As soon as New York City entered a first lockdown in March 2020, double bass player Dezron Douglas and jazz harpist Brandee Younger launched a series of live streams on Facebook and Instagram Live from their East Harlem flat. Dubbed “Force Majeure: Brunch in the crib with Brandee & Dezron”, the Friday morning concerts ... [Continue Reading]
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Mary Lattimore: Silver Ladders
Originally from North Carolina, Mary Lattimore is a classically-trained harpist and composer now based in Los Angeles, California. Over the last decade, the musician has devised her own vocabulary to shape a novel and immersive ambient sound informed by experimental, modern classical music and post-rock. Equally striving as a ... [Continue Reading]
Brandee Younger: Soul Awakening
Based in New-York, Brandee Younger is a young jazz harpist who is in the process of rejuvenating a style still dominated by the towering influence of her historic peers Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. As a composer and teacher, the musician is one of the rare contemporary jazz harpists recording today either as a solo artist, ... [Continue Reading]
The Harriet Earis Trio: From the Crooked Tree
Based in Wales, The Harriet Earis Trio is a rare Celtic Jazz Fusion band whose leading instrument is a Celtic Harp. Formed in the late 2000s, the sound of the trio hinges on the harp of English-born and Aberystwyth-based Harriet Earis. A classically trained musician on the concert pedal harp, Harriet Earis has been exploring ... [Continue Reading]
Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita: Clychau Dibon
The pairing of a European classical pedal harp with an African 21-string kora sounds very unusual at first sight, but the rare duo recording of Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita is a truly remarkable feat. The association of the two stringed instrument from two different continents is the ... [Continue Reading]
Matthew Halsall: The Sun in September
Matthew Halsall is a Manchester-based DJ, composer, arranger and jazz trumpet player whose music is increasingly looking eastwards and leaning towards the spiritual. Drawing inspiration from the modal jazz of the late 1950s/early 1960s (Miles Davis of course, John Coltrane and many Blue Note artists from that era), the ... [Continue Reading]
Joanna Newsom: Colleen
A stripped down collection of three tracks featuring two alternate and rearranged versions of older songs (“Crab, Clam, Cockle, Cowrie” and “Cosmia”) and a new composition (“Colleen”), the [amazon text=Joanna Newsom %26 The Ys Street Band Ep&asin=B000NIIUXS] was released in 2007, one year after her orchestral tour de force ... [Continue Reading]