The Diva Jazz Trio - Never Never Land

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop

Year: 2009
File: MP3@256K/s
Time: 56:31
Size: 104,0 MB
Art: Front

(7:09)  1. If I Only Had A Brain
(6:17) 2. Piano Nocturne #6 Op. 09 No. 2 - Frédéric Chopin
(3:49)  3. Virgo
(6:42)  4. I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face
(6:13)  5. My Favorite Things
(4:33)  6. I Could Have Danced All Night / I Won't Dance
(4:22)  7. Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'
(4:36)  8. I'm Walkin'
(6:00)  9. Never Never Land
(6:45) 10. Love For Sale

About the nicest compliment one can pay the DIVA Jazz Trio's debut recording, Never Never Land, is that the threesome's irrepressible enthusiasm and energy (not to mention their consonance and artistry) are reminiscent of the great Oscar Peterson's classic trio with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen. Pianist Tomoko Ohno isn't Peterson, nor does she try to be, but she dwells in the same exalted realm, while bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Sherrie Maricle offer stalwart impressions of Brown and Thigpen. If the trio's accord seems remarkable, a part of the reason lies in the fact that it doubles as the rhythm section for the superb all-women's big band, DIVA. The group's choice of music is as inclusive as it is entertaining. After opening with a happy-go-lucky version of Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg's "If I Only Had a Brain" from The Wizard of Oz, the trio puts a sunny Latin spin on Chopin's graceful "Piano Nocturne No. 6" before addressing exemplary compositions by Horace Silver (the high-octane "Virgo"), Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Fats Domino (yes, Fats Domino) and Cole Porter, plus Betty Comden/Adolph Green's wistful title selection from Peter Pan. Lerner and Loewe contribute "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" and "I Could Have Danced All Night," Rodgers and Hammerstein "My Favorite Things" and "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," and Porter the venerable "Love for Sale." If Domino/Dave Bartholomew's "I'm Walkin'" seems somewhat out of place among those celebrated standards, the trio makes it hum like a high-grade Swiss watch. 

Besides working extremely well together, each member of the group is a first-class soloist, an appraisal that is borne out whenever one of them has the floor, while Maricle excels with brushes or sticks, providing taut and tasteful support in every circumstance. Ohno has impeccable technique, swings in every context, and shows she's not only able but eager to roll up her sleeves and get down and dirty on "I'm Walkin.'" As for Ueda, she does far more than simply orchestrate the tempo even though she's a steady and invaluable time-keeper. She and her teammates make Never Never Land a delightful introductory cruise by three remarkably talented young women. ~ Jack Bowers https://www.allaboutjazz.com/never-never-land-diva-jazz-arbors-records-review-by-jack-bowers.php

Personnel: Sherrie Maricle: drums; Tomoko Ohno: piano; Noriko Ueda: bass.

Never Never Land

---

Valentina Casula - This is Always

Styles: Vocal
Year: 1995
File: MP3@224K/s
Time: 52:23
Size: 84,1 MB
Art: Front

( 6:40)  1. I Remember You
( 7:18)  2. My Funny Valentine
( 3:53)  3. Time After Time
( 5:47)  4. Like Someone In Love
( 6:03)  5. I'm A Fool To Want You
( 6:29)  6. My Foolish Heart
( 4:00)  7. But Not Fot Me
(12:09)  8. This Is Always

A native of Sardinia, Valentina Casula is a musician, singer and composer. She also teaches singing and provides musical direction for several plays. She began her musical career with classical studies of oboe, singing and choral conducting in Italy at the National Conservatory of Cagliari and continued her apprenticeship with a jazz formation focusing on singing, saxophone and arrangement in Siena and UMass in the United States.

Settled in Paris since 1993, Valentina has appeared in numerous jazz clubs and festivals as a singer of jazz, world music and contemporary music. Following a first album (1995) paying tribute to trumpet player Chet Baker, Valentina is embarking on a more personal path by completing a project on Keith Jarrett's music alongside Alain Jean Mairie, Gilles Naturel Philippe Soirat and Paolo Fresu .

From 2002 to 2004 she made several tours in duet with the pianist Giovanni Mirabassi. Alternately fascinated by the diversity and richness of popular music as well as the expressiveness of languages, Valentina collaborates with the composer Philippe Kadosch on the show Babeleyes, a project focused on endangered languages.

She then participates in the electro-world Click Here project and performs alongside Dj Click and gypsy musicians from Romania and India in major festivals in Europe as well as in China, Japan, Korea, India and in South Africa. A collaboration that will lead to two albums.

In 2012, Valentina receives the Maria Carta Award in Italy for her international career. Eclectic at the same time and engaged in a real approach around the sound and the voice, Valentina is invested in a work of research around the traditional songs of the world. A true invitation to travel, a bridge built between its origins and unknown lands. This research leads to her current project with guitarist Jean-Luc Roumier and contrabassist Nicola Cossu. This trio offers a repertoire of songs from popular and gypsy culture, arranged and interpreted in twenty different languages.

Valentina Casula is currently preparing the release of the cd "Harom" in which she performs with the Italian pianist Nico Morelli and the Hungarian saxophonist Kristof Bacso a repertoire of compositions and arrangement of traditional Mediterranean themes. https://www.valentinacasula.com/bio

This is Always

---

Anat Cohen - Claroscuro

Styles: Clarinet And Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 67:35
Size: 155,5 MB
Art: Front

(6:46)  1. Anat's Dance
(6:21)  2. La Vie En Rose
(8:51)  3. All Brothers
(6:01)  4. As Rosas Nao Falam
(4:23)  5. Nightmare
(7:41)  6. Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser
(7:44)  7. And The World Weeps
(6:06)  8. Olha Maria
(2:42)  9. Kick Off
(4:45) 10. Um A Zero
(6:10) 11. The Wedding

Art begets art on Anat Cohen's Claroscuro. The Israeli-born, New York-based multi-reedist leaves the confines of Benny Goodman's world behind, following her clarinet-only sojourn into king of swing territory, Clarinetwork: Live At The Village Vanguard (Anzic, 2010), with a wide-ranging musical treatise on the balance between light and dark. Cohen addresses each end of the color spectrum on its own terms during this eleven-song program but, more often than not, plays one off the other within a single performance. She's savvy enough to know that dark doesn't exist without light and that the contrast and marriage between the two is what makes them stand apart. Jason Lindner's "Anat's Dance" opens the program and focuses on Cohen's sunny clarinet work, Lindner's moody piano and the shifting rhythmic terra firma that morphs beneath them. Cohen's bass clarinet connects with Paquito D'Rivera's clarinet as they move over a primal percussion foundation on her "Kick Off, while pan-global rhythmic purpose and open exploration collide on drummer Daniel Freedman's "All Brothers." These prove to be the only originals on this album, but originality resides in every second of music. Cohen delivers her most soulful tenor performance to date on "The Wedding," produces some poignant soprano work at the start of "Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser," and walks a line between seductive and mournful on "As Rosas Nao Falam." She shares a deep and abiding love for choro music with D'Rivera ("Um A Zero"), engages in a Louis Armstrong-based love affair with trombonist/vocalist Wycliffe Gordon ("La Vie En Rose") and calls on her famous Cuban clarinet companion again for a trip through clarinetist Artie Shaw's psychosis-slathered theme song ("Nightmare"). Both men join Cohen on one track, Dr. Lonnie Smith's "And The World Weeps," and the results are electric; the song goes from mannered dirge to bluesy epic in Duke Ellingtonian fashion. Cohen's omnivorous musical persona is well-documented on Notes From The Village (Anzic, 2008), where she jumped from saxophonist John Coltrane and singer Sam Cooke to pianist Fats Waller with ease, and Noir (Anzic, 2007), where she hit a homerun merging "Samba de Orfeu" and "Struttin' With Some Barbeque," but she works the musical diversity concept in a different way on this one. Notes From The Village was pleasing in a hard-to-pin-down way and Noir was fueled by passion, but Claroscuro succeeds on poise and shapeliness. The unrestrained enthusiasm that Cohen beautifully exhibits in other places is replaced here by a more deliberate and controlled balance of highs and lows, ups and downs....and light and dark. Claroscuro is a colorful date that confirms what's already been said about Anat Cohen on numerous occasions: she's one of a kind. ~ Dan Bilawsky https://www.allaboutjazz.com/claroscuro-anat-cohen-anzic-records-review-by-dan-bilawsky.php

Personnel: Anat Cohen: clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone; Jason Lindner: piano; Joe Martin: bass; Daniel Freedman: drums; Wycliffe Gordon: trombone, vocal; Paquito d’Rivera: clarinet.

Claroscuro

---

Nick Hempton - Catch and Release

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 52:07
Size: 120,0 MB
Art: Front

(6:27)  1. Hanging for Dear Life
(7:39)  2. Change for a Dollar
(7:32)  3. Target Practice
(5:09)  4. Montauk Mosey
(5:44)  5. The Third Degree
(6:18)  6. Nordberg Suite
(6:23)  7. Catch Up
(6:52)  8. Catch and Release

When it come to music release methods, there's nothing more stubborn or persistent than the single. Music has fallen in and out of love with so many different formats over the years, but the one-song-at-a-time method of digestion has weathered every shift, spat, and alteration that life and technology have thrown at it. In fact, it's stronger than ever in this download and post-download age. So what, pray tell, does that have to do with this album? Everything.  In 2014, saxophonist Nick Hempton decided to use a novel concept to tap into the single-seeking listener base. The premise was a simple and familiar one: release one song at a time. But the twist came with the hit-and-run approach behind these singles. Instead of recording an album's worth of music and dropping one song at a time, each song was an island or an album unto itself. A makeshift studio was put together in New York's Smalls Jazz Club on multiple occasions. Then Hempton and company would have a midday session where they would record a single song, later to be mixed and sent on its way all by its lonesome. Each and every part of the process was documented for all to see on a blog. The whole thing was dubbed the "Catch and Release Experiment," and it produced a good number of strong performances that existed as completely separate entities. Now, in a reversal of strategy, Hempton is catering to the album-loving crowd by bundling all of these pieces together on CD. The album opens on the hip "Hanging For Life," a casual swinger that downshifts for a spell before returning to its original feel. Then Hempton welcomes guest tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon to the party for the lively, bop-leaning "Change For A Dollar." The band sounds tight, the two saxophonists have a chance to bat things around with traded solos, pianist Tadataka Unno gets a chance to shine, and the multiple winks at "Laura" are a smile-inducing cherry on top. Then there's "Target Practice," a number in three that gives drummer Dan Aran a little space to shine; "Montauk Mosey," which finds Hempton and guest pianist Rosanno Sportiello working in a wonderfully relaxed vein together; the Peter Bernstein-enhanced "The Third Degree," a Latin-inflected winner that would've felt right at home on a '60s Blue Note album; and "Nordberg Suite," a cheery, drummer-less small group number that brings trumpeter Bruce Harris into the mix.

The final two pieces on the album dispense with the guests and focus on a core quartet of Hempton, Aran, pianist Jeremy Manasia, and bassist Dave Baron. Together they shift from uncertain terrain to a Coltrane-ish blues feel in five on "Catch Up" before closing out the album with the energetic title track. While this was initially a single-centric project, Catch And Release makes a very favorable impression as a full album. When you consider the facts these tracks were each recorded at different times, personnel changed from number to number, engineer Andrew Swift had to basically rebuild a studio setup each time Hempton wanted to record you start to realize that this could've turned out to be an incredibly inconsistent release in terms of sound quality, vibe, and group dynamics. But it isn't. Hempton's vision and leadership, Swift's skills on the recording side, and the talented individuals on these tracks all help to make Catch And Release a solid and satisfying listen from start to finish. ~ Dan Bilawsky https://www.allaboutjazz.com/catch-and-release-nick-hempton-self-produced-review-by-dan-bilawsky.php

Personnel: Nick Hempton: saxophones; Dan Aran: drums; Dave Baron: bass; Tadataka Unno: piano (1-3); Jeremy Manasia: piano (5-8); Jerry Weldon: tenor saxophone (2); Rossano Sportiello: piano (4); Peter Bernstein: guitar (5); Bruce Harris: trumpet (6).

Catch and Release

---