Multi-instrumentalist Edward Maguire looks for the smacking point between traditional European folk elements and modern programmed sounds on Jasmine (Truspace records TSJD 9703; 56:36). The talented composer’s studies in contrast can be overdrawn, but are always interesting. “Glamour Puss” has an electronic “stuck in a groove” feel conveying detached disinterest, and the modern programmed thump of “Jasmine” lends indifference to the Irish-styled refrain. Many of Maguire’s tunes do hit just the right pitch, though-“Random Acts of Kindness” has a stately, old-world dance feel, combining acoustic colors like mandolin play with Maguire’s keyboards, and “The Celyph” pits a traditional, twisting folk melody (conveyed through violin play) against modern noises and effects. Likewise “Evil Enterprise” opens with a dark, offbeat bass clarinet solo which is ominous, disarming and strangely fun.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time