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Blues and Soul magazine, May 2009
. Live album review by SNOWBOY
"I don’t have any details other than this was recorded live at Pizza Express in Soho, London. You would never know it because the recording is staggering. Musically, it’s not an easy ride....the music is very tense and angular but uplifting and occasionally majestic too. The CD had me sitting on the edge of my seat throughout with the trio (augmented by brother Idris Rahman on Clarinet) playing ‘as one’ and it is a thing of beauty. If you like a nice pleasant Jazz trio to casually tap your toe to then this isn’t for you. This takes some listening to and is very challenging, but in these days of horrendous ‘jazz-lite’ Smooth Jazz it’s great to see music of integrity still being made."
Birmingham Post
Way to Blue: A Tribute to Nick Drake at Birmingham Town Hall, Featuring Martha Wainwright, Graham Coxon, Beth Orton, Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock, Camille O’Sullivan, Neil MacColl, Zoe Rahman.
May 18 2009 By Marc Reeves
“Curated and introduced by Drake’s original producer Joe Boyd, the show packed the Town Hall stage with a cast of folk A-listers, each of whom could have sold out the venue many times over....…the whole evening was underpinned by a sublime and understated contribution from extraordinary jazz pianist Zoe Rahman.
The standing ovation was richly deserved.”
Album review by Ian Mann on www.thejazzmann.com
"This live recording is a worthy addition to the increasingly impressive Zoe Rahman catalogue and is a good snapshot of the energy this excellent trio is able to generate in concert....
Anyone who has admired Zoe’s recorded work should add this live album to their collection....the album highlights an energy and playfulness present in Zoe’s musical personality that the studio records don’t always entirely represent. The playing is of a uniformly high technical standard and there is a vitality and a life affirming quality about this album that make it essential listening.
....when a group is clearly enjoying itself as much as this one is- whilst simultaneously stretching it’s abilities- it would be a hard man that denied them their fun. “Live” has an infectious quality that transmits itself to the listener. Highly recommended.
www.jazzbreakfast.com by Peter Bacon
Zoe Rahman Trio: Live, with Special Guest Idris Rahman (Manushi MANUCD003) "
Those who have come to pianist Zoe Rahman through the gentler jazz of her her Bengali project Where Rivers Meet might be in for a bit of a shock.
The live trio experience is a much more turbulent affair. Rahman with Oli Hayhurst on bass and Gene Calderazzo storm through Abdullah Ibrahim’s The Stride, making very few references to the lighter Malay jive of the original and instead refashioning it as very much their own.
They don’t let up when joined by Idris on clarinet for Mario Laginha’s Ha Gente Aqui. It’s a great song and the memory of the Portuguese pianist/composer’s partner Maria Joao’s wordless vocal sounds in the head as Rahman interprets it here.
Other tracks pay tribute to Rahman’s teacher Joanne Brackeen (a spikey Friday 13th and a jumpy Egyptian Tune Dance), Phineas Newborn (the contemplative Harlem Blues which does sound strongly influenced by Ibrahim) and, acknowledging the Bengali side to her music, Hemant Mukherjee (Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli which always conjures up for me a lush lagoon and flat-bottomed boat sliding across it in the heat). She saves her one original, Last Note, for last and shows her at her most majestic.
In fact this live recording from the Pizza Express in Soho precedes the Where Rivers Meet project and while it can be heard as a bridge piece between the Trio and the Bengali-jazz band, it acts mainly as prime example of a pianist and her partners who love to play live, in the moment, responding to each other’s moods and new moves. Rahman gets a huge sound out of the piano, laying depth charge low chords to resonate the whole giant instrument and then laying high arpeggios over the top.
The recording quality is not fabulous but it does convey the excitement of the Zoe Rahman Trio live."
BBC On-line Review
"Witness the power and conviction of Zoe Rahman live..."
