MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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‘When it comes to Britain’s colonial past, music can be part of that reckoning’
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to British Nigerian/Jamaican pianist ROELLA OLORO
Roella Oloro, 2021
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
IT was an especially groovy session at the Vortex, with Roella Oloro’s sparkling piano, the plummeting, dancing bass of Rio Kai and the deft, everywhere drums of Andee Liu.
Roella plays in and out of the tradition with such pride and skill, that if you shut your eyes you could be hearing moments of Geri Allen, Mary Lou Williams, Tommy Flanagan or her earliest inspiration, Oscar Peterson. How they would have loved her!
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