Monday, November 23, 2015

Terence Blanchard / Jacob Collier review

Barbican, London
Collier brings his striking choral harmonies to the London jazz festival, while Spike Lee collaborator Blanchard is exhaustingly impressive

On his last UK date, in July, we declared Jacob Collier to be jazz’s new messiah. Since then the endearingly geeky 20-year-old has taken his multimedia one-man band to jazz festivals around the world. It is a live incarnation of his YouTube masterworks – covers of soul and jazz standards pieced together in real time on drums, bass guitar, piano and a choir of voices – and it’s stunning.


Some tiny reservations remain: Collier’s soft, choirboy voice is perfectly suited to the startling choral harmonies he creates via his keyboard but it isn’t, perhaps, as effective as a lead instrument. However, the results are usually so impressive that it doesn’t matter. Even when he ditches the audiovisual gimmicks and plays a solo version of Stevie Wonder’s Lately – just voice and piano – the effect is startling, with his cascading piano accompaniment full of momentary semitone shifts and off-kilter chordal voicing.

read more: http://news360.com/digestarticle/bppPmJ8ydUqQlY4VkoNkrg

Published on Apr 18, 2015
Eight Jacob Colliers team up to arrange, perform & produce a distinctive version of a well-loved ballad, made famous by Ray Charles.

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