Michael Quinn 2009-05-06
Zoe Rahman's prowess at the piano shouldn’t be underestimated. In the decade since she shot to national attention as the Perrier Young Musician of the Year, Rahman has matured into a pianist of keen intelligence and wide-ranging imagination. Evidence of such is to be found in dazzling abundance on this first live album from the British-Bengali soloist.
Recorded on the spur of the moment at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London’s Soho in April 2007, Rahman is joined by longtime collaborators Oli Hayhurst on double bass and Gene Calderazzo on drums. Rahman's clarinettist brother, Idris, also puts in a guest appearance.
The Rahman siblings spur each other to thrilling reciprocity in the magnificent tumbling cascades of notes in delirious freefall that is Mario Laginha's Ha Gente Aqui and on the hauntingly atmospheric and evocative Bengali-influenced Mucche Jaoa Dinguli, lifted from 2006's Mercury Prize-nominated long player, Melting Pot. As is the remarkable self-penned Last Note, which plays like three separate solos wrapped into one distinctive and coherent whole.
Impeccable ensemble is on effortless display throughout: from the ruminative, rumbling opening of Abdullah Ibrahim's The Stride, through the delightful tongue-in-cheek humour of the cleverly confused Friday 13th and the teeming bustle of Egyptian Tune Dance, both by Rahman's onetime teacher Joanne Brackeen, to the vivaciously characterised, beautifully modulated cover of Phineas Newborn's wonderful Harlem Blues.
With negligible audience intrusion, the recorded sound is superb, the set delivered with vibrant conviction, Rahman is clearly fast developing into a keyboard player of considerable power.
"Live" with special guest Idris Rahman
By Chris May, Allaboutjazz.com
Zoe Rahman was most recently heard on disc, as leader, with the enchanting Where Rivers Meet (Manushi, 2008), in which the British-born pianist explored her Bengali father's musical heritage. The core band for that album included Zoe's clarinetist brother, Idris, and her regular bassist Oli Hayhurst and drummer Gene Calderazzo, an American who's long been resident in London. The same quartet is featured on Live with special guest Idris Rahman, with Idris guesting on two tracks.
Live was recorded at London's Pizza Express Jazz Club in April 2007, a month before the sessions for Where Rivers Meet, and a hint of what was to come is given on Bengali composer Hemant Mukherjee's exquisitely pretty "Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli," featuring Idris. The tune was previously recorded on Zoe's otherwise straight-ahead, Mercury Music Prize-nominated album, Melting Pot (Manushi, 2005).
A technically gifted player who studied at Berklee College of Music, where one of her tutors was Joanne Brackeen, Zoe is an unusually empathetic musician. She inhabits a broad range of material, from bop to Bengali, with an ease verging on osmosis, getting deep inside each tune and investing her improvisation with its particular character, rather than simply using its changes as the basis for a more or less unrelated solo. She describes herself as culturally "very English," yet sounds like she has been playing Bengali music all her life (she hasn't), and is equally at home on Live with two twitchy Brackeen tunes, "Friday 13th" and "Epyptian Tune Dance," Abdullah Ibrahim's rhapsodic "The Stride" and dramatic "Tuang Guru," Phineas Newborn's funky "Harlem Blues" and the sunny vibe of Portugese composer Mario Laginha's "Ha Gente Aqui."
This musical shape-shifting—from the pastoral and intimate, as on "Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli," to the explosive and dissonant, as on the two Brackeens and her own "Last Note" (another tune from Melting Pot)—makes Rahman an unusually well rounded stylist and improviser. She is, typically, a big, energetic and exuberant player, with a penchant for cascading, harp-like, Alice Coltrane-ish cadenzas. (She also recently proved herself to be a seriously funky electric keyboardist, guesting on the 2009 Manushi release One More Reason, made by the Soothsayers, the genre-mashing south London band co-led by Idris).
Hard swinging and outgoing, Live is an infectious goodtime album and provides a valuable record of where the Zoe Rahman Trio was at in early 2007. The story, engrossing so far, promises to travel a lot further.
