension and release through close listening and finely judged interaction.
At its best, the album feels almost conversational. Turner’s tenor lines are likely to bring that cool, searching clarity he is known for, while Martin’s bass gives the music weight and direction, and Gilmore’s drumming adds a fleet, sharply alert sense of motion. Ideas are stated, questioned, reframed and sometimes left hanging in the air long enough for the next player to pick them up and push them somewhere unexpected. That gives the music a sense of real-time discovery.
The record is part of the Modern Masters and New Horizons series curated by jazz trumpeter Jason Palmer and the Giant Step Arts label,
MORE FROM MARLBANK
Kyle 5 for Cardiff
Bassist Kyle Eastwood is to play Cardiff spot Palladino’s in July with his quintet
Jazz bassist and composer Kyle Eastwood brings his quintet to Palladino’s Jazz and Blues Bar in the summer.
Film director Clint’s son is no stranger to UK audiencs. But it’s been a few years since he has appeared locally.
In Kyle’s band are trumpeter Quentin Collins, Oz saxophonist Brandon Allen known for his knowing interpretations of Jug (Gene Ammons) and Stanley Turrentine, brilliant pianist Andrew McCormack (eg Telescope) – last caught live by marlbank playing with Jean Toussaint – and drummer Chris Higginbottom.
The concerts continue a busy period for Palladino’s Jazz and Blues Bar, which opened in Cardiff last year and has since hosted a growing programme of touring and local jazz acts. The venue is run by drummer Marc Palladino, brother of Paul Young bassist Pino Palladino brilliant last year on That Wasn’t A Dream.
Two 75-minute sets are scheduled each night. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.
David Sánchez, Tambó, Ropeadope ****
It’s easy to discern a deep sense of purpose running through Tambó, the latest release from Puerto Rican tenor saxophonist David Sánchez. It’s a recording that folds Afro-Caribbean ritual, folklore and jazz modernism into something both searching and remarkably grounded. As with Carib Sánchez again looks towards the shared musical lineage of the Caribbean, but here the focus feels even more rooted in ceremony, ancestry and rhythmic transmission.
The title itself points towards percussion and communal memory, and throughout the album rhythm functions less as accompaniment than as narrative force. Sánchez draws inspiration from Puerto Rican bomba traditions, Haitian ceremonial music and the culture of San Basilio de Palenque in Colombia, connecting these strands with an organic fluency that never feels academic or overworked.
There is a strong ensemble ethos at play. Sánchez, who also adds his percussion playing and vocals to the sound, shapes the music with a warm, authoritative tone that avoids unnecessary grandstanding. Instead the performances unfold collectively, with layered percussion, chant-like refrains and tightly interlocking rhythmic cells carrying much of the momentum. The atmosphere can be processional, even hypnotic at times.
Among the personnel are pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Ricky Rodriguez, drummer Obed Calvaire, guitarist Lage Lund, percussionist Jhan Lee Aponte and Haitian percussionist Markus Schwartz. The percussion writing in particular is central to the album’s identity, creating dense but highly controlled textures around the melodic material.
Tracks such as ‘Benkos y los Cimarrones’ and ‘Lumbalú’ carry considerable dramatic weight, Sánchez allowing themes to emerge gradually from the rhythmic framework rather than driving everything towards soloistic climax. The pacing is one of the album’s strengths. Nothing here feels hurried. Instead Tambó develops through accumulation, atmosphere and collective detail.
What impresses me most is the seriousness of Sánchez’s approach. This is not a cosmetic fusion project, nor a straightforward Latin jazz date built around virtuoso blowing and energetic grooves. Tambó is more reflective and culturally embedded than that, drawing on living traditions while remaining fully contemporary in its harmonic language and ensemble conception.
The result is a richly textured and thoughtfully assembled recording that rewards repeated listening, confirming Sánchez once again as one of the most distinctive voices in modern Afro-Caribbean jazz.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
