Dan McMillion - Tribute To Maynard

Styles: Trumpet Jazz
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:54
Size: 87,6 MB
Art: Front

(3:13)  1. Four
(3:05)  2. Norwegian Wood
(4:15)  3. Round Midnight
(3:12)  4. People
(4:26)  5. Gonna Fly Now
(5:34)  6. Green Dolphin Street
(4:07)  7. Just Friends
(3:55)  8. Bridge Over Troubled Water
(6:03)  9. Watermelon Man

Known for his powerful trumpet, Dan McMillion and his High Octane Band pay homage to the greatest trumpet player in the world, Maynard Ferguson. Hear Maynard’s signature sound recreated by Dan McMillion along with the stratospheric energy of High Octane. http://www.carrollwoodcenter.org/event/dan-mcmillion-high-octane/

Tribute To Maynard

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Deanna Reuben - The Very Thought of You

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2011
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:00
Size: 131,5 MB
Art: Front

(4:31)  1. Easy to Love
(5:45)  2. I See Your Face Before Me
(4:11)  3. Haunted Heart
(3:57)  4. Devil May Care
(4:24)  5. The Very Thought of You
(5:08)  6. How Insensitive
(4:05)  7. Where Do You Start
(5:23)  8. Just Squeeze Me
(4:19)  9. I Didn't Know About You
(2:50) 10. Over the Rainbow
(3:07) 11. Make Someone Happy
(4:42) 12. Some Other Time
(4:31) 13. Cinema Paradiso

Deanna Reuben, concert vocalist and recording artist, has become one of the finest interpreters of the Great American Songbook working today.  To date, she has recorded four albums. the latest being a lively jazz holiday recording entitled “Christmas is Here,” released in 2013. Her greatest honor came when in October, 2017, she received an email from Peter Stoller, the son of the iconic rock'n roll composer, Mike Stoller.  Mike and the most distinguished lyricists of our time, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, collaborated to write the single "If the Truth be Told."  Peter told Deanna that his father heard her on an L.A. radio station and asked if she would be interested in recording their new single. This was an opportunity she couldn't turn down. She immediately engaged two of her finest musicians, recorded and released If the Truth be Told in November 2017.  Her first recording, “The Look of Love,” released in 2005, brought her high praise from critics and casual listeners alike.   Her sophomore album, “On Life and Love,” released in 2009 features two of her original compositions.  Teaming with R. Martin Mellinger, her haunting ballad “Here in the Night,” leaves her audiences mesmerized as she makes that soulful connection.  In 2012, Deanna released her third album, “The Very Thought of You," and in 2013 she released "Christmas is Here."  She has received extensive commercial radio airplay time across the U.S., as well as internet airplay and downloads from I-Tunes, Spotify, Rhapsody, Sound-cloud, Pandora, Amazon and others. Physical CD's may be purchased through CD Baby and Amazon. Earlier in her career, while maintaining a full time job in real estate, she followed her dream and became a professional soloist with the prestigious Washington Singers, and the former internationally renowned Paul Hill Chorale.  She shared the stage with artists such as Marvin Hamlisch, Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, and performed in venues such as The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Mann Center, and Wolf Trap. 

A long-time fan of the great American songbook, Reuben began to find a new voice among ballads from the golden era of Broadway and standards from such composers as Harold Arlen, Arthur Schwartz, Frank Loesser and Michel Legrand. Songs from the American Songbook became her new forte, developing a distinctive and highly emotive style.  Deanna doesn’t so much sing to a crowd as engage in a musical dialogue, with a voice and style that’s been compared to Barbra Streisand, Diana Krall and Astrud Gilberto. Today she chooses performance venues of jazz clubs, performing arts centers, universities, private and corporate events.  Over the last several years, she has performed in the Berks Jazz Fest, one of the largest jazz venues in the country. Reuben has shown an ability to combine the lyricism of Puccini with the panache of a stage performer and a personality and vulnerability that are innate, creating a near-perfect musical conduit for personal connections with her audience.  She has a tremendous sense of style and vocal talent, and the ability to interpret and convey songs with an authenticity and heart that is real.  She also has an incredibly lyric voice and a warmth of tone that combine to create an earthy beauty that is compelling.  It is that sense of personal veracity, however, that touches an audience, whether from the stage or through a set of speakers. Deanna graduated from Alvernia University with a B.A. in Music, and served on Alvernia's Board of Trustees as well as the Reading Symphony Orchestra board.  She maintains a private studio teaching voice, piano and theory.  In addition, she has composed, produced, and directed community choral organizations. https://deannareuben.com/bio/

The Very Thought of You

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Denny Zeitlin - Solo Voyage

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2005
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 64:44
Size: 149,0 MB
Art: Front

( 4:47)  1. Bemsha Swing
( 5:38)  2. Miyako
( 8:50)  3. Cascade
(12:10)  4. Quiet Flow
( 4:11)  5. Walking, Prancing, Marching, Dancing
( 2:10)  6. Prelude
( 3:40)  7. In Your Own Sweet Way
( 6:24)  8. I Should Care
( 1:44)  9. Interlude 1
( 3:00) 10. Lament
( 3:48) 11. Interlude 2
( 4:11) 12. Moving Parts 1
( 4:06) 13. Moving Parts 2

