CD review: Kristian Borring - Nausicaa

Kristian Borring - Nausicaa
(USR US-CD076/S. CD Review by Chris Parker)

London-based, Denmark-born guitarist/composer Kristian Borring has been gigging with this band – pianist Arthur Lea, who will be familiar to anyone who's heard saxophonist Seb Pipe's band recently; bassist Spencer Brown (Porpoise Corpus); and drummer Jon Scott (Kairos 4tet) – since 2009, and their mutual responsiveness and sensitivity render this album of eight Borring compositions both immediately attractive and enduringly impressive.

Borring is an accomplished but determinedly unflashy player, firmly rooted in the jazz tradition of his instrument, and his rapport with Lea in particular, but also with guest saxophonist Will Vinson (an expatriate Brit resident in New York), makes Nausicaa, its time signatures just complex enough to stretch the musicians while accommodating inventive soloing from all concerned, a fine appetiser for the band's forthcoming tour of the UK in spring 2012.

kristianborring.com

Green Note at the 2011 LJF (and this week's prize draw)

The programming of eight top young bands in four interesting, recommendable double bills during the London Jazz Festival at a small venue like the Green Note on Parkway in Camden risks getting overlooked among the 276 other gigs.

But there is some very good programming going on. Add these four gigs together and you get a fascinating cross-section of some of the best that our young scene has to offer.

1) The first double bill is on Sunday 13th The Moss Project (above), opposite Swedish-born singer Emilia Mårtensson. A jam session follows.

2) On Tuesday November 15th you get four of the most musical guys in London - Riaan Vosloo, Tim Giles, Mark Hanslip and Rob Updegraff, who make up Twelves.

They are in a double bill with Dave Hamblett Group, featuring Ivo Neame, Calum Gourlay, Josh Arcoleo, Joe Wright and Alex Munk.

3) Wednesday Nov 16th sees the only LJF appearance of Troyka - Chris Montague, Joshua Blackmore and Kit Downes. They are on the same bill as Danish guitarist Kristian Borring's quartet

4) Friday November 18th features drummer Jeff Williams, who has worked with such jazz icons as Stan Getz, Lee Konitz and Joe Lovano. This gig is the official London launch of his new CD Another Time, reviewed HERE by Chris Parker

Support is from violinist Olivia Moore's 5-piece, Unfurl. A jam session follows.

Conclusion: there's some super programming here, from promoter Alexa von Hirschberg.

And the good news ain't over: courtesy of Alexa's day-job as an editor at Bloomsbury Books (where would our jazz scene be without day jobs?), newsletter readers can put their names in the hat for an unputdownable novel, David Guterson's Ed King, an update of the Oedipus myth, with, in Diane Burroughs, a powerful character who lives her life without a moral rear view mirror. Newsletter readers, you know the drill - email me to put your name in the hat.

greennote.co.uk