Claire Martin - The Very Best of Claire Martin: Every Now and Then

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2001
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 66:35
Size: 154,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:29) 1. When the Sun Comes Out
(4:44) 2. Be Cool
(4:43) 3. It's Always Four A.M.
(6:18) 4. Partners in Crime
(5:27) 5. Summer (Estate)
(4:09) 6. No Moon at All
(4:28) 7. Chased Out
(2:04) 8. Off Beat - Live
(6:15) 9. Would You Believe? - Live
(4:13) 10. Devil's Gonna Get You
(4:32) 11. Riverman
(3:08) 12. The Waiting Game
(7:57) 13. More Than You'll Ever Know
(4:03) 14. Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home

Claire Martin has been one of the more outstanding new voices of the 1990's, not only in her native England, but in the US as well. For her eighth album for the British Linn label, Martin has decided to look back by compiling some selections from those previous releases and include some of the better offerings found on her Linn recording resume. It's interesting that while most of the musical agenda is made up of jazz tunes, most of them fall into the unfamiliar category. Martin makes it without using well known standards as a crutch. Good for her!

From her 1997 release Make This City Ours comes "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" which offers some fine alto sax by Antonio Hart and piano by Gareth Williams. Her own "Devil's Gonna Get You" from her first album, the 1993 release Devil May Care gives some solo room to Jim Mullen on guitar and Arnie Somogyi on bass. The requisite nod to Latin rhythms comes with a swinging "Partners in Crime". One of the prettiest and most poignant ballads on the set is "It's Always Four A. M." from perhaps her finest CD, The Waiting Game. She does this with just Jonathan Gee's piano in support which sets off the purity of her voice. The thing that strikes one as each tune unfolds is Martin's amazing consistency. Whether the tune be from her first album, or from her last, the same high quality of interpretation and delivery remains intact. Recommended.~ Dave Nathan https://www.allaboutjazz.com/every-now-and-then-the-very-best-of-claire-martin-claire-martin-review-by-dave-nathan.php

Personel: Claire Martin - Vocals; Steve Melling, Jonathan Gee, Gareth Williams -Piano; Arnie Somogyi, Peter Washington - Bass; Clark Tracey, Greg Hutