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Xhosa Cole: On a Modern Genius (Vol 1) review | John Fordham's jazz album of the month
The Birmingham-born jazz star pays tribute to a master of modern music, with tap-dance rhythms and Heidi Vogel’s vocals adding pep to proceedings
Artwork for Xhosa Cole: On A Modern Genius (Vol 1) Photograph: Stoney Lane RecordsEver since Monk’s emergence among the midnight-jamming subversives of jazz’s revolutionary early-1940s bebop movement, his rhythmically jagged, melodically circuitous music was revered – and even feared – by improvisers. UK double-bassist/composer Misha Mullov-Abbado sidestepped his illustrious classical-musical parentage and found his own contemporary-musical path in 2014, and with his fourth album, Effra (Ubuntu Records), he unveils an autobiographically heartfelt mix of hard-boppish and traditionally swinging grooves, minimalism and Latin jazz from his A-list London band. German pianist/composer Julia Hülsmann continues to be one of the quietly ascending stars of the ECM label’s roster, with her regular band plus Norwegian trumpeter Hildegunn Øiseth(captivatingly applying electronics to both the conventional instrument and to Norway’s goat horn) on the playful and haunting Under the Surface.
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