Marica Hiraga With Manhattan Jazz Quintet - Close to Bacharach

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:04
Size: 129,0 MB
Art: Front

(3:51)  1. Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head
(4:55)  2. Do You Know The Way To San Jose
(4:56)  3. Alfie
(3:58)  4. The Look Of Love
(3:12)  5. What The World Needs Now Is Love
(4:05)  6. Close To You
(4:38)  7. Wives And Lovers
(4:38)  8. A House Is Not A Home Flash
(4:23)  9. Arthur's Theme (The Best You Can Do)
(4:07) 10. God Give Me Strength
(4:28) 11. I'll Never Fall in Love Again
(4:17) 12. This Guy's In Love With You
(4:30) 13. That's What Friends Are For

Marica Hiraga is Japan’s leading jazz vocalist with a rich talent both in expression and technique. Her professional career began in 1981 after she was awarded the Asia Music Award in Hong Kong. She has acquired her understanding and feeling of jazz by performing and traveling between Tokyo and New York. Her first Jazz standard album, My Shining Hour, was released in 2001, and won the Best Singing Techniques award at the 19th Japan Jazz Vocal Award hosted by Jazz World magazine in 2003. Her 2nd album, Faith, released in 2006, was recorded with Eric Alexander and Harold Mabern Trio. Faith was selected as “ Swing Journal Gold Disc” and became her breakthrough album. She then worked with the legendary jazz combo, the Manhattan Jazz Quintet, lead by David Matthews, on 3rd album, Close to Bacharach, which was highly praised as the new Bacharach standards. 

The album was again selected as “ Swing Journal Gold Disc” and she received the Best Vocal award at the 41st Jazz Disc Award, hosted by Swing Journal, one of the most prestigious awards for jazz music in Japan. In May 2008, she released a collection of mature love songs as 4th album, More Romance, and in November, she released 5th album, BATUCADA-Jazz‘ n’ Bossa, on which she worked with many prominent musicians including the genius Gil Goldstein, the leading AOR musician Michael Franks, Marcos Valle, Phil Woods, Kenny Garrett and Randy Brecker, as a celebration album for bossa nova’s 50th anniversary. BATUCADA was again selected as“ Swing Journal Gold Disc” and won her the Best Vocal award at the 42nd Jazz Disc Award. ~ Bio   http://www.last.fm/music/Marica+Hiraga

Close to Bacharach

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Geri Allen - Flying Toward the Sound

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 60:09
Size: 137,9 MB
Art: Front + Back

( 6:03)  1. Flying Toward the Sound
( 5:56)  2. Red Velvet in Winter
( 4:24)  3. Dancing Mystic Poets at Midnight
(16:06)  4. God's Ancient Sky
( 3:23)  5. Dancing Mystic Poets at Twilight
( 7:00)  6. Faith Carriers of Life
( 5:44)  7. Dancing Mystic Poets at Dawn
( 6:23)  8. Flying Toward the Sound (Reprise)
( 5:05)  9. Your Pure Self (Mother to Son)

One of modern jazz's foremost pianists, Geri Allen exhibits a musical profundity that is coupled by lyricism and soul. Whether leading a trio of esteemed peers Charlie Haden and Paul Motian at that landmark venue, Live at the Village Vanguard (DIW, 2000), or giving homage to the obscure jazz matriarch, pianist Mary Lou Williams, with Zodiac Suite: Revisited (Mary Music, 2006), Allen is a composer/musician constantly gravitating towards new endeavors.  Such is the case with Flying Toward the Sound (a solo piano suite in eight refractions ), a work that gained momentum after Allen received a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition. Inspired by three great pianists Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor and McCoy Tyner the project offers reverence to the spirit of their music, yet eschews mimicry. It sets its own course in a journey that is enigmatic yet personal, complex yet moving, and always evolving with Allen's own vision as she so eloquently states: "It's not like playing transcriptions; it's more about refracting the admiration and love I have for them through my own muse." 

The suite is replete with Allen's cerebral compositional and improvisational vigor. Each refraction is prismatic moments of balladry, grandeur, and abstractionism are contained in the stunning opening title, dedicated to Tyner. Rapid notes forge cascading movements, sheets of sound, and fluid runs in "Red Velvet In Winter (for Hancock)" and flamboyant blues/swing improvisation in "Dancing Mystic Poets in Twylight (for Taylor)."  Motion and spirituality are prevalent in "God's Ancient Sky," the sixteen-minute centerpiece where the pianist's keys travel over assorted soundscapes. Personal reflections are found in "Faith Carriers of Life," dedicated to mothers, and "Your Pure Self (Mother To Son)," for her son Wally each intimating the pianist's inventiveness and sensitivity suffused in her swinging groove essence. An added gift is found on the enhanced CD, with three short video excerpts from the film Refractions , by filmmaker Carrie Mae Weems, who collaborated on the project. Jazz has been quoted as being "music that walks a tightrope without a net." Allen's Flying Toward the Sound effectively fits that description daring, vulnerable, and breathtaking. ~ Mark F.Turner   http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=36330#.U07iGFdSvro
 

Personnel: Geri Allen: piano.

Flying Toward the Sound

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