Paul Millns - Gone Again

Size: 109,7 MB
Time: 47:12
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2013
Styles: Pop/Rock, Jazz, Blues, Soul Rock
Art: Front

01. A Little Painkilling (4:51)
02. Love Don't Have To Be Like This (3:25)
03. Gone Again (4:06)
04. Distillery Street (4:16)
05. The Beauty Of The High Wire Dancer (3:19)
06. Close Companion Of The Blues (3:56)
07. City Boy (4:04)
08. Love In The Times Of Hardship (4:57)
09. Odd Job John (3:06)
10. Tangled Up In Stars (3:50)
11. Capsized (3:46)
12. Crazy With Love (3:30)

Recorded earlier this year in Ingo Rau’s Freiburg studio, it was produced by Paul and Ingo [who has done an outstanding job with the audio quality]. As well as being available here through the website in a few days, it is released by Rakete Records [www.rakete-medien.de], and of course at Paul’s concerts.

From the almost Nashville atmosphere of “Gone again” and ” A little Painkilling”, to the blues soaked “Distillery Street” and “Close Companion of the Blues”, via the jazzy “Love in the times of Hardship”, this is surely one of the most varied albums Paul has recorded.

All of the basic tracks were recorded live in just a few days, and this gives a very organic feel to the album, graced by wonderful contributions by Paul’s regular musicians, Ingo Rau -bass, Vladi Kempf – drums, Butch Coulter – guitar and harmonica.

Friends and guests include Nick Pentelow on saxophones and clarinet, Paul’s son Andreas on Hammond organ, Niels Kaiser on guitar, and Steve Bailey on violin. Heinz Rudolf Kunze and Tobias Kunzel also sing on the title track GONE AGAIN.

The album should delight Paul’s fans and reach out to a wider audience.

Gone Again

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Dee Bell & Marcos Silva - Silva-Bell-Elation

Size: 101,2 MB
Time: 43:31
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz Vocals, Brazilian Rhythms
Art: Front

01. Harvest Moon (4:15)
02. I've Got The World On A String (4:00)
03. Beijo Partido - Broken Kiss (4:54)
04. Night In The City (4:26)
05. I Will (3:18)
06. The Face I Love (3:15)
07. Nature Boy (4:08)
08. Dreamer (3:22)
09. The World Is Falling Down (3:40)
10. 's Wonderful (2:41)
11. Midnight Mood (5:26)

Although jazz singer Dee Bell made her first critically applauded albums back in the ’80s with the likes of Stan Getz and Eddie Duran, her name is unlikely to be familiar to many jazz fans. As James Gavin’s liner notes to her new album with pianist Marcos Silva, Silva – Bell – Elation, tells it, the Indiana-born Bell came to Northern California to pursue a singing career in 1978. She was working as a waitress in a Sausalito music club when she got up to sing “Happy Birthday” to a friend. Guitarist Eddie Duran caught her song and soon she was sitting in with his trio. Stan Getz heard her sing and was willing to listen to a demo tape. He liked what he heard, and she got a gig with Concord Jazz resulting in two albums.

While her recordings got a lot of attention and she continued to work around the San Francisco area, she was not exactly making a fortune. She had to take a full time job. In 1990, she self-produced a third album, Sagacious Grace, but the master was defective as the result of a poorly placed mike and the album couldn’t be released. Disappointed by the expensive failure, she devoted herself to marriage, family and a job as a music teacher. Twenty odd years later, with a bit of digital know-how, the technical problems were corrected. In 2011, the album was released.

Now she has teamed up with Brazilian-born Marcos Silva for an album that she calls, at least in part, “a laid back white jazz singer floating over his Brazilian rhythms.” And it works, she handles Brazilian songs like Toninho Horta’s “Beijo Partido/Broken Kiss,” Marcos Valle’s “The Face I Love,” and especially Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Dreamer” with the finesse of a native. They’ve even arranged the Gershwins’ “S’Wonderful” as a samba.

The set opens with a cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” featuring 17-year-old Chris Sullivan playing four different sax parts. There is also a little Lennon/McCartney with a sweet version of “I Will” and Joni Mitchell’s “Night in the City.” They infuse “I’ve Got the World on a String” and “Nature Boy” with the flavor of the Caribbean, aided by steel drummer Andy Narell. Her version of Abbey Lincoln’s “The World is Falling Down” gives the tune a new life. The set ends with a wordless meditative dialogue with Silva on piano.

Silva – Bell – Elation is a tantalizing album that will leave the listener mourning for the 20 years of great music missed out on while Dee Bell was recovering from the Sagacious Grace fiasco.

