Jane Ira Bloom and Mark Helias, Some Kind of Tomorrow

Recorded remotely over wi-fi, the sound quality incidentally is fine although the bass could be a little louder, these soprano saxophone and double bass duets thrive on intimacy and open dialogue. One of the world's greatest soprano saxophonists …

Published: 7 Jan 2021. Updated: 3 years.

Recorded remotely over wi-fi, the sound quality incidentally is fine although the bass could be a little louder, these soprano saxophone and double bass duets thrive on intimacy and open dialogue. One of the world's greatest soprano saxophonists Bloom's beautiful tone and bluesy directness are arresting and refreshing. Helias known for his work with Dewey Redman, Anthony Braxton and Marilyn Crispell has worked extensively with Bloom over the years on such records as Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson and Early Americans.

Some jazz albums are prose others are poetry if you make the comparison with literary forms. And certainly Some Kind of Tomorrow is more poetry, each improvisation a stanza, part of a whole that makes sense. The steady building up of ideas and motifs, often fleeting and slippery, but always concise, contribute both mood and a certain striking momentousness.

Party music seems wrong at the moment and certainly this non-party music is more for meditation and retreat, I suppose a perfect Lockdown record in this time of withdrawal from an active life. Listening it is extraordinary how many different paths free improvisers can take: Bloom's is more narrative than some and here she does not really distort or scramble texture and timbre as some kindred spirits might, instead her saxophone stories are very exploratory and nomadic through intervallic leaps and the truant dissonances she finds that make sense illuminated by the free wheeling bustle and beat of the bass below. Helias shows great empathy, his sound carrying on the Charlie Haden innovations explored on early Ornette Coleman records with great spirit and passion. A lovely record. SG. Out today

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Emilie Conway: Mondrian talk

The National Gallery of Ireland is celebrating Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and as part of its programming invited jazz singer Emilie Conway to participate in the gallery's Mondrian podcast and in a January ''Talk and Tea'' event taking …

Published: 6 Jan 2021. Updated: 3 years.

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The National Gallery of Ireland is celebrating Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and as part of its programming invited jazz singer Emilie Conway to participate in the gallery's Mondrian podcast and in a January ''Talk and Tea'' event taking place online next Tuesday at 11am during which she will be joined by pianist Johnny Taylor and bassist Barry Donohue.

Emilie writing on her blog says: ''What makes Mondrian unique among his peers, except for perhaps Kandinsky, is his connection to music and its impact on his work. This is what particularly interests me as a jazz artist. The major developments in art are paralleled by the major developments in 20th century music through Schoenberg, Satie, Stavinsky, Boulez, to, of particular interest to me and Mondrian, the transformative sound and impact of jazz.''

Costs €5, concessions available. Link: for tickets. Top: Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Composition of trees 2, 1912-13/ Kunstmuseum Den Haag.