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Grégoire Maret/Romain Collin: Ennio review – emotional, ecstatic Morricone homage


Harmonica star Maret and pianist/composer Collin pay homage to Ennio Morricone with drifting church-echo and trancelike sounds

Collisions of improvisers’ whims and formal and informal learning drove ghetto prodigy trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s trailblazing timing, dynamics and rhythmic variation, Charlie Christian’s coolly swinging melodic transformations of solo electric guitar in the 30s – or John Coltrane’s lung-busting 50s/60s stretching of a saxophone’s range to make seamless long sounds and split-note harmonies that the instrument’s inventor, Adolphe Sax, never imagined. Classic-sax romanticism in unexpected settings marks New Zealand saxophonist Lucien Johnson ’s Ancient Relics(Deluge Records), with Stan Getzian phrasing floating amid glistening harp sounds and some terrific Wayne Shorterish soprano sax on the punchy, Indian-inflected Space Junk. Global-jazz collective Black Lives ’ People of Earth(Jammin’colorS) is a vocal-packed repertoire of funk, soul, and spoken word – plus jamming from Marcus Strickland (sax), Jean-Paul Bourelly and David Gilmore (guitars) and others.

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Photo of Grégoire Maret/

Grégoire Maret/