Review of LIVE album on Vortex Website:
"captures all the punch, pith and sheer verve of the Rahman live act, her playing a rich, controlled mix of
tumultuous vibrancy and affecting delicacy, irresistibly propelled by a superb
rhythm section. The next best thing to seeing the real thing live; warmly recommended"
KEN POPLOWSKI & ZOE RAHMAN TRIO PLAY MONK ****
Review in The Scotsman by Alison Kerr
"..Peplowski was supposed to play this Saturday night concert at The Queen's Hotel with British jazz great Stan Tracey's trio, but when Tracey cancelled due to ill health, Mercury Prize-winning young pianist Zoe Rahman subbed - and how.
Her dynamic, percussive style was perfect for Monk's music and an audience unfamiliar with her playing audibly gasped with astonishment at some of her solo work.
In the second half especially, she, Peplowski and Barnes - who was invited to join in because Monk's music is his "favourite thing in the world" - brought out the beauty of Monk's compositions and helped make this the most talked-about concert of the weekend.
REVIEWS OF 'WHERE RIVERS MEET' ALBUM:
5-star review by Peter Bacon: www.thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com
"Having first heard some of this music in concert at the mac in December last year, and been bowled over by it, my expectations of this album were dangerously high. Remarkably, it has exceeded them.
Try track six, Now You're Gone, and listen to Jasim Uddin's deeply romantic melody line soar, fall, turn and rise again over just over two and a half minutes. The sinuous line is so sensitively articulated by Idris's clarinet, while Zoe's piano accompaniment is as lush as a reed bed, as delicately coloured as a tropical water landscape viewed through warm mist.
It's not all calm and contemplative. On Suddenly It's Dusk Again Gene Calderazzo gets the drums pushing hard, Zoe digs deep for some piano thunder and Idris blows hard too to get a lovely gritty tone from his clarinet.
The guest singers and Samy Bishai on violin bring added texture and colour over 12 tracks that are all equally satisfying in different ways, and most of which explore the sublime.
It's hard to remain objective - this is music you don't so much assess and analyse as simply fall in love with."
Song-lines Magazine: 4-star review by Jon Mitchell
Title: Bengali favourites beautifully captured.
"Soothsayers, Idris Rahman's band, has featured his sister and pianist Zoe Rahman before, but this is their first full album together and it proves to be a delight from start to finish. Beautifully produced, with very little reverb, it's a recording that sits very close to you, and features some wonderful playing and incredible vocals.
Since recording a one-off Bengali track on her 2005 album Melting Pot, Zoe has further explored her Bengali roots through learning the songs her father sang to them, from musicians in London and Bangladesh. Most of the tracks here were made famous by the 50s singer Hemant Kumar in Bombay films.
The 12 contemporary jazz tunes benefit from members of Zoe's regular trio - drummer Gene Calderazzo and bassist Oli Hayhurst - while Idris' rich clarinet and flute perfectly complements tablas and violin. The lush but simple textures ensure a tender and refined mood throughout. But it's the vocals of guest singer, Bengali star Arnob, which stand out the most for their expression and tone, as heard on 'Betrayed' and 'Stream Of Joy'. Led by an exceptionally warm and clear Steinway piano, his voice is simply beautiful.
Listening to the tabla echoing the sound of rain drops in 'You Came Like Welcome Rain' highlights the imagination and attention to detail the two siblings have brought to a work they clearly feel passionate about. This is an elegant record full of clarity and expression."
Phil Johnson, Independent on Sunday, 21 September 2008
"Inspired by their father's songs of his native Bengal and the poetry of Tagore, siblings Zoe (piano) and Idris (clarinets and flute) Rahman have produced a marvellously rich and evocative suite whose exotic colours derive as much from Tyner and Coltrane as they do from India.
With the basic duo augmented by Kuljit Bhamra's percussion, Samy Bishai's violin plus occasional jazz rhythm section and guest vocalists, the music passes through a wealth of modes, from Gypsy or Balkan-sounding dance forms to the most fragile of laments. It ends with a Bengali version of Auld Lang Syne."
