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Various Artists

Characters of Jazz

(Babel; US: Available as import; UK: 4 Jul 2007)

It's the new British Jazz Invasion! (Just kidding)

This compilation is described as: “18 cuts celebrating the human species with artists from London’s Babel Label stable.” When I opened it up, I skipped immediately to “Nico” by Acoustic Ladyland. I expected this cut, taken from the act’s Last Chance Disco, to be something truly out there. The group’s name conjures up images of Jimi Hendrix and the song title suggests the Velvet Underground’s femme fatale. But what I heard, instead, was relatively straight forward jazz. Granted, it does go into a screaming saxophone solo over a funky and fuzzed out bass part. But it isn’t something we haven’t already heard before. Nevertheless, this is a solid collection of modern jazz with a British accent.

Rating:

Dan MacIntosh is a freelance writer from Bellflower, California, “The friendly city”. He’s married with two children, two cats, one dog, one bunny, and one bird. He earned his B.A. degree in Communications (emphasis Public Relations) from California State University, Fullerton in 1986. By day, he works for a software company (Ah, but doesn’t everybody these days?), and in the evenings he works at Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts where he is hardly recognizable in a suit and tie. He also dearly loves his church, Calvary Baptist Church, Bellflower, where he is a deacon, a praise choir member, and a small group leader. He also plays guitar, but mainly in the privacy of his home.


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