Now is the time for Ayanna Witter-Johnson on Crossroads and with Anoushka Shankar on Those Words

Stealing the show at Cleveland Watkiss' 60th birthday London Jazz Festival Great Jamaican Songbook appearance back in the autumn duetting with Cleveland on The Abyssinians’ 'Declaration of Rights' – here is the stunning 'Crossroads' from Ayanna …

Published: 21 Jan 2020. Updated: 4 years.

Stealing the show at Cleveland Watkiss' 60th birthday London Jazz Festival Great Jamaican Songbook appearance back in the autumn duetting with Cleveland on The Abyssinians’ 'Declaration of Rights' – here is the stunning 'Crossroads' from Ayanna Witter-Johnson, a remarkable blending of soul and classical drawn from her album Road Runner, that somehow also is extremely relatable for jazz fans. Cellist-singer Witter-Johnson also features on famed sitarist Anoushka Shankar’s superb 'Those Words' just released.

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Masaa: something inside so strong

Drawn largely from the Dresden scene with a cross-genre sound that fuses east and west, jazz and arab-Andalusian sounds, Masaa now sans pianist Clemens Pötzsch, guitarist Reentko Dirks instead alters the harmonic textures to mesmerising effect. …

Published: 21 Jan 2020. Updated: 4 years.

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Drawn largely from the Dresden scene with a cross-genre sound that fuses east and west, jazz and arab-Andalusian sounds, Masaa now sans pianist Clemens Pötzsch, guitarist Reentko Dirks instead alters the harmonic textures to mesmerising effect.

Complete with haunting, devotional, vocals from Lebanon-born Rabih Lahoud, Markus Rust's trumpet decorating the higher reaches of the sound and drummer Demian Kappenstein delivering an open environment, if you like another Rabih, the oudist Rabih Abou-Khalil's soundworld, then step into the Masaa originals of ''Irade''.

The album title draws on the sense of ''willpower'' in its meaning and there certainly is the feeling that this band is on a mission motivated by something inside so strong on the stirring 'Herzlicht'. The album, will be released by Traumton, next month. SG