Pick of the Album: 'Betrayed': beautiful ballad featuring guest vocalist Arnob
JOHN LEWIS: Metro, Monday, September 20th, 2008
Four-star review
Zoe Rahman might have a Bangladeshi father but she cheerfully admits
her childhood in semi-rural Chichester was 'completely English'.
Now, after being garlanded with jazz awards and a Mercury nomination, she explores her Bengali heritage via a set of songs she learned from her father.
They include film music by singer and composer Hemanta Mukherjee and
songs by the revered Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore.
Zoe enlists her clarinettist brother, Idris, to play the strong,
simple melodies and there are excellent bit parts from tabla player
Kuljit Bhamra, violinist Samy Bishai and assorted vocalists,
including her father Mizan.
But Zoe's distinctive piano sounds more comfortable and freewheeling
than ever before, rumbling away around the chord changes and
providing wonderful texture throughout."
www.hmv.com review: Sep 2008
"From mixed Bengali-English heritage, siblings Zoe and Idris Rahman have established a unique presence on the UK jazz scene. Pianist Zoe in particular has received much critical acclaim for her exuberant, cliché-free performances. Her trio album Melting Pot received a Mercury Prize nomination in 2006 and on it she was joined by her talented clarinet-/flute-playing brother Idris for a Bengali traditional song.
Since then the two have been rediscovering their Bengali roots and this record is a collection of traditional songs. Idris' yearning, liquid-toned clarinet and occasional guest vocals have captured the richness and gentle grace of these old melodies beautifully, sometimes underlined by Kuljit Bhamra's gently hypnotic percussion. But this is also a recording that gravitates towards jazz. That doesn't mean the songs have been 'jazzed up' at all though; Zoe's mix of Alice Coltrane's rippling devotional style and Abdullah Ibrahim-like percussive dynamism especially provides a perfect setting."
www.ejazznews.com, John Stevenson
Where Rivers Meet
"This memorable disc marks the musical confluence of the Thames and the Brahmaputra-Jamuna rivers: London-residents Zoe and Idris, on piano and clarinet respectively, draw inspiration from their Bangladeshi-born father's heritage. Their jazz-influenced take on the music of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Abbasuddin amd Hemanta Kumar Mukerjee is compelling. The notes tumble forth from Idris's piquant licorice stick, floating and dipping rather surprisingly like a klezmer player, against the backdrop of sister Zoe's gently undulating piano improvisations. Travelling along in support of this riverine rythmic ride are bassist Olli Hayhurst, drummer Gene Calderazzo and Bengali vocal sensation Arnob."
BBC on-line review by Jon Lusk, 19 September 2008
"How much do we know about Bengali music? Not much, considering the fact that this area straddling India and Bangladesh has a greater population than Brazil. Bengal's best-known musical tradition is that of the Bauls, a non-conformist mystical brotherhood and a local form of Sufism. One of their champions was Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel prize-winning Bengali poet and songwriter whose work was incorporated into their music. He's one of the artists whose work is interpreted here by Zoe Rahman (piano) and her brother Idris (clarinet/flute), UK musicians of Bengali descent who are both veterans of the world fusion outfit, Soothsayers.
Where Rivers Meet is a gently flowing jazz-inspired album, two thirds of which is instrumental, although judging by the titles, maybe a few more of the pieces once had texts. Apart from the occasional burp and flutter of Kuljit Bhamra's tabla, the arrangements and style of playing (with Zoe's melodic lines shadowed and echoed by clarinet) most closely resemble those on Payanir, the wonderful 2005 album by Turkish pianist Ayse Tütüncu.
After a placid opening, things get a bit stormier with the arrival of drummer Gene Calderazzo on Sanctuary, which also features the folky tones of violinist Samy Bishai and beautiful trickling effects by Zoe Rahman. The mood alters again on Betrayed, when Bengali vocal star Arnob starts crooning. Pilgrim's Song has smouldering percussive atmospherics with evocative hums and non-verbal vocalisations, while Tagore's closing song Do You Wish To Forget? sounds like a philosophical Bengali makeover of the Scottish folk song Auld Lang Syne, sung as a rather sweet lullaby.