Silva-Bell-Elation

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Cassandre McKinley - Til Tomorrow

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:03
Size: 128,9 MB
Art: Front

(3:33)  1. Trouble Man
(3:33)  2. I Want You
(4:27)  3. Til Tomorrow
(3:12)  4. I Wish It Would Rain
(3:58)  5. You're the One for Me
(3:18)  6. Pride and Joy
(3:38)  7. Your Precious Love
(4:22)  8. Night Life
(5:27)  9. Let's Get It on
(3:24) 10. After the Dance
(5:04) 11. I Won't Cry Anymore
(5:12) 12. I Wonder
(3:46) 13. Yesterday
(3:05) 14. If This World Were Mine

One of the funniest jokes that has made the rounds in the jazz world goes like this: how many jazz vocalists does it take to sing "My Funny Valentine"? All of them. The point is that so many jazz artists males and females, singers and instrumentalists  insist on performing the most overdone Tin Pan Alley warhorses no matter how much those warhorses been beaten to death over the years, and God forbid they should try to find the jazz potential in rock or R&B songs. Thus, it is refreshing to hear Boston-based vocalist Cassandre McKinley providing this jazz-friendly tribute to Marvin Gaye. 

Til Tomorrow: Remembering Marvin Gaye is not straight-ahead jazz; what McKinley does on this 59-minute CD is best described as a mixture of jazz, R&B, and pop (with blues and gospel elements at times). But jazz is certainly an important part of the equation, and McKinley doesn't simply offer note-for-note covers of songs that the late soul icon recorded; she interprets them, offering plenty of delightful surprises along the way. "I Want You" and "After the Dance" receive bossa nova makeovers, and McKinley puts a post-bop spin on "Trouble Man" without sacrificing any of the song's bluesiness. "Let's Get It On" becomes surprisingly understated and torch-like in McKinley's hands, while "I Wish It Would Rain" (a gem associated with the Temptations and Gladys Knight & the Pips more than Gaye, although he recorded it in 1970) is given an appealingly bluesy, folkish spin along the lines of Tracy Chapman. "I Wish It Would Rain" is one of the disc's least jazz-minded performances, but again, McKinley never claimed that Til Tomorrow was the work of a jazz purist. It is, however, an excellent example of a jazz-friendly vocalist acknowledging that great popular music didn't end with Tin Pan Alley. ~ Alex Henderson  

http://www.allmusic.com/album/til-tomorrow-remembering-marvin-gaye-mw0000442406

Personnel: Cassandre McKinley (vocals); Stephen Angellis (vocals); Marty Ballou (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Dino Govoni (tenor saxophone); John Allmark (trumpet); Brad Hatfield (piano, synthesizer); Vincent Pagano (drums, percussion); Marty Richards (drums); Lexi Angellis (rainsticks).

Til Tomorrow

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India Arie - Acoustic Soul

Styles: R&B
Year: 2001
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 71:03
Size: 163,8 MB
Art: Front

(0:50)  1. Intro
(4:09)  2. Video
(4:37)  3. Promises
(4:56)  4. Brown Skin
(4:57)  5. Strength, Courage, & Wisdom
(4:24)  6. Nature
(5:11)  7. Back To The Middle
(4:28)  8. Ready For Love
(1:24)  9. Interlude
(4:40) 10. Always In My Head
(3:17) 11. I See God In You
(3:26) 12. Simple
(4:03) 13. Part Of My Life
(4:05) 14. Beautiful
(1:20) 15. Outro
(5:32) 16. Wonderful (Steve Wonder Dedication)
(5:57) 17. Strength, Courage, & Wisdom (Live)
(3:36) 18. Brown Skin (Bedroom Rockers Remix)

As one of the most promising neo-soul artists yet to emerge in the past few years, India.Arie casts her lot with the best artists of her label's storied history, playing deeply introspective songs laced with glistening acoustic guitar, churchy organ, and smooth, supple beats. When she name-checks those artists no longer with us that she claims as influences (Ma Rainey, Miles Davis, Karen Carpenter, Charley Patton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Donny Hathaway, etc.) in three separate interludes, you have no doubt she is looking back as well as forward, even going so far as to invoke Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." But Acoustic Soul is at its best when the arrangements are deliberately modern. And despite the uniqueness of being a guitar-based R&B album, it is Arie's thick, sandy voice that shares star billing with her exceptional lyrics. 

