Christine Campbell - Christine Campbell

Size: 106,2 MB
Time: 45:27
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2013
Styles: Blues, Rock, Pop
Art: Front

01. Too Late (4:24)
02. Gleam (4:18)
03. All Mine (4:54)
04. Run (3:30)
05. How Long (3:54)
06. Severed Strings (5:17)
07. Do Me No Wrong (4:14)
08. Goodbye Lullaby (5:15)
09. Rag Doll (4:18)
10. Float Away (5:20)

A killer guitarist, a classically-trained pianist, a raw, honest songwriter, and an incomparable singer. Christine Campbell ranges from a raspy powerhouse to a soft...powerhouse, and brings entire audiences to a hush...and to their feet.

Christine crossed the Northumberland Strait in 2006, and formed the heavy-rock band Molotov Cocktail, which quickly morphed into Stone Mary (winners of Best Loud album during the 2011 Nova Scotia Music Week). Now, after years of thrilling the crowds with her Les Paul, she is showing her diversity….another aspect of her musical soul.

Throughout the years, Christine has been writing songs that haven't found a place in her hard rock outfits. These songs now have a home, on Christine's Debut Self-Titled Solo CD, which showcases her bluesy, country roots, and creates a more intimate, stripped down experience for her audience. She still rips strong, intricate leads....but now does so on an acoustic guitar. On “Christine Campbell”...the album...she also adds a new dimension to the mix with her beautiful, classically-trained piano playing.

With a voice often compared to Anne Wilson, Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin, Christine has been garnering great reviews and press. She has recently received standing O’s as the opener for Chantal Kreviachuk and Lou Gramm, and at her sets at the Stan Roger’s Folk Festival and the Dutch Mason Blues Festival. She sold out CD releases in 3 Atlantic Provinces. Christine has also opened for Bif Naked, and has performed onstage with Tom Wilson, Matt Anderson, Charlie A’Court, Carson Downey and Garrett Mason.

Christine Campbell

---

Alexander Stewart - The Live Session

Size: 90,6 MB
Time: 38:58
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. Black And Gold (3:59)
02. Too Marvelous For Words (2:42)
03. At Last (4:29)
04. My All (3:11)
05. One For My Baby (3:53)
06. Please, Please, Please (3:57)
07. Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover (4:11)
08. Call Me (3:08)
09. A House Is Not A Home (3:28)
10. No Moon At All (5:55))

At 26 years of age, Manchester-born singer Alexander Stewart has already created a buzz as one of the most precociously talented vocalists of the new generation. With a warm, urgent voice that shows off his early love of Billie Holiday and Tony Bennett, he avoids being a nostalgia act with his judiciously off-beat choice of material and a decidedly contemporary energy level. As well as clever re-arrangements of some of the famous standards, he stamps his mark on great pop songs as well as adding some superb originals.

Alexander Stewart has played sold-out shows at Ronnie Scott’s, the Pizza Express Soho and in fact almost all of London’s jazz rooms. He has supported legends such as Dionne Warwick on her tour, sang along side the likes of Emilie Sande, JLS and Lemar over the last few years of his flourishing career.

His vocal talents have enabled him to perform across the globe, both in public shows, as well as at some of the most prestigious events in the social calender including Miss World, Vogue Magazine & in his home town for Manchester United.

Press reaction to Alexander Stewart’s debut release in September 2011, All Or Nothing At All, (ASM001) was laudatory

:‘A singer to listen out for… astonishingly mature for his 23 years… a pretty auspicious beginning’ - The Observer

‘A cause for celebration… All Or Nothing At All doesn’t disappoint’ - Metro‘Impressive debut album’- The Times

‘He's accompanied on this debut session by a razor-sharp group… he's on his way’ - The Guardian

‘A remarkably assured calling card… the singer couldn’t have wished for finer accompaniment’ - Jazzwise

The Live Session

---

Harry Allen's All-Star Brazilian Band - Flying Over Rio

Size: 179,1 MB
Time: 76:27
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Bossa Nova, Brazilian Jazz
Art: Front & Back

01. Double Rainbow (4:32)
02. A Ship Without A Sail (4:01)
03. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes (7:09)
04. Bonita (4:50)
05. Girl From Ipanema (5:44)
06. Bate Papo (4:44)
07. Copacabana (5:57)
08. Tristeza De Nos Dois (4:31)
09. Eu E A Briza (4:17)
10. Mojave (4:52)
11. Flying Over Rio (4:52)
12. Serra De Estrella (4:08)
13. Lamento No Morro (4:45)
14. Piano No Mangueirra (5:08)
15. Love Dance (6:48)

