John Shand | Music & Other Spheres Posts

May 28, 2019 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Sydney Town Hall, May 11 6.5/10 It’s been fascinating to follow. Some 22 years ago Kurt Elling burst on to the international jazz scene as an already extraordinarily distinctive singer and improviser. Initially he was too eager to shower us with all the options at his disposal: his range, array…

May 25, 2019 / Album Reviews - Archive

ON THE CORNER LIVE! (Ear Up) 8.5/10 The impetus was Sly and the Family Stone’s In Time from the 1973 album Fresh, crowned by Andy Newmark’s drumming. Miles Davis walked into the rehearsal room, played it to his band over and over, and told them that this was how he…

May 24, 2019 / Features - Archive

When your father was a musical theatre and folk singer, your uncle was one of jazz’s most famous pianists (John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet), and you grow up in New York during the 1960s folk boom, perhaps the cards have already fallen. Perhaps a career in music was…