Richard Galliano Quartet // Lina Nyberg // Alan Skidmore’s Ubizo

Richard Galliano Quartet

“Richard Galliano changed the history of the accordion: today we can speak of speak of ‘before’ and ‘after’ Galliano.”
Yasuhiro Kobayashi - Japanese accordionist, Björk's accompanist

Richard Galliano has succeeded in imposing his instrument in musical contexts that previously ignored it - jazz festivals (Marciac, Vienne, Montréal, etc.) and classical concert halls (Academia Santa-Cecilia in Rome, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Milan' s la Scala, etc.).

He was born in Cannes in 1950 and studied piano and accordion with his father, before pursuing his musical studies of counterpoint, harmony, and trombone at the Nice Conservatory. Before discovering his affection for jazz he sought the dialogue with the human voice, teaming up with chansonniers like Juliette Gréco, Georges Moustaki or Catherine Ringer. Astor Piazzolla not only introduced him to the art of tango but even inspired him to create his own ‘New Musette’.

Ever since he turned to jazz, he has been a middleman between tradition and modernity. He mixes Mediterranean traditions, ’folklore imaginaire’, tango, musette, chanson, manouche and vaudeville music, swing and contemporary European jazz into a cocktail that is elated and rich at the same time.

Backed up by a top-class rhythm section he is recently joined by Gonzalo Rubalcaba –a Caribbean pianistic ‘supernova’ from Cuba, who already in 1985 introduced his own Grupo Projecto at this festival– this time: French touch meets Latin tinge.

Lina Nyberg ‘Pling’

Stockholm based singer Lina Nyberg is one of Sweden’s best kept secrets. At the very beginning of her career she was lucky enough to sing Swedish tenor legend Bernt Rosengren, and no one less than Esbjörn Svensson played the piano in the first band in her own right. Over the years she gained more and more self-confidence and started taking on inspirations from everyday life and from musical fields beyond the jazz scene, coining a unique style.

“Over the last few years, Nyberg has grown to be considered one of Sweden's top ranking jazz singers and composers and this album does nothing to change that conclusion.”
Dave Nathan, All About Jazz

Alan Skidmore’s Ubizo

Alan Skidmore has been a fixture on the British jazz scene for half a century, merging his love of the music of John Coltrane and African music with his own distinctive sound and melodic ideas.

The fundament for Ubizo was layed in 1994, when Skidmore was invited to play some gigs with local players in Cape Town by the British Council. “This guy from South African television came up and asked me if I had ever wanted to play with an African percussion group. I said, ‘Yeah, for ever’.” The son of the fine mainstream to bop tenorist, Jimmy Skidmore, Alan grew up in a house surrounded by jazz and Skid got to meet some of the artists his dad played with like Jimmy Rushing, Buck Clayton and Lucky Thompson. “Even then, I knew that this was black music, that it came from America but that originally, it came from Africa. So, in a way I had always wanted to play with the originators.” The TV exec was as good as his word and Alan got to play with Amampondo (to be witnessed at Berlin Jazz Festival 2000) and one of the shows was recorded for South African television. “I sat in with them and just flew by the seat of my pants. From that moment on, I just wanted to go back but this time do it justice.”

It was composer Colin Towns, a long-time friend, who made that possible on his newly-established Provocateur Records. In a way, Towns was repaying a debt. lt was Skid, who had helped him recruit the personnel for the Mask Orchestra (Berlin Jazz Festival 1998), thereby fulfilling Towns‚ down lifelong ambition … Featuring Steve Melling on piano, Colin Towns on keyboards and electronics, Neville Malcolm on bass, Mike Paxton on kit drums, Ingolf Burkhardt on trumpet plus Saidi and Musa, the Ubizo CD 50 Journeys sounds more like a big band. “That’s partly because we all play percussion as well but it’s mainly down to Colin Towns’ and his magic fairy dust. He’s a genius and I don’t use the word lightly. He’s an amazing composer and arranger and such a lovely guy. Ubizo wouldn’t really exist without Colin’s help.” Alan is right – the production is excellent and adds its own magic. However, Skid is quick to point out that this is what fans will hear live as well. “No, we can do it all on stage. What you hear on the record is what you will hear in concert. And please, please tell people there’s a lot of music on this CD. Seventeen tracks. Nobody is getting short-changed.”