Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Alex Macguire and A Kind of New Canterbury School


Originally posted on December 5, 2008

When keyboard/pianist Alex Macguire puts together a sextet that includes guitarist Michel Delville and other key members of The Wrong Object (see previous blog entries) as well as saxman Robin Verheyen, one expects something worthy. And that’s what you get on Macguire’s new Brewed in Belgium release (MoonJune).

It has moments of jazz freedom and also grooves with pulses and riffed based improvisations that hearken in part to the Canterbury School of jazz-rock. The live situation seems to inspire all to create coherently elegant improvisational prose in an hour of well-paced music. Although Macguire shows himself to be adept at both freely articulated AND forward driving line weaving, it is a group effort with good contributions from all. This is yet another example of today's rich development of the jazz-beyond-rock genre that MoonJune Records captures and extols with good taste and intelligence. We have a winner!

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