Sherrie Maricle & The Diva Jazz Orchestra - Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

Styles: Jazz, Big Band
Year: 2008
File: MP3@256K/s
Time: 65:22
Size: 120,8 MB
Art: Front

(5:12)  1. I Love Being Here With You
(6:25)  2. Andalucia
(6:36)  3. Stars Fell On Alabama
(2:31)4. Sweet Georgia Brown (feat. Carmen Bradford)
(2:21)  5. This Can't be Love (feat. Carmen Bradford)
(3:02)  6. I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water (feat. Carmen Bradford)
(5:58)  7. Rachel's Dream
(5:16)  8. Put a Little Love In Your Heart
(6:19)  9. Happy Talk
(5:22) 10. How Do You Keep The Music Playing (feat. Carmen Bradford)
(2:38) 11. All of Me (feat. Carmen Bradford)
(7:05) 12. TPN Blues
(6:31) 13. America

Diva's latest Cd was recorded over two nights last September at Dizzy's Club in Lincoln Center. The band devours John McNeil's swinging chart of Peggy Lee's "I Love Being Here With You," featuring Janelle Reichman's powerful tenor sax and Dauber's delicious muted trumpet. Tenorist Leigh Pilzer and flugelhornist Nadje Noordhuis share the spotlight in Scott Whitfield's lush setting of "Stars Fell on Alabama." The band adds some punch in their swaggering rendition of the pop song "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," hardly a standard, but it fits in just fine. Vocalist Carmen Bradford is added for four selections, highlighted by her soulful takes of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "This Can't Be Love." 

The disc wraps with Ellen Rowe's imaginative scoring of Leonard Bernstein's "America," featuring Tomoko Ohno's driving piano, Lisa Parrott's gutsy baritone sax and Tanya Darby's sizzling trumpet. ~ Ken Dryden https://www.allaboutjazz.com/sherrie-maricle-live-from-jazz-at-lincoln-center-and-what-the-world-needs-now-by-ken-dryden.php

Personnel: Sherrie Maricle: drums; Tomoko Ohno: piano; Noriko Ueda: bass; Sharel Cassity: alto sax; Erica Von Kleist: alto sax, soprano sax; Janelle Reichman: tenor sax, clarinet; Leigh Pilzer: tenor sax; Lisa Parrott: baritone sax; Tanya Darby: trumpet; Jami Dauber: trumpet, flugelhorn; Carol Morgan: trumept; Nadje Noordhuis: trumpet, flugelhorn; Deborah Weisz: trombone; Robynn Amy: trombone; Leslie Havens: bass trombone; Carmen Bradford: vocals.

Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

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Roberta Donnay & The Prohibition Mob Band - A Little Sugar

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:05
Size: 118,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:39)  1. Oh Papa
(2:41)  2. You Got to Swing and Sway
(4:08)  3. Mama's Gone, Goodbye
(5:06)  4. Say It Isn't So
(2:46)  5. I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling
(3:57)  6. One Monkey Don't Stop No Show
(4:13)  7. Rocking Chair
(4:03)  8. (Tropical) Heatwave
(4:43)  9. You Go to My Head
(2:38) 10. Sugar Blues
(3:51) 11. You've Been a Good Ole Wagon
(4:22) 12. (I Want a Little) Sugar in My Bowl
(4:52) 13. Empty Bed Blues

Among veteran songstress Roberta Donnay's career accomplishments is having her song "One World" selected as a world peace anthem for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations; it was also the theme for World Aids Day in South Africa. On her delightfully jazzy, sassy, and colorful follow-up to 2008's jazz standards project What's Your Story, the multi-talented singer aims to achieve global unity in a different way: by pouring A Little Sugar on our differences, taking us back some 80 or 90 years and exploring a time of musical Renaissance that can still tug the heartstrings. In exploring the world of Prohibition-proto-jazz, many singers possessing her charming blend of girlishness and saucy conviction could go the easy route and sing some of the Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Hoagy Carmichael faves we all know. But there's nary a Gershwin tune to be found, and her two jaunts into Berlin's catalog (the elegant and wistful trio piece "Say It Isn't So," the playful Latin romp "(Tropical) Heatwave," and the single dip into the Carmichael canon (a graceful, swaying "Rocking Chair") take her off the beaten path and into the deeper artistry of those composers and their era. Many of Donnay's song choices reflect her love of strong, outspoken female composers and artists whose songs were practically forerunners of the later women's lib movement. 

