The Jazz Life: Johnny Lippiett -An Inspirational Tenor Sax Player
An Englishman in New York
I first heard Johnny playing in a restaurant in Devon when he was a teenager. He now lives in New York, and is one of the best tenor sax players to come out of the UK for a long time.
Over the years certain Jazz albums stick with you. Think of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ahem, John Coltane’s The John Coltrane Quartet. Then there’s Phase III by the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet, Duke Ellington’s Blues in Orbit, John Dankworth’s What The Dickens, and not least Tubby Hayes’s ground-breaking Down in the Village.
And a few years ago another one was added to that list: Johnny Lippiett’s Soulscape.
Johhny, after a longish spell in New Zealand, now lives in Brooklyn where, with Billy Drummond (drums) — and that’s good name for a drummer — Ron McClure (bass), and Mike Eckroth (piano), he has recorded this album.
On first listening I only got as far as track 5 — The Death of Melisande — which is an improvisation around Jean Sibelious’s 1905 suite Pelléaset Mélisande — based on a play by Maeterlinck — which is a wonderfully…