Betraying youthful vulnerability while at the same time projecting strength, confidence, and uncanny insight for a 25-year-old singer/songwriter, Arie wraps herself effortlessly around the deep, funky sensuality of "Brown Skin," and stands tall in defiance of pop-fashion expectations on the irresistibly catchy "Video." The uplifting "Faith, Courage, Wisdom" rides along on a euphoric chorus, and the plainly autobiographical "Back to the Middle" recounts an emotional and spiritual coming of age. Without the many concrete references to the great R&B music of the past, Acoustic Soul would be a purely modern gem, but as Arie is determined to pay her debts up front, it's much more, and that is admirable. ~ John Duffy   http://www.allmusic.com/album/acoustic-soul-mw0000001036

Acoustic Soul

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Tuck & Patti - Chocolate Moment

Styles: Vocal, Guitar Jazz
Year: 2002
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:53
Size: 107,6 MB
Art: Front

(5:25)  1. Comfort Me
(4:13)  2. Love Flows Like a River
(3:18)  3. One For All
(3:45)  4. Reverie
(5:39)  5. Wildflower
(4:47)  6. Rejoice
(4:54)  7. Chocolate Moment
(3:46)  8. Interlude in the Key of P
(5:16)  9. Blast Past Your Illusions
(5:45) 10. Knowing

For just the second time in their career, Tuck & Patti offer an album that contains only original material. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Chocolate Moment is the first release on their own label. Equally likely is that, as with many other artists, their creativity was stirred to an unusual turbulence by the World Trade Center tragedy of the previous year. Its traces can be discerned most clearly in the lyrics to "Comfort Me," a plea for help after "all my illusions have...crumbled down in smoke and glass," and in a festive call, set to a township beat, to get past "the season of crying" in "Rejoice." The same shadow touches most of the other tracks as well, though Cathcart's positive-energy emanations make them harder to spot on, for example, "Love Flows Like a River," a gentle meditation that turns out to be about saying goodbye to loved ones. What stands intact throughout Chocolate Moment is the intimacy of their musical union, with Tuck's astonishing accompaniment glistening against Patti's honeyed, soulful tones. Her songs are not easy to play and, as the shortage of breath spots in "Knowing" illustrates, they can be tricky to sing as well. Yet, in the manner of every great duo, they make it all seem easy and, always, supremely musical throughout Chocolate Moment. ~ Robert L.Doerschuck   

http://www.allmusic.com/album/chocolate-moment-mw0000226907

Chocolate Moment

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Eldar Djangirov - Viture

Styles: Post-Bop, Piano Jazz
Year: 2009
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 69:42
Size: 161,2 MB
Art: Front

(6:23)  1. Exposition
(5:43)  2. Insensitive
(9:09)  3. Blues Sketch In Clave
(5:24)  4. Iris
(7:06)  5. The Exorcist
(6:34)  6. Lullaby Fantazia
(5:57)  7. Blackjack
(7:53)  8. Long Passage
(6:19)  9. Estate
(6:11) 10. Daily Living
(3:00) 11. Vanilla Sky

Eldar Djangirov continues hell-bent on dazzling audiences with his impressive technique, speed-demon array of notes, and music that is displaying more of a jagged edge and abject angular inventions. The staggeringly pronounced music he is making takes a different turn on Virtue, utilizing horns and synthesizers, but it's mostly his kamikaze acoustic piano  frequently turning on a dime that is the centerpiece. Djangirov receives help from Joshua Redman, who plays tenor and soprano sax, and trumpeter Nicholas Payton on one cut apiece, as well as saxophonist Felipe Lamoglia on four selections. Rarely displaying reserve, Djangirov is fully gassed up and ready to wail on these pieces that require acute listening skills to hear everything being dished out, but for him must seem naturally supercharged. Those impressed with pyrotechnics will likely be blown away by tracks like the busy horn-driven road song on cobblestones "Exposition," with Redman; the powerhouse piece "The Exorcist," with astounding invention and a bit of synth flavoring; and the jumpy, superball-in-a-squash-court "Blackjack," featuring Payton. Funky rock beats dominate the youth-oriented "Blues Sketch in Clave," featuring Lamoglia's tenor and soprano, while "Vanilla Sky" is another craggy, loose-cannon tune in odd meters fused by Lamoglia's soprano.

Slightly throttled, "Lullaby Fantazia" is a lithe and soulful 4/4 track with a 5/4 modal insert that is more organic and breathing than steaming along. "Daily Living" takes into account the elfin flourishes of Chick Corea, while also adopting staggered phrasings, electric keyboards, and a sound that can strike a kinship with peers like Robert Glasper and Aaron Parks. Some trio-only tracks with electric bass guitarist Armando Gola and drummer Ludwig Alfonso including the pretty, cascading "Insensitive," the actual introspective and delicate "Iris," and the real ballad take of the classic "Estate" all show that Djangirov can ramp down the thunder and lightning into low-watt, sustainable, impressionistic motifs. While not all bombast and the high drama has its valid virtuosity the variations are either black or white, with no interest in the middle ground or a larger color palette. This is Eldar's eighth CD, at age 22 still a very young and maturing musician who has a lot to offer and gives it all up in one fell swoop. Strap in for the ride. ~ Michael G.Nastos   http://www.allmusic.com/album/virtue-mw0000827137

Viture

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