SLAMCD 265
TITLE: THE AXE
ARTISTS: ESMOND SELWYN, SOLO GUITAR.
1 LOVER MAN * 3.27 Davis, Ramirez, Sherman
2 CHEEK TO CHEEK + 3.49 Berlin
3 EASY LIVING*4.44 Rainger
4 I NEVER KNEW* 2.46 Cahn, Florito
5 SKYLARK* 3.33 Carmichael, Mercer
6 I SHOULD CARE* 1.39 Cahn, Stordahl, Weston
7 STELLA BY STARLIGHT* 5.05 Young
8 TENDERLY+ 1.20 Gross
9 MOONGLOW* 3.11 Hudson, De Lange/Mills
10 ROUND MIDNIGHT+ 2.41 Monk
11 HOW ABOUT YOU* 3.16 Lane, Freed
12 YOU GO TO MY HEAD+ 4.34 Coots, Gillespie
13 THE SONG HAS ENDED+ 2.50 Berlin
14 WHERE ARE YOU+ 1.40 McHugh
15 A NIGHTINGALE SANG IN BERKELEY SQUARE* 3.38 Sherwin, Maschwitz
16 ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE* 6.24 Kern
17 MY OLD FLAME* 3.40 Johnson, Coslow
18 IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING* 3.23 Rogers, Hammerstein
19 DANCING ON THE CEILING+ 2.21 Rogers, Hart
20 YOU`VE CHANGED* 4.06 Fischer, Carey
21 I FALL IN LOVE TOO EASILY/SOFTLY AS IN A MORNING SUNRISE 8.42 Romberg/Hammerstein II
22 FOR ALL WE KNOW/I CAN`T GET STARTED* 3:37 Romberg/Hammerstein II
Recording engineer on all sessions - Mark Joy
* Recorded at Ferndale Studios Buckley, North Wales, February/March 2005
+ Recorded live at The Wirral Guitar Festival, The Priory, Birkenhead, November 2004
Reviews
Selwyn has a lovely touch and his ballad playing on ‘Prelude To A Kiss’ is to die for. He’s also assembled a very capable and responsive band. Perhaps the music needs a touch more dynamic variation, but no complaints. The debut is easily matched by the solo second disc, which has a richness of harmonic detail that is rare in unaccompanied playing and seldom reached even by the acknowledged masters of jazz guitar. The technique is immaculate with self-accompanied lines of such sophistication it often appears a second guitarist is playing rhythm or that Selwyn is overdubbed. It may be that he hasn’t achieved wider recognition simply because he has preferred not to. If so, it makes his achievement all the more extraordinary. If not, time we wakened up to his genius.
Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th edition)
If you listened blind, you might think Pablo had uncovered yet another unreleased Joe Pass session, but no, this is by Welsh guitarist Esmond Selwyn. Selwyn's playing has superficial resemblances to Pass in the thoughtful single note picking and the rippling flourishes at the ends of lines but the liner notes of this CD instead cite Tal Farlow and George Van Eps as his main influences, and you can hear that. On tracks like "Lover Man" and "Easy Living" he does full-blown, splashy rhapsodising like Farlow but on others, like "Cheek To Cheek" and "The Song Is Ended", he plays with the compressed rhythmic chug of a '20s player like Eps, a style that bears a vague resemblance to the spiky brutalities of Derek Bailey though the end sound bears no resemblance. Selwyn's treatment of "All The Things You Are" may be his most striking work here, playing wistfully through the verse then going into a relaxed treatment of the chorus with arpeggios and muscle-flexing side comments and also throwing in an impressive double-time passage. Selwyn shows on this CD that he is a real master of Jazz guitar.
Cadence Jan 2008 Jerome Wilson
ESMOND SELWYN - The Axe: Solo Jazz Guitar (Slam 265; UK) Inspired by legendary jazz guitars like Joe Pass, Tal Farlow and George Van Eps, Esmond Selwyn is one of the best jazz guitarists to emerge from England. A favoured collaborator of Don Rendell in the 80's, Esmond has also worked with George Haslam more recently. For this extraordinary tour-de-force, Mr. Selwyn performs 22 standards on solo hollow-body electric guitar recorded in the studio in 2005 and live at the Wirral Guitar Festival in 2004. Esmond does a wonderful job performing chestnuts like "Lover Man," "Tenderly," "'Round Midnight," and "All the Things You Are." Selwyn does a beautiful job of embracing the lyrical melodies of each of these tunes and embellishing them with astonishing flourishes of exquisite taste and an elegant touch. From the sublime to the astonishing, he quite literally does it all. –
BLG - Downtown Music Gallery
An underrated Welsh-based guitarist and ex Don Rendell sideman, on a supple, gutsy-textured unaccompanied standards album masterfully avoiding the kind of wine bar schmaltz sometimes associated with the format. Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise, September 2007.
Esmond Selwyn The Axe: Solo Jazz Guitar Slam 2007
He may not loom large on American shores, but British jazz guitarist Esmond Selwyn is highly-regarded in his native land. On this solo outing, he performs twenty-two standards. Memories of late guitar great Joe Pass' Virtuoso (Pablo, 1974) are stirred. Lyrically gifted and technically formidable, Selwyn deconstructs the familiar material with delicacy and flair. He has a real talent for personalising popular standards while simultaneously treating their composers' structures with respect, and his complex phrasings add to the interest. Selwyn might prove to be one of the global jazz community's best kept secrets.
Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz August 2007.
British guitarist Esmond Selwyn has such astounding technique that you wonder why he's not better known stateside. The Axe is somewhat frustrating: the one-take-only vibe of the album generates palatable excitement, demonstrating that Selwyn's jazz spirit is alive and well, but the guitarist's predilection for mid-range chord voicings comes out a bit muddy in the final mix. In spite of this minor flaw, the playing is outstanding and inspired, bringing life to a who's who of standard chestnuts: "Stella by Starlight" is boppy and full of brio, rippling with muscular, daredevil lines that make up for with charisma what they occasionally lack in accuracy; "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is contemplative, laced with spicy chromatics and spacey meanderings; and "All the Things You Are" is a tour de forcefulness, a fast and furious two-way conversation of juxtaposed registers.
Tom Greenland All About Jazz – New York June 2007.