Opening with the swinging and sultry, brass-fired "Oh Papa" accomplishes this in two ways, because the song was originally recorded by "Mother of the Blues" Ma Rainey and later under a different title by Bessie Smith. Likewise, the brisk and lively "You Got to Swing and Sway"a song that's so danceable one wonders why it is still so obscure which was penned by blues singer Ida Cox in the late '30s when she was making a comeback. The stride/Dixieland-influenced "Mama's Gone Goodbye," originally recorded in 1923, invokes another name largely lost to history but which bears some research: Sippie Wallace. Donnay's big-band arrangement of "Sugar Blues" owes more to Ella Fitzgerald's later recording than any that appeared when it was penned in 1920. Perhaps the epitome of the Great American Songbook and often recorded by popular artists "You Go to My Head" is given a tender, sparse jazz arrangement. Donnay's voice could make any classic material sound wondrous and timeless, but the fact that she digs so deep into American musical history and works with some of the Bay Area's top jazz musicians (under the guise of the Prohibition Mob Band) makes A Little Sugar not only sweet, but a recording that will stand the test of time. ~ Jonathan Widran https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-little-sugar-mw0002433247

A Little Sugar

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Eli Degibri - Twelve

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:52
Size: 111,1 MB
Art: Front

(4:57)  1. Twelve
(4:29)  2. The Spider
(3:29)  3. Roaming Fantasy
(4:20)  4. Mambo
(8:11)  5. Autumn In New York
(4:16)  6. New Waltz
(4:21)  7. Liora Mi Amor
(7:44)  8. Old Seven
(5:00)  9. The Cave

“Music is like a fairytale: ageless, immortal. And we musicians are eternally Peter Pan, no matter if we are 16, 18, 35 or 80 years old,” reflects saxophonist Eli Degibri in the notes to Twelve, his sixth recording. Featuring two emerging young talents-18-year-old drummer Ofri Nehemya and 16-year-old pianist Gadi Lehavi-it is anchored by the steady beat, bounce and fervor of seasoned bassist Barak Mori, and traverses a diverse program composed primarily of the leader’s compelling originals. This new album finds Degibri back in his native Israel, following an extended period in the U.S. playing with luminaries such as Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Al Foster, and leading his own hard-hitting bands. Degibri plays tenor throughout, picking up the soprano on “Liora Mi Amor,” a tender tango with lyrics and vocals by Israeli treasure Shlomo Ydov, and surprising on mandolin with the pensive “The Cave,” where a choir adds spacious, wordless vocals. Vernon Duke’s “Autumn in New York” becomes a poignant reflection on the city Degibri lived in for 15 years, showcasing his big, warm tenor tone. Odd-metered and frenetic, “The Spider” highlights the quartet’s cohesiveness and agility, while the captivating ballad “Old Seven” returns to the theme of age and maturity. Noted for his stellar technique, the sense of urgency in his playing and his sometimes bristly, splintering compositions, Degibri here seems focused on storytelling, exploring melody and feeling. His artistry as a songwriter, bold improviser and skilled leader are in full effect. ~ Sharonne Cohen  https://jazztimes.com/reviews/albums/eli-degibri-twelve/
 

Personnel:  Bass – Barak Mori;  Drums – Ofri Nehemya; Mandolin – Eli Degibri ; Piano – Gadi Lehavi; Soprano Saxophone – Eli Degibri; Tenor Saxophone – Eli Degibri; Vocals – Shlomo Ydov

Twelve

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Didier Lockwood - Open Doors

Styles: Violin Jazz

Year: 2017
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 76:19
Size: 176,7 MB
Art: Front

( 6:36)  1. Open Doors
( 7:17)  2. Good Morning Lady Sun
(10:00)  3. Quark
( 6:49)  4. The ballad of Pat & Robin
( 9:49)  5. Positive Life
( 6:18)  6. The One Shot Duet
( 4:12)  7. Little Bossa
( 5:13)  8. Mathilde and the Ghost
( 5:33)  9. Blues Fourth
( 6:32) 10. Ballad for Four
( 5:21) 11. Now I Really Got the Blues
( 2:38) 12. Time to Time