This is pensive, late night listening. Zoe Rahman's light touch is a delight throughout, while her brother switches between clarinet and bass clarinet to good effect, and Oli Hayhurst adds the booming resonance of double bass in places. At first the singers are slightly intrusive, but they make sense after a couple of listens. It's a slow grower, and a modest rather towering achievement, but give its gentle charms a chance and you may find yourself liking it a whole lot more than you'd expected."
Mike Hobart, Financial Times, 20th September 2008
Three-star review
"London-raised pianist Zoe Rahman first got the idea for this project transferring her Bangladeshi father's cassettes onto CD. Inspired to delve into her family's mixed heritage - she has an English mother - she and clarinettist brother Idris have created a cocktail of classical piano, microtonal melody and restrained jazz. Guest vocalists, even more effective shadowed by Zoe Rahman's piano, include the Bengali major-leaguer Arnob, and together with violinist Samy Bishai they sustain a seductive minor key ambience."
Sunday Times, Clive Davis, 14th September 2008:
"Slowly but surely, a wholly original brand of Anglo-Asian music is taking root. While the pianist Zoe Rahman has shown she can cover all the bop bases when the occasion requires, there's a much more lyrical quality to this collaboration with her clarinetist brother. Inspired by their father's passion for traditional Bengali melodies, the project combines settings of texts by the likes of Tagore (translated by poet William Radice) with gentle, folksy arrangements for the band that includes the jazz drummer Gene Calderazzo and the percussionist Kuljit Bhamra. Some pieces veer in the direction of new-age musings, yet there is enough individuality here to suggest that the siblings are on the right path."
'Waters Run Deep' article in Jazzwise, September 2008, by Ken Hunt.
"The thing that has to be stressed is that while the source material is profoundly Bengali, Where Rivers Meet is profoundly jazz in orientation. And the concluding Tagore composition 'Do You Wish To Forget' ('Purano sei') - with its feints at 'Auld Lang Syne' - is just a perfect bridge between cultures. One of the most inspiring and inspirational personal turn-ons of 2008 has been discovering the Rahman siblings, whether Idris Rahman playing with Arun Ghosh or exploring Zoe Rahman's back-catalogue. Not everybody gets to board the train at the first station. Zoe Rahman's music and musicianship eluded me before Where Rivers Meet and now I cannot imagine my soundscape without her pianistic insights on and into life. Save future blushes and get aboard the train sooner rather than later. There are worlds I know I have yet to discover in Where Rivers Meet. There is no higher praise."
Four-star review, Ken Hunt, Jazzwise
"Even though it is also one of the more precarious occupations or professions, no matter what anyone tells you, the full-time music-writer's life is the best on the planet. Still, every so often I would see Zoe Rahman's name on posters and wonder what she sounded like. I wish I had trusted my bat radar, followed my instincts and made an effort to listen to her before Where Rivers Meet. It taps into Anglo-Bengali or Anglo-Bangladeshi culture as natural as breathing. Zoe Rahman's piano has its modal moments but rarely ventures into pianistic raga territory. 'Betrayed' ('Amar har kala korlam re') spotlights her piano playing - block chords and lower-end keyboard underpinnings of the vocal - in its story-telling finest. Then you hear the interplay on a track such as 'We'll surely meet again' and you know instinctively that you are in the opposite of sibling rival territory. This may sound heretical but Where Rivers Meet is one of those albums where you just float off and don't notice the music because you're too busy enjoying the ride. That is not damning with faint praise: that is highest praise."
OTHER REVIEWS:
Jazz UK, June/July 2008, by Chris Yeates: 'DAZZLING INTERACTION was the signature of pianist Zoe Rahman's trio on its concert at Newcastle University's King's Hall. Opening with Abdullah Ibrahim's 'The Stride' and concluding with the original 'Last Note', Rahman's flying piano lines, Oli Hayhurst's rock-steady bass and Gene Calderazzo's busily polyrhythmic drumming were seemingly as one - whether embracing Bengali themes, African and Spanish rhythms or contemporary constructions. 'Friday the 13th', dedicated to her mentor JoAnne Brackeen, mixed Debussy-like arabesques with Thelonious Monk's harmonic clusters, to particulary striking effect'.
