CD Reviews

Smaller Worlds has songs written at various times over the past ten years by Golden. While most of it was not composed for solo piano, throughout the first year of the pandemic and the ensuing isolation, Golden found all these chosen songs evolved to work best for him as solo pieces.

Mace Francis employs a hint of Nelson Riddle, a tilt to Count Basie, definitively some Duke Ellington, a splash of “cool school” Gerry Mulligan, a little of Thad Jones, and a hint of Charles Mingus. But, mostly it’s just Mace’s music to make you happy.

Nadia Koudasheva is a young Russian-born Australian pianist, musicologist and teacher. She studied at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she completed a Bachelor of Music (Performance), followed by a Doctor of Musical Arts. She has researched, and here performs, piano transcriptions of Bach’s music by Russian and Soviet musicians, the earliest of whom is Ivan Cherlitsky, whose first set of Bach transcriptions was published in 1844-45.

A look at music that is both on the rise, and causing waves around the globe.

This double CD features music by a lesser-known Dutch composer, Hendrik Andriessen, who had a brother and two sons who were also composers, one of the sons being much more famous than any of the others. Andriessen had a long career as an organist and composer and this recording is a welcome introduction to his orchestral music.

Jeremy Sawkins’ fifth release as a leader has delivered an album that doesn’t require too much analysis. Being a solo project on nylon-string guitar, it features some beautiful melodies and chords in counterpoint, very minimal improvisation, and a lot of space to create a very pleasing musical ambiance.

A look at music that is both on the rise, and causing waves around the globe.

A look at music that is both on the rise, and causing waves around the globe.

Billie Holiday revolutionised the art of singing, during an extraordinarily troubled and tragically short life. Listening to the album, you need to check that it isn’t Billie Holiday singing. Instead, it is Andra Day. 

Peyton has just released another excellent record from April this year with a new line up including two senior legends of this music, George Coleman on tenor and bassist Ron Carter, who have both been laying down music for six decades.