Sarah McKenzie BLUE NOTE, MILAN 5 May
Aussie singer McKenzie inhabits the Diana Krall domain convincingly. A singer you need to hear, kind reader, some day soon. Hers is a sound enough to effortlessly dispel the gloom. She plays Milan with a heavyweight band – Swedish guitar icon Ulf Wakenius, bassist Pierre Boussaguet and the Jamie Cullum Twentysomething drummer, Sebastiaan de Krom.
Wakenius is like a Swedish Martin Taylor. Make the leap. He inhabits the guitar and is in the same stellar bracket chops wise as the Johnny and Mary man whatever style he chooses to play. Oof, trying to recall I have only heard Ulf live once. That time he was accompanying the tremendous Youn Sun Nah empathetically on her UK debut in 2009 circa Voyage. That’s a fab album btw that he is also on (the so-called extremely beautiful Danielssonian ‘Asta riff‘ is one highlight of that album found on ‘The Linden‘ with added words). Read a review of that show run on Jazzwise back then. More recently you can read a live review of McKenzie run in these pages in 2015. That was when she played London live for the first time. Sarah’s San Francisco tribute ‘City by the Bay’ recently issued this year is certainly very more-ish. After it finishes it’s obvious but you just want to listen to classic Tony Bennett. You can see what I have done there. But the thought is neither barking nor overly neat. And yet a double checker with a clipboard in my head offers pause for thought when putting together playlist ideas and mini themes. Pshaw and reassuringly in the end phew. Because the logic and the style match (given a bit of licence because the arranging style is different) make such a connection as valid as they are inescapable.
Zara McFarlane JASSMINE, WARSAW 9 May
John Scofield and Gerald Clayton VICTORIA, NASJONAL JAZZSCENE, OSLO 9 May
Joel Ross NEW MORNING, PARIS 12 May
Aaron Parks Little Big MOODS, ZURICH 14 May
Mary Halvorson UNTERFAHRT, MUNICH 16 May
Toots Thielemans tribute TOOTS, BRUSSELS 17 May
Alexi Tuomarila KOKO, HELSINKI 21 May