Chichester Observer, July 8th 2008, Joanne Adlam 'Some things go together: strawberries and cream; bangers and mash; and, yes, jazz and poetry. Not least when they're courtesy of Mercury-nominated pianist Zoe Rahman, National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke and Bishop Luffa students, past and present.
The event, marking the 25th anniversary of Luffa's Knight Life creative writing magazine, was justly hailed in Clarke's introduction as a celebration of creativity... And providing the perfect foil to her poems were Rahman's dazzling piano pieces, by turns reflective and stimulating.
Birmingham Post (5-star review, Nov 2007), by Peter Bacon: 'The trio music was superb and would have made for a great evening; the new interpretations of the Bengali songs, and the addition of Idris and Kuljit, made it a sublime one. By feeding Bengali popular songs through the jazz mixer, the Rahmans have introduced a rich new kind of Anglo-Asian music - long may they explore it'.
The Scotsman, 4-star review, Mon 30 Oct 2006
RAMSHORN THEATRE, GLASGOW
...She more than justified the hype, leading an excellent trio with Oli Hayhurst on his streamlined stand-up bass and London-based American drummer Gene Calderazzo.
Rahman, like many of her peers, can't be pinned down to a single jazz style or idiom. Her music reflects a wide-ranging musical sensibility that took in various shades of jazz (influences that flashed past included Monk, Abdullah Ibrahim, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett), classical and world music, and re-emerged in her own voice.
From the lovely, lucid intro to Scott LaFaro's Gloria's Step through to the rolling South African feel of her own J'Berg and the evocative Bengali tune Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli, the pianist revealed a lovely touch, acute harmonic imagination and powerful rhythmic feel. By her own admission, she revelled in playing the Ramshorn's fine Bosendorfer piano.
Most of the set featured her own tunes, including Camel, with its Monkish touches, Shiraz and Last Note. A highly mobile, energised reading of Joanne Brackeen's Egyptian Tune Dance provided another highlight, and underlined the fact that we were not simply hearing a very talented pianist at work, but a genuine feast of intricate and communicative trio playing.
Julian Maynard-Smith
...'Melting Pot' suggests heat and variety, two qualities that appear in abundance on this piano trio recording: from Monkish fractured rhythms on the opener Camel, to crashing waves of chords suggestive of Alice Coltrane on Shiraz, to the muscular and almost funky rhythms of The Calling and Last Note. But there is also great delicacy: Red Flower , the only solo track on the album, is an introspective tone poem, and No One glides from free jazz to aching tenderness....
From a melting pot of influences has emerged an original voice, a unique alloy of high tensile strength...This is a name to watch out for.
Dave Gelly, The Observer, 4th June 2006
"A remarkable pianist by any standards, Zoe Rahman is quickly becoming an unignorable presence on the British Jazz scene. Here, she clears the second album hurdle with ease...this best captures the boldness and breadth of her approach. She can slip from Monkish percussiveness to extreme fragility with assurance, and sustain a mood with the simplest of devices. There are influences of both Middle Eastern and South African music, but her style is distinctively her own."
PREVIEW: Kerstan Mackness, TIME OUT London March 8th - 15th 2006
Rahman is the brilliant young Asian pianist who is finally beginning to receive the acclaim she deserves. A former Perrier jazz musician of the year, she studied at the prestigious Berklee music school in Massachusetts and has since built up an interesting CV, playing punky worldbeat with Terry Hall and Mushtaq, trancey Arabic folk with singer Reem Kelani, and superior hard bop with drummer Clark Tracey, as well as writing for the theatre.
Unlike many of her contemporaries she eschews jazz's current obsession with the three Bs - Bach, Brad Mehldau and Bill Evans - in favour of a highly individualistic, vibrant style (she plays as if in love with the very sound of the piano), occasionally hinting at Monk or Alice Coltrane but remaining determinedly original. She plays with a compelling drive and shifts effortlessly between meditative and hypnotic pieces, pulsating and tricksy modern bebop, rumbling South African themes and off-beat improvisational lines as heard on her superb recent album 'Melting Pot'.
Tonight's concert, part of the Southbank's 'Banglabeat' mini-fest, finds her exploring the music of her Bengali father's favourite singer Hemant Mukherjee. Rahman cheerfully admits to knowing little about Bengali music, but included one of Mukherjee's songs on 'Melting Pot' after hearing his music when her father asked her to transfer an old cassette to CD. She sees this evening's free concert as an opportunity to approach her Bengali heritage through music. This trio features her brother Idris on clarinet and Brazilian percussionist Anselmo Neto. Expect Rahman's arrangements to reference all her influences, from Arabic tone poems to luminous jazz, but to ultimately sound like no one except Zoe Rahman herself.
Kevin Le Gendre, Echoes Magazine (March 2006)
"..more than filling the potential mooted by her 2002 debut, 'The Cynic' her swing is a tad more muscular, her movement between registers more assured. She has brought anything from yearning South African to Arabic melodies to flighty touches of drum & bass influences to her sturdy, bluesy post-bop template without sounding at all contrived..it is Rahman the leader, whose poise and economy has more than a hint of Ahmad Jamal, who really puts her stamp on the session. A very timely reminder of a musician whose burgeoning virtuosity is impressively matched by her communicative power.
Tom Barlow, Jazzwise Magazine (4-Star review, Feb 2006)
"this artist has truly arrived. Melting Pot brims with top-notch composition, interaction and soloing. As a player, Rahman weaves dense, darkly rich melodicisms..to make player comparisons detracts from Rahman's individuality. A raw, percussive musician, she wrenches emotion from every track from the brooding 'Last Note' to the middle-Eastern twists of 'Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli'. One of the most distinctive British piano trio albums in a while, let's not take Rahman for granted."
City Life magazine review by Mike Butler (Nov 2005)
"..the new CD, Melting Pot, shares common ground with any pianist with luminous touch, bubbling spirit and a penchant for offbeat time signatures. Rahman's sound is instantly engaging, and positively transcendent. The incantatory quality of her playing acknowledges life's mystery, while the freshness and dynamism confirm life's energy. Melting Pot is an absolute gem. It cuts deep."
Chis Parker, Vortex Website Review (Jan 2006)
"Zoe Rahman has established herself as one of the brightest young stars in the UK jazz-piano firmament. This album showcases all her considerable gifts: highly individual compositional skill; dense, powerfully emotive pieces; satisfyingly complex and hospitable to exhilarating improvisation; an almost dreamy lyricism and a tightly controlled robustness; a keen awareness of the importance of group interplay that enables her to lead a wonderfully sprightly band through the most absorbing of her pieces, which are small marvels of textural and dynamic variation, packed with subtle mood changes and rhythmic felicities. A confident and eloquent album that reveals new delights on each listening."
John Fordham, Jazz UK (Jan/Feb 2006)
"With her album 'The Cynic' four years ago, British pianist Zoe Rahman announced that she was a sophisticated listener to the usual suspects on the contemporary acoustic piano-trio scene, but had no inclination to be anybody's clone...her own music ranges through postbop, ambient reveries, funk, free-jazz and world-music, all seamlessly integrated. The themes are strong, and the only non-original is a hypnotic world-music meditation also involving Rahman's clarinetist brother Idris and udu-player Adriano Itauna."
Brian Morton, Jazz Review (Feb 2006)
"This is, in every way, an impressive sequel [to her debut album]. Rahman has tremendous control at the keyboard, from the Monk/stride shapes that bring in "Camel", to the much more lyrical approach of "J'Berg", which at different angles reminded me of every one from Paul Bley to Abdullah Ibrahim..the looser and more expansive sound Zoe gets from Gene Calderazzo and Oli Hayhurst lifts this album a notch above its predecessor."
Sholto Byrnes, The Independent on Sunday (4th Dec 2005)
"Rahman's second album confirms the pianist as a distinctive voice on the British jazz scene. She manages to avoid the cliches of bop while still indicating a familiarity with its language. Even when hitting a riff hard, her trio has a woody texture to it which allows air into the rhythmic motifs that Rahman often favours. The result is attractively difficult to place and timeless. Rahman has a quietly concentrated manner at the keyboard that is winning her a wider audience. She deserves it."
Susannah Tarbush, Saudi Gazette (20th Dec 2005)
"With the release of her second album, 'Melting Pot', the jazz pianist and composer Zoe Rahman has further confirmed her place as one of the most talented and inspiring young musicians on the contemporary British jazz scene. It is a real pleasure to listen to Rahman's assured musicianship with its freshness of spirit creating intriguing rhythms and haunting melodies. Rahman's performance has a driving sense of energy, yet also a reflective and transcendent quality. Rahman is a graceful presence on stage, with her slender form, fine features and wide smile."
John Fordham, Guardian (18th Nov 2005)
"..Rahman's wayward and mobile left-hand patterns swerving under crisp post-bop swingers like Camel, soft meditations with repeating low themes emerging under treble trills (Shiraz), dense, hypnotic, multi-linear entanglements like the funky The Calling or free-jazz tussles preceding soft rumination like No One.
Dave Gelly, The Observer (12th Feb 2006): review of Clark Tracey's "The Mighty Sas"
"..a brighter, more inventive group would be hard to find, almost absurdly poised and mature for their years. Zoe Rahman, a Perrier Young Jazz award winner, must be one of the finest young pianists in Europe."
Susannah Tarbush, Saudi Gazette (31 January 2006): review of Reem Kelani's "Sprinting Gazelle"
"Kelani is supported by a terrific lineup of musicians. Her core band, with which she often appears in performance, includes jazz pianist Zoe Rahman, whose piano improvisations (taqasim) add a magical dimension to tracks such as the evocative 'Yafa!'"
Tariq Shadid, Musical Intifada (Feb 2006): website review of Reem Kelani's "Sprinting Gazelle"
"The piano, enchantingly played by Zoe Rahman, sometimes is reminiscent of the work of Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, at other times touching upon the style of Ziad el Rahbani...."
Barry Boyce, CJC website review:
"'Zoe' is the Greek word for 'life'; the vivacious and exuberant Zoe Rahman was certainly aptly named. For me [she] ranks highly among living UK jazz pianists because of her distinctive style and approach: Zoe Rahman plays like Zoe Rahman, and her music is, thankfully, never easy listening." March 2005
John Brand, live review, Sheffield Jazz Club:
"This was superior contemporary jazz from the outset. Truly this was an evening of jazz as the sound of surprise. Throughout, Zoe had been able to take flight while relying on the crisp and incisive support of [Gene Calderazzo], one of the best drummers around, combined with the always eloquent bass work of Oli Hayhurst." March 2005
Jack Massarik, London Evening Standard:
"She is an exceptional pianist with a warm sound and a firm and confident touch". Jazz FM CD review 2000
Ian Carr, BBC Music Magazine
"The Cynic, young British pianist Zoe Rahman's debut trio album, is a remarkable achievement, because it seems that she already has her own sound and style. [Her] compositions are excellent, developing in highly original ways. It's a great debut." The Cynic CD review 2001
John Fordham, Guardian/Jazz UK
"Zoe Rahman, a young, animated British pianist, is a musician of powerful technique, group sympathy and compositional skill...Her group's collective expressiveness was consistently absorbing" Live review, Dec 2000
"Rahman's composing is as striking as her improvising. Exhilarating as she can be, Zoe Rahman is also a subtle and hypnotically absorbing interpreter of ballads". Jazz UK