Most jazz artists must face the harsh reality that it's almost impossible to sustain a living by making music. Many find themselves having to take alternate employment in order to allow pursuance of their art, and then face the considerable challenge of doing so without impeding their continued development. So perhaps Denny Zeitlin has had it right all along. While managing to generate a world-class reputation as a pianist, he's also maintained a second life as a practicing psychiatrist. Consequently, Zeitlin maintains a considerably sparer performance schedule, has a relatively small body of recorded work, and is less connected into the jazz community through sideman appearances. But his life choices clearly haven't impeded his ability to maintain the kind of artistic growth and reputation of better-known pianists like Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau, and Keith Jarrett. Solo Voyage is another fine example of just how fully-formed and well-conceived Zeitlin's music is, even though it isn't his sole profession. His first solo recording since Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Vol. 27 (Concord, 1992), Solo Voyage finds Zeitlin comfortably mixing well-known tunes like Dave Brubeck's "In Your Own Sweet Way, Wayne Shorter's less-recorded "Miyako, and Monk's "Bemsha Swing with his own compositions and a number of free improvisations. While not many things link Zeitlin to Keith Jarrett, one common aspect they share is the ability to pull song-like constructs out of the ether. The freely improvised prelude and interludes that are scattered throughout the eight-part "Solo Voyage suite are remarkably well-formed. But while Jarrett seems to be more about extrapolating ideas in a kind of unbridled stream of consciousness, Zeitlin is more focused, using his improvisations to act as thematic introductions or almost summary codas to composed pieces. 

Another feature distinguishing Zeitlin from Jarrett is his conception, which is equally advanced harmonically, but leans toward the tonal and round-edged, as opposed to Jarrett's predisposition to the jaggedly atonal and the lyrical. That doesn't mean that Zeitlin's music lacks emotional impact; the improvisation "Walking, Prancing, Marching, Dancing is filled with drama as he utilizes broad flourishes to build the tension. Zeitlin embraces a complete view of the jazz tradition, with an evolved sense of stride propelling "Cascade and a more abstract impressionism characterizing the gentle "Quiet Now. He's also not averse to embracing technology, utilizing synthesizers to either create subtle orchestration, as he does on "Prelude, or to provide a sequenced backdrop for his imaginative reading of "In Your Own Sweet Way. While neither overtly cathartic like Jarrett nor abstractly virtuotsic like Mehldau and Hancock, Zeitlin brings his own intrinsic compositional perspective and somewhat contained sense of adventure to Solo Voyage. He may not release records as frequently as some players, but when he does, each one is invariably a significant event, and Solo Voyage is an engaging journey from start to finish. ~ John Kelman https://www.allaboutjazz.com/solo-voyage-denny-zeitlin-maxjazz-review-by-john-kelman.php

Personnel: Denny Zeitlin (piano, synthesizer)

Solo Voyage

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Michael Wolff - Jumpstart

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1995
Time: 54:02
Size: 49,8 MB
Art: Front

(5:30)  1. Pinocchio
(5:31)  2. Ballade Noir
(6:03)  3. Cannonblues
(4:53)  4. Little M
(3:51)  5. Fall
(4:50)  6. Shades of Gray
(6:06)  7. Nefertitti
(5:36)  8. Jumpstart
(6:52)  9. I Fall in Love Too Easily
(4:47) 10. All Of You

From the first cunning abstractions the pianist improvises on Wayne Shorter's classic "Pinocchio," it's clear that Michael Wolff is more than just another one-trick pony. As the leader of Arsenio Hall's musical posse, Wolff proved himself an adept bandleader and sidekick, performing in a variety of styles, particularly in the jacked up contemporary funk mode the audience came to expect. However, as Jumpstart! makes plain, Michael Wolff is a modern jazz player with authentic credentials in the post-'60s idiom. This virtuoso keyboardist plied on his trade with numerous leaders, most notably Cannonball Adderley, whose heady blend of soul, hard bop, funk and modality made him one of jazz's most respected improvisers before his untimely death. Wolff evokes his presence through the tippling tempo, jagged harmonies, funky grace notes and teetering melodic runs of "Cannonblues." Like many pianists enamored of the '60s, Wolff is clearly indebted to the free-form inventions of Herbie Hancock, but throughout Jumpstart! Wolff betrays a knowledge of pre-bop piano evoking the likes of Milt Buckner when employing a bouncing two-handed attack. On the jittery starts and stops of the title tune, Wolff's jagged snaking lines, sudden rhythmic rushes of consonant and dissonant variations, and his agitated layers of chords indicate a broad romanticism of "I Fall In Love Too Easily" and his own "Ballade Noir" are indicative of a graceful touch and elegant melodic conception. https://www.allmusic.com/album/jumpstart-mw0000177266

Personnel:  Michael Wolff - Piano; Christian McBride - Bass; Tony Williams - Drums

Jumpstart

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