Maliki, Never Odd or Even ****

Maliki, pianist Filip Sowa and drummer Thomas Sunney got together initially in 2016. Their self-described influences include BadBadNotGood, Fela Kuti and Philip Glass. You can hear that BadBadNotGood influence a little more clearly on 'Complicated …

Published: 29 Mar 2021. Updated: 3 years.

noor Maliki, pianist Filip Sowa and drummer Thomas Sunney got together initially in 2016. Their self-described influences include BadBadNotGood, Fela Kuti and Philip Glass. You can hear that BadBadNotGood influence a little more clearly on 'Complicated By Both/In The Form Of A Trail' released in January (and perhaps the Neil Cowley Trio sound filters in). An earlier release 'Penrose' is where the Glass quotient emerges. I can't share the palindromic 'Never Odd or Even' as it's only available to marlbank on a private Soundcloud link but check their recent singles here.

maliki

The duo are fresh and know how to spread out on the track. This latest contains a souped-up kind of e.s.t feeling most of all. There are some great bass lines layered in that fatten out the sound interestingly. Somehow a Brit film composer vibe a bit like the Get Carter touch of Roy Budd breezing by chucks in a curveball. The track has a gritty edge to it to run with that connection primarily. Shed loads of potential – they make their tracks in one. Said shed, top.

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Pasquale Grasso, When I Fall in Love ****

Now signed to Sony Music Masterworks, Pasquale Grasso's beautiful version of Victor Young's 'When I Fall in Love' from Solo Ballads entering deep, deep Oscar Moore territory is streaming expanding on last year's Solo Standards the first of a …

Published: 28 Mar 2021. Updated: 3 years.

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Now signed to Sony Music Masterworks, Pasquale Grasso's beautiful version of Victor Young's 'When I Fall in Love' from Solo Ballads entering deep, deep Oscar Moore territory is streaming expanding on last year's Solo Standards the first of a tripartite release blueprint tipping into next year. The success of his approach rests on the deft sense of emphasis Grasso delivers right up to the door of the melody and then steps over the threshold as if he has lived inside for ever. It is not blood and guts. It's from an intimate place, a rococo flourish or two kept in reserve but not at all flashy or an interference with the hidden sweet mystery in the flow. In other words he caresses the melody and his harmonic resource seems infinite. Grasso grew up in Ariano Irpino in Campania. Taking up the guitar at a very young age later he attended the Bologna conservatoire. In New York he gigs with bassist Ari Roland. (Thoughts of Dave Green for an inkling of the Roland sound a UK jazz-mainstream fan may drift over towards.)

Deep into Oscar Moore territory check mo' Moore on 'Dinner for One' and then this fine Sunday the clocks may have gone forward but take yourself to classic Nat and back to complete the effect, this time with vocals to further inhabit the song and ingest the Edward Heyman lyrics we all know and lap up. Move your lips, mouth along: you'll find the syllables without even thinking to pause. The words are immortally there. 'When I Fall in Love' by Pasquale Grasso is on Spotify