Daily jazz blog, Marlbank

Friends and Neighbors, Circles, Clean Feed ***1/2

Long established Scandi group Friends and Neighbors return here with their very accessible take on a heritage free-jazz style, their well considered originals grounded in the spirit of titans of free jazz from Ornette Coleman to Cecil Taylor and …

Published: 12 Feb 2024. Updated: 5 months.

Long established Scandi group Friends and Neighbors return here with their very accessible take on a heritage free-jazz style, their well considered originals grounded in the spirit of titans of free jazz from Ornette Coleman to Cecil Taylor and far beyond. The improvisations spool out from some very strong heads and you get a lot of bluesiness and sense of the roots of the music that Ornette and others took from early jazz. Tenorist André Roligheten's solo at the beginning of 'Son' is a great high point of the album and the title track too has a winning coherence to it. We also liked the serene piano contribution from Oscar Grönberg on the woozy 'Hymn Infinitum'. Simply miles better than a lot of current free-jazz out there at the moment, the ragged, rip-roaring fervour Friends and Neighbors generate is infectious.

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New generation vibes star Jonny Mansfield to release a new live quartet album in April

April release for Quartet! Live at Pizza Express The UK jazz scene isn't short of fine vibists - Orphy Robinson, Anthony Kerr, Jim Hart, Ralph Wyld, Lewis Wright to name but a few - and also among that number of top players is Jonny Mansfield whose

Published: 12 Feb 2024. Updated: 5 months.

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April release for Quartet! Live at Pizza Express

The UK jazz scene isn't short of fine vibists - Orphy Robinson, Anthony Kerr, Jim Hart, Ralph Wyld, Lewis Wright to name but a few - and also among that number of top players is Jonny Mansfield whose The Air In Front of You was released last year. Mansfield follows this release with a new live album this spring entitled Quartet! Live at Pizza Express out in April. Mansfield is with pianist Will Barry, bassist Will Sach and Royal Academy of Music student drummer Luke McCarthy on the recording. Mansfield says that the album recorded in January came from the final gig of the first tour as a quartet and the album is a combination of the two sets. The first three tracks 'Flicker,' 'Rival' and '(Organise) The Air in Front of You,' joined by improvisations ''allow for unfiltered interaction that continues into the compositions fuelling a whole new perspective on the material.'' Listen to some of the pre-release tracks, above, on Mansfield's Resonant Postcards Bandcamp page