Didier Lockwood had a diverse career, ranging from progressive rock to fusion to swing and advanced hard bop. He was a member of French avant-prog outfit Magma in the 1970s, and in the '80s he was considered the next in a line of great French violinists after Stephane Grappelli and Jean-Luc Ponty. Lockwood began studying violin when he was six. Ten years later, he stopped his formal training and joined a rock group. He played in Paris with Aldo Romano and Daniel Humair, among others, and met Grappelli and toured with him. He had a fusion group called Surya and recorded with Tony Williams around the same period of time (1979). Lockwood played in the United States on various occasions and recorded an acoustic album in 1986 with fellow violinists John Blake and Michal Urbaniak. He continued to perform and record, with a large discography as leader or collaborator extending well into the first two decades of the new millennium. Didier Lockwood died in Paris in February 2018 at the age of 62. ~ Scott Yanow https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/open-doors/1300348232

Personnel:  Ensemble [Synth & Strings], Violin, Mandolin, Art Direction, Edited By, Mixed By – Didier Lockwood;  Bass – Daryl Hall;  Drums – André Ceccarelli ;  Ensemble [Synth & Strings] – Alexandre Monfort;  Guest [Vocals, Special Guest] – Patricia Petibon;  Piano – Antonio Faraò

Open Doors

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Dan Block - Block Party: A Saint Louis Connection

Styles: Saxophone And Clarinet Jazz
Year: 2018
File: MP3@256K/s
Time: 63:29
Size: 118,1 MB
Art: Front

(7:33)  1. Dinner for One Please, James
(6:57)  2. No, No, No
(6:09)  3. Light Blue
(5:05)  4. Smoke Signal
(6:44)  5. Wonderful One
(7:01)  6. Beautiful Changes
(6:32)  7. By the Fireside
(6:22)  8. Option Click
(5:53)  9. Ain't No Land Like Dixieland
(5:09) 10. It Was Written in the Stars

Although Dan Block ought not to need any more affirmation of his musicianship, this record Block Party will surely add to the reeds and winds maestro’s reputation. One of the great Romantics ever to indulge in the art of Jazz, Mr. Block is both a pedagogue of remarkable genius and also one of the finest horn players of his generation he has devised a programme encompassing multiple aspects of the halcyon days of the music with an ingenious interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s music on the stubbornly difficult to play licorice stickwith which he interprets “Light Blue”. He glides and leaps with languid ease to magical heights and breadths on the instrument in inimitable fashion. And it is also on Gigi Gryce’s “Smoke Signal” and Walter Donaldson’s “”Ain’t No Land Like Dixieland” that he gives notice of the extent of his erudition as well. To deliver such a programme with the kind of wide-ranging musicianship takes extraordinary ability and Mr. Block achieves this remarkably, bringing a sure response to the wry compulsiveness of “No, No, No” and its composer Phil Springer, the flickering virtuoso panache of “By The Fireside” and the maddening sound-world of Donaldson’s “Beatiful Changes”. 

Meanwhile Michael Carr’s “Dinner for One Please, James" is played with a lucid mastery to match the arrangement of “It Was Written in the Stars”, which makes for a crowning finale to this record. Throughout, of course, one is enthralled by the Mr. Block’s extraordinary virtuosity and the warmth of his musicianship, highlighted by evocative and expressive playing. One should also bear in mind that Mr. Block’s idea was to celebrate a kind of impromptu Block Party a celebration of which takes place with his guitar-playing brother Rob, together with bassist Neal Caine, pianist Tadakeka Unno and drummer Aaron Kimmel, all of whom get together with a living pulse, at other times as loosely coordinated as a wind chime (the ever-changing mood of the music apparent to the eyen rather than the ear). Simple though the music may sound as it ambles in walking metre, each note by Mr. Block is like a separate pebble gently dropped into a pool sending out ripples to the guitar-playing Block as the other band members. By the very nature of its languid majesty this music by Dan Block encourages us to listen moment by moment rather than attempt to map it in its entirety. ~ Raul da Gama https://jazzdagama.com/music/dan-block-block-party/

Personnel – Dan Block: tenor saxophone (2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) and clarinet (1, 3, 4); Rob Block: guitar; Neal Caine: contrabass; Tadataka Unno: piano; Aaron Kimmel: drums

Block Party: A Saint Louis Connection

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