Personel:
Harry Allen - saxophone
Duduka Da Fonseca - drums
Guilherme Monteiro - guitar
Maucha Adnet - vocals
Klaus Mueller - piano

Saxophonist Harry Allen has teamed with a Latin Group for this CD. A look at the playlist will reveal many by Jobim plus a few which don’t normally get Bossa-Latin treatment. For example, there is “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” and “A Ship Without a Sail.” Plus there are some originals by pianist Klaus Mueller, bassist Nilson Matta, and Harry. Drummer Duduka Da Fonseca supplied the title tune, “Flying Over Rio.”

Pensacola Jazzfans will remember Harry Allen from his performances here. He played for our first Pensacola Jazz Party in 1989 at age 20! About four years ago he came for Pensacola JazzFest and his most recent visit was two years ago at our JazzFest along with pianist Rossano Sportiello.

The liner notes are by journalist/author Will Friedwald. He writes for the Wall Street Journal and his liner notes have garnered him ten Grammy nominations.

I reached Harry by telephone and he kindly answered questions for me about how this recording came to be. He had been playing with a Latin group so it was a natural progression that they would like to record. Guilherme Montiero, who became a professional guitarist in Brazil at age 15, was new to the group since the regular guitarist was unable to make the recording session. The name Klaus Mueller, the pianist, doesn’t suggest Brazilian or Latin. However, Klaus’ German family has lived in various places including Chile and Japan. Klaus studied piano wherever they resided.

The vocalist is Maucha Adnet. She performed with Antonio Carlos Jobim for the last ten years of his life. She sings in Portuguese as well as English and is married to the drummer Duduka Da Fonseca. I asked Harry how each of the four came to contribute tunes on this album. He replied that the group had been playing them regularly, so it was reasonable that these tunes should be included.

I asked about notable events in the studio. Harry reported that the tune “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” – the longest tune on the CD at 7:11—required the most arranging. He said he was especially pleased that “Girl from Ipanema” turned out so well. Since that is a much-recorded song, they didn’t want it to sound like everyone else’s. So, Montiero did a guitar solo introduction and thereby a unique presentation.

Another unique aspect of the recording session was that this was the last, or next-to-last, recording in the famous NOLA studio. This studio is on top floor of the Steinway Building and is located in the former residence quarters of the Steinway family. Harry was most complimentary of the staff and their equipment. Sadly, the studio is now closed as there are plans to renovate the building and add more floors.

Flying Over Rio

---

Maggie Herron - Good Thing

Size: 127,5 MB
Time: 54:54
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. Things Could Be Better (3:41)
02. The Very Thought Of You (4:22)
03. Je T'aimerais (3:52)
04. Straighten' Up And Fly Right (3:42)
05. Cake (3:41)
06. Woodstock (6:27)
07. You Call It Madness I Call It Love (4:21)
08. Good Thing (2:57)
09. Baby Baby All The Time (3:57)
10. The More I See You (3:41)
11. Moon River (4:57)
12. Le Printemps Est Arrive' (4:28)
13. Body And Soul (4:41)

Wow! Has Maggie Herron ever got a voice on her! Good Thing starts out with one of her own compositions, Things Could be Better, a very cool swingin' song that could easily fit into a balmy summer's hit movie or the Billboard charts…and I mean verrrry easily fit. Her ability to climb from husky reminiscence to vibrant exultancy is rather remarkable. Great lyrics too, capturing that Everyman/woman ethos informing a good deal of the best of Tin Pan Alley in its prime. Then her selection of producer Brian Bromberg, who of course also sits in on bass, was choice because there's a smoothness and sheen satinizing the entirety of the release.

I'm not kidding; Herron possesses a highly trained and superbly honed vocal instrument, never for a second within a continent's distance of a wrong choice, hesitation, or inconfidence. Peggy Lee would sit rapt at one of her Hawaii recitals (Maggie's a permanently transplanted islander). Herron also plays a very respectable piano but never lets it get in the way of her singing. When it comes to the matrixing the lyrics, however, she's her own accompanist along with the rest of a highly adept crew plying the staves and measures, Dave Tull—no relation to Jethro, so far as I know—a versatile drummer beneath it all. She does, however, take solos here and there, and when they arise, each and every one is clean, light, and scintillating.

