Salena Jones - Love And Inspiration

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:23
Size: 97,5 MB
Art: Front

(3:05)  1. Get Here
(3:51)  2. Hope Love And Inspiration
(2:55)  3. This Girl's In Love
(4:16)  4. That's What Friends Are For
(4:28)  5. All I Ask Of You
(3:48)  6. It Must Be Love
(3:39)  7. Let's Dance
(3:25)  8. Don't Take Your Love From Me
(3:56)  9. Always Something There To Remind Me
(2:22) 10. You're My Everything
(3:40) 11. There Is No Greater Love
(2:53) 12. When You Love Someone

A direct descendant of Crazy Horse, the Indian Sioux warrior, Joan Shaw was born in Newport News, Virginia, and began singing in church and school before making her debut on life's bigger stages. As a very young teenager, Joan Shaw`s career began at Manhattan's legendary Harlem Apollo, when she won the amateur night singing “September Song”. Joan grew up in New York in the company of musicians who would become the legends: Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Bud Powell, Wes Montgomery, Chico Hamilton and Stan Getz - she met all these people, jamming with some of them, and began making demonstration records for artists like Peggy Lee, Brenda Lee and Lena Horne, before getting her own recording contract. 

Based in New York, with her own “Blues Extra Orchestra”, Salena toured widely across the US with “King” Curtis in her band (whom she named), also working with Johnnie Ray, Laverne Baker, Arthur Prysock, and Frankie Lyman. This rhythm`n`blues period was the forerunner to rock`n`roll and looking back, one sees how Joan Shaw is now revered by afficionados of those times. Joan then worked regularly at the famous venues of the Village Vanguard, Minton`s Playhouse and Wells Supper Club. Leonard Feather, the noted jazz critic for “Downbeat” magazine, named Joan Shaw as one of the “most promising newcomers of 1964”, together with “Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme”. Glamorous and beautiful, with her distinctive voice and relaxed style, by then she had met and sung with a breathtaking array of great jazz names. Her photo album shows her arm in arm with everyone from Betty Carter to Cab Calloway, Billy Eckstine, Vic Damone and Lena Horne. 

However, wanting to expand her horizons, and concerned at the racism in her native country, Joan Shaw bought a one way ticket to Madrid where, having sung one song at the “Whiskey and Jazz Club”, on the same night as her arrival in Spain, she was immediately engaged to sing nightly with Dexter Gordon. But London called, and arriving in 1965, her management recommended a name-change ”and Salena Jones was born! She was soon booked to appear for the first time at Ronnie Scott`s for two weeks but, such was the audience reaction that she was held over for another week, and then another: eventually appearing for seven consecutive weeks - still a record after this time for one of the the most famous clubs in the world. Over the last five decades, Salena Jones has been a central figure on the British jazz scene and from her base here she has conquered the world. Salena has played everywhere, from Canada, throughout Europe, South Africa, South America, to the US and Asia, where she has appeared in Japan at least annually since 1978, and where she is a well loved artiste. Salena`s recording career has reflected her ability to both choose exciting repertoire and also to move beyond jazz boundaries. 

She has recorded collections of Porter, Lennon and McCartney and Carlos Jobim as well as Hollywood and Broadway musical numbers, making 38 solo albums and 22 singles to date. Salena has sung with Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, Sarah Vaughan, Maynard Ferguson, Mark Murphy, Lionel Hampton, Kenny Burrell, Dudley Moore, Roy Budd, and Toots Thielemans, Tom Jones, Antonio Carlos Jobim, the BBC Big Band and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst many well-known names. Latterly, over the past twelve months, Salena has appeared in China, for the second time at the Shanghai Jazz Festival, Thailand and made three concert trips to Japan. Whether singing jazz standards, blues or contemporary songs, critics acclaim Salena Jones`s perfect pitch, natural swing and her interpretations of stylish songs. They also describe her elegance, panache and charismatic stage presence which make her shows a very special experience.

http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/musician.php?id=1653#.UweVu4VZhls

Love And Inspiration

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Rob McConnell & The Boss Brass - Play The Jazz Classics

Styles: Straight-ahead/Mainstream
Year: 1997
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 65:41
Size: 153,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:58)  1. The Duke
(9:09)  2. Invitation
(7:10)  3. Autumn In New York
(5:24)  4. A Child Is Born / Our Waltz
(9:17)  5. Peace / Blue Silver
(3:45)  6. Santa Claus Blues
(6:58)  7. Pensativa
(5:40)  8. Day Dream
(8:49)  9. Sophistacated Lady
(5:28) 10. Lil' Darlin (Don't Dream Of Anybody But Me)

Competent is the key word here. Rob McConnell and The Boss Brass have been at their labor of love of big band music for almost thirty years; here, as they Play the Jazz Classics, their long experience shows. The playing is lovely and loving, every detail is in place, and the record is thoroughly satisfying in every way. Lovers of adventure and innovation should look elsewhere, but does music have to be new or inventive to be beautiful? Lovers of beautiful music for its own sake will become immediate fans of Mr. McConnell and his merry brassters. If you wish Basie were still around  if you wish Miles had released two hundred variations of Miles Ahead  this is for you. In fact, McConnell confesses amiably in the liner notes to having listened to Miles Ahead "so many times"; he obviously listened hard. Wary big band fans can be certain that McConnell hasn't spent nearly as much time with, say, Bitches Brew, or Agharta.  

