Artist: Zoe Rahman

Date of Release: 01/11/2005

Catalogue no: 541

Label: Manushi Records

Price: £10

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Track Listing

'Melting Pot': Shortlisted for NATIONWIDE MERCURY PRIZE 2006

'Melting Pot': Jazz Album of the Year Award winner at the 2006 Parliamentary Jazz Awards.

MELTING POT ZOE RAHMAN - PIANO with Zoe Rahman piano, Gene Calderazzo - drums,Oli Hayhurst - double bass

Also featuring:
Idris Rahman - clarinet
Adriano Adewale Itaúna – udu
Patrick Illingworth - drums
Jeremy Brown - double bass

Total playing time 52:36

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8: Gene Calderazzo on drums, Oli Hayhurst on double bass
Track 4: Patrick Illingworth on drums, Jeremy Brown on double bass
Track 9: Idris Rahman on clarinet, Adriano Adewale Itaúna on udu

Tracks 1 - 8 written by Zoe Rahman ©2005.
Track 9 written by Hemant Mukherjee.

Produced by Zoe Rahman
Tracks 1 – 8 written by Zoe Rahman © 2005. Track 9 written by Hemant Mukherjee.

Reviews

18/11/2005 John Fordham - Guardian

"Most widely heard on the UK scene as the pianist in Clark Tracey's hard-bop band, Zoe Rahman (a former Perrier Young Jazz Musician of the Year and a student of the eccentrically gifted American pianist Joanne Brackeen) alerted audiences to her independent musical life with a 2001 album, The Cynic. Like that set, this one is mostly built around a trio (this time the vigorous expat American drummer Gene Calderazzo and bassist Oli Hayhurst on all but one track), with Rahman's wayward and mobile left-hand patterns swerving under crisp postbop swingers like Camel, soft meditations with repeating low themes emerging under treble trills (Shiraz), dense, hypnotic, multilinear entanglements like the funky The Calling or free-jazz tussles preceding soft rumination like No-One".

01/11/2005 Mike Butler, City Life magazine

"I would guess that Keith Jarrett had a significant influence on Zoe Rahman's style, but the new CD, Melting Pot, shares common ground with any pianist with luminous touch, bubbling spirit and a penchant for offbeat time signatures. Like Jarrett, Monk, Herbie Nichols or even Brubeck, Rahman's sound is instantly engaging, and in the dramatic tumbles of 'J'Berg' or the searching, soaring arpeggio flights of 'Shiraz', positively transcendent. The incantatory quality of her playing acknowledges life's mystery, while the freshness and dynamism confirm life's energy. With a sympathetic rhythm team in drummer Gene Calderazzo and bassist Oli Hayhurst, Melting Pot is an absolute gem. It adheres to the classic jazz trio format, and the material is self-penned, with the exception (on both counts) of 'Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli', by Hemant Mukherjee, where Zoe is joined by her brother, Idris, on clarinet. It cuts deep".

01/11/2005 Sholto Byrnes, The Independent

“This is a strong, thought-provoking debut.....distinctive originals characterised by great fluidity and use of space......These three display the kind of awareness of each other that only comes from long association. The result is very rewarding to listen to, by turns arresting and calming.”