Maggie's take on Joni Mitchell's Woodstock will have Steve Stills and Graham Nash, not to mention Gracie Slick, taking notice. Joni won't be at all surprised, though, as this is exactly what she'd do with it were she to tackle it again in Don Juan's Reckless Daughter fashion, with Mancini's Moon River a companion, here taken down a notch or two even from Andy Williams' famed mellifluous take. My favorite cut, though, is one Maggie wrote with Dawn Herron (sister?), Le Printemps est Arrive'. The melodics are just sooooo right. Bacharach will be loving it, and the late A.C. Jobim will be right behind him from somewhere in the clouds. Piaf herself would have wanted to sing the cut, it's that good. ~by Mark S. Tucker

Good Thing

---

Anne Bisson - Blue Mind

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2009
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 47:49
Size: 110,9 MB
Art: Front

(4:11)  1. Little Black Lake
(3:34)  2. Soothing Your Soul
(4:33)  3. Hoping Love Will Last
(3:28)  4. Dragonfly
(3:12)  5. Do What You Please
(5:02)  6. September In Montreal
(5:06)  7. Camilio
(4:24)  8. Blue Mind
(5:08)  9. Why Is It So
(4:45) 10. Secret Survivor
(4:20) 11. New Start

When singer-pianist Anne Bisson decided to record her first album, she had planned on giving classical music a jazz approach. However, one day as she was sitting by her piano, the muse descended and inspired her to write "Little Black Lake." She discovered an inner trove of songs that emerged from her heart to fill this CD, with one exception Steve Hackett's "Hoping Love Will Last." Bisson, who lives in Montreal, began classical piano lessons when she was six. Five years later she was composing songs on the guitar. It was only when she sat in with the rhythm section of the University of Montreal Big Band that she was touched by jazz. Over the next two years she continued practicing classical music by day while listening to Louis Armstrongand George Gershwin by night and also playing in Montreal jazz bars. 

The songs on the album show that Bisson has an innate sense of composition. The songs are warm and intimate and speak directly to the heart. She makes them all the more evocative with a voice that can be fragile and haunting, gently alluring and inviting, as it wraps itself around the underlying emotion of the lyrics. Bisson's jazz side comes up strong on "Do What You Please." Her vocal is made distinct by her phrasing and timing, but she goes beyond that with her inflections and sense of space that capture the implicit feel of the words. Even when she is in pop mode, she is a stunning communicator. Any of the selections testify to that but "Blue Mind" condenses the core of emotion into stellar story telling. Listening to "Hoping Love Will Last" makes apparent why she chose to sing it. The supple grace of her voice is seen to advantage, as she soars in hope, ponders on the edge of uncertainty and reminisces introspectively to invest the song with her indelible presence. Bisson has a lot going for herself her writing is resolute in its view of human passions and her singing gives voice to those passions with tasteful delicacy. And finally, she has two fine accompanists in Paul Brochu and Normand Guilbeault, who understand, and help enhance the nature of her songs. 

~ Jerry D’Souza  http://www.allaboutjazz.com/blue-mind-anne-bisson-fidelio-music-review-by-jerry-dsouza.php#.VAp5h2MfLP8
 

Personnel: Anne Bisson: piano, vocals; Paul Brochu: drums; Normand Guilbeault: acoustic bass.

Blue Mind

---

John Stowell & Dave Liebman - Blue Rose

Styles: Guitar And Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:58
Size: 133,1 MB
Art: Front

(4:34)  1. Blue Rose
(9:31)  2. Black Eyes
(2:20)  3. How Deep Is The Ocean
(6:03)  4. Fe Fi Fo Fum
(3:46)  5. Isfahan
(4:23)  6. Everything I Love
(3:44)  7. Time Remembered
(8:11)  8. Until Paisagem
(6:10)  9. Molten Glass
(4:05) 10. My Ideal
(5:06) 11. Everybody's Song But My Own

Saxophonist Dave Liebman joined guitarist John Stowell and bassist Don Thompson on three tunes on Stowell's The Banff Sessions (Origin Records, 2002). More than a decade later, Stowell and Liebman have teamed up on a duo outing, Blue Rose. The two artists' take on a bunch of jazz standards and Great American Songbook tunes has a beautiful fluidity in this pared down setting. Stowell's lines are crisp and clean, while Liebman's keening soprano sax slices sweetly through the guitarist chords, while his tenor has a fiery and undomesticated sound. The duo opens with the title tune, from the Duke Ellington songbook. "Blue Rose," the song, was written by Ellington specifically for vocalist Rosemary Clooney, for an album of the same name, released on Columbia Records in 1956. Stowell and Liebman give the tune a plucky turn. Liebman's blowing the soprano sax here, proving why is is one of the top practitioners of the "straight horn." 