The shadow of Miles certainly falls long over the trumpet section. His melancholy and expressive tone has been thoroughly absorbed by John MacLeod, whose flugelhorn infuses Bronislaw Kaper's "Invitation" with a sober longing that is set off in interesting fashion by the band. MacLeod seems to be feeling a little more down than the rest of them, and the resulting contrast is intriguing in a Sinatra-at-the-bar-at-3-AM sort of way: this is music for the dregs of an ever-so-sophisticated party after she's gone and there's nothing to do but set the fedora down and order another. While the band plays and plays. In contrast, John Johnson's alto seems to be the up one while the band is down on "Autumn in New York." Maybe this is what Miles meant when he said that Gil Evans had taught him so much about "contrary motion and shit like that." Of course, he was referring to the harmonic motions of the soloist and accompanists, but McConnell seems to have captured its potential for casting the moods of his soloists in particularly effective lights. All the music here has been recorded before, so this has a bit of a Greatest Hits feel to it, although it's an all-new recording from May 1997.

Dave Dunlop is introduced as the new lead trumpet player, but the new man has to pay his dues, and Dave doesn't get to solo. We do hear from, among others, Guido Basso on flugelhorn, the leader on a charming valve trombone, and the soulful David Restivo on piano.  Also on hand in this enormous ensemble are Moe Koffman, Alex Dean, Rick Wilkins, and Bob Leonard (reeds); Steve McDade and Kevin Turcotte (trumpets, flugelhorns); Alastair Kay, Bob Livingston, Jerry Johnson and Ernie Pattison (trombones); James MacDonald and Judy Kay (French horns); Ed Bickert (guitar); Jim Vivian (bass); and Ted Warren and Brian Leonard (drums and percussion). What are they playing? Well, McConnell stays on predictably firm ground here: fans of "Ascension," "Kulu Se Mama" and "Karyobin" will have to wait for future releases. For this one, how about Brubeck's "The Duke," the Duke's "Sophisticated Lady," and Vernon Duke's "Autumn in New York"? Garnish with "A Child is Born," "Blue Silver," "Pensativa," Strayhorn's "Day Dream," and a few other deserved perennials. Warm lightly over a low fire. Serve cool. ~ Robert Spencer   

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=2458#.UxD4lIVZhhk

Play The Jazz Classics

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Mark Winkler - Till I Get It Right

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2009
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:55
Size: 125,0 MB
Art: Front

(4:47)  1. Till I Get It Right
(3:43)  2. How Can That Make You Fat?
(4:25)  3. Cool
(3:54)  4. Spring Is Where You Are
(4:34)  5. Lowercase
(4:00)  6. Sissies
(5:34)  7. In A Lonely Place
(4:02)  8. Future Street
(4:57)  9. Evolution
(3:47) 10. How To Pack A Suitcase
(5:10) 11. In The Moment
(4:56) 12. You Might As Well

If Mark Murphy is the reigning king of vocal hipsterism, then Mark Winkler ranks directly behind Kurt Elling among heirs apparent. Though the title of Winkler’s ninth album echoes his longstanding predilection for self-effacement, better to consider it ironic. As the jazz cognoscenti are well aware, Winkler has been getting it right for years. As a singer, he mirrors Murphy’s arch sophistication while suggesting an amalgam of Curtis Stigers’ blithe ingenuousness and Matt Dennis’ breezy bonhomie. As a lyricist, he is as consummate a traveler in the world of Dave Frishberg drollness as he is in the land of Cole Porter urbanity. This time around, Winkler’s lyrical skills span 10 tunes (augmented by the sparse, budding beauty of Steve Allen’s “Spring Is Where You Are” and witty sagacity of Ivan Lins’ “Evolution”) of dexterous ingenuity. 

He shapes clever accolades to personal heroes Truman Capote (“Sissies”) and Barbra Streisand (“In the Moment”), swaps hepcat accolades with Cheryl Bentyne on “Cool,” serves up the deliciously Frishberg-ian “How Can That Make You Fat?” and proves a master of the sweet adieu with “How to Pack a Suitcase.” But it is on a pair of ballads that Winkler shines brightest, seeking silver linings in “You Might As Well Live” and, inspired by a classic slice of Humphrey Bogart film noir, fog-bound in the aftermath of a doomed romance in “In a Lonely Place. ~ Christopher Loudon   http://jazztimes.com/articles/24644-till-i-get-it-right-mark-winkler

Till I Get It Right

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