Francy Boland
Open Space (The Down Beat Poll Winners In Europe)
LP issued to celebrate more European artists than ever before winning the annual “Downbeat” polls in 1969. On this release they all perform as a unit. Jazz giants from six European countries coalesce to play wide-open music. One of Norway’s greatest jazz singers, Karin Krog has worked and recorded with Jan Garbarek and Clare Fischer. English multi-saxophonist John Surman and Krog have jointly won two Norwegian Grammys. Surman has played with Mike Westbrook’s Orchestra and John McLaughlin, as wel…
Playing With The Trio
*2022 stock* “There is a two-fold pleasure in listening to the leader of a big band play in a trio setting. First, there is the satisfaction of hearing a voice that is normally in the background being brought to centre stage. As a composer and arranger, Francy Boland typically spoke with many tongues. Like Ellington, he wrote with specific players in mind and so, as with a playwright, we usually hear his thoughts interpreted and given utterance by others. The big band format allows the band-lead…
Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie
"Clap Hands, Here comes Charlie Drewo, the most famous of all the Viennese tenorists! – Well now, without exaggeration – Karl Drewo, 32 years of age – or Charlie as his American friends like to call him – is undoubtedly one of those rare specimen of European jazz talent. He plays as if he were born in the US and raised right in one of the darkest neighbourhoods of Harlem, possibly somewhere near the old Cotton Club where Duke Ellington used to excite his audiences for more than almost a quarter …