His tone has a sweetness, a purity of tone as his notes twine themselves around Stowell's warm string play. Liebman switches to tenor for saxophonist Wayne Shorter's "Fe Fi Fo Fum." Liebman, on tenor, is one of the more recognizable voices on that particular horn. His tone can be clean, but it will switch, unexpectedly, to segments of gruff, growly blowing that threatens to break out into a free zone. The duo goes back to Ellington territory, with Billy Strayhorn's "Isfaran." Liebman's tenor blossoms out of an extended Stowell solo, giving the tune a forlorn mood. Cole Porter's "Everything I Love" brings back a bright mood, with Liebman's tenor sounding particularly frisky. Liebman, surpisingly, switches to piano for pianist Bill Evans' "Time Remembered," for a poignant and ruminative take on the tune, much in line with Evans recorded versions. Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Until Paisagem" has a restraint, a beautiful delicacy. Liebman's back on soprano, with an added richness to his sound on this Brazilian groove. Two veterans, Stowell and Liebman, take on this set of standard tunes in their own distinctive way. A gorgeous, uncluttered set, exploring the purity and beauty of the familiar.~ Dan Mcclenaghan http://www.allaboutjazz.com/blue-rose-john-stowell-dave-liebman-origin-records-review-by-dan-mcclenaghan.php#.VA-wuxY4zjI
 

Personnel: John Stowell: guitars; Dave Liebman: soprano and tenor saxophones,wood Flute; piano (5).

Blue Rose

---

Diana Jones - High Atmosphere

Styles: Folk
Year: 2011
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:18
Size: 88,1 MB
Scans:

(2:44)  1. High Atmosphere
(3:15)  2. I Don't Know
(3:17)  3. Sister
(3:17)  4. I Told the Man
(2:43)  5. Little Lamb
(2:46)  6. Poverty
(3:34)  7. My Love Is Gone
(3:52)  8. Don't Forget Me
(3:22)  9. Funeral Singer
(3:25) 10. Poor Heart
(3:04) 11. Drug for This
(2:53) 12. Motherless Children

An adopted child raised in New York, Diana Jones always loved country music, later discovering her grandfather was a Tennessee guitar picker. She's since reclaimed her heritage on two albums steeped in old-time atmosphere but boasting fine new songs about characters enduring in hard times. This third volume is her best, featuring a couple of heart-wrenching instant classics in "I Don't Know" and "Drug For This". Her approach can be austere, on occasion even morbid, but there's intimacy in her drawl and resilience in hoedowns such as "Poverty" and cameos such as "Don't Forget Me", about a reformed jailbird. Classy accompaniments, with fiddle and banjo prominent, complete an impressive, rounded album.~ Neil Spencer http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/apr/24/diana-jones-high-atmosphere-review

High Atmosphere

---

John Basile - Undercover

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 2014
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:57
Size: 119,9 MB
Art: Front

(4:28)  1. After the Love Is Gone
(4:06)  2. If I Only Had a Brain
(3:58)  3. God Only Knows
(5:24)  4. Seconds Out
(4:35)  5. You Are Everything
(4:40)  6. You'll Never Get to Heaven
(4:35)  7. Caught Up in the Rapture
(3:38)  8. Pure Imagination
(3:45)  9. Break Up to Make Up
(4:36) 10. Walk On By
(4:22) 11. Didn't I Blow Your Mind (This Time)
(3:45) 12. A House Is Not a Home

Artist Notes: Recording cover tunes employs it’s own set of challenges in order to achieve any real lasting interpretation of the original. In the jazz context perhaps even more of a dilemma as many pop songs don’t contain sufficient harmonic material - the palette most jazz musicians rely on to allow for any meaningful improvisation. On “Undercover” we tried to glean material from the 70’s and early 80’s that offered up combinations of great melody and chord changes as well having the advantage of familiarity to the listener.We hope this collection captures a spirit of reflection but also looks ahead as a modern and contemporary statement both musically and technically.

Technical Notes: The advantages of recording guitars and MIDI tracks in Apple’s DAW Logic X provided both opportunity and challenges for this project.Multiple live guitars along with MIDI tr acks all programmed from the guitar represented the rhythm section. These tracks were married with drum/percussion loops and subsequent layers of live guitar improvisations. We hope the results reflect both the musical surprise and integrity evident in both an improvisational context combined with the magic of true 21st century digital recording software.~ John Basile http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/johnbasile2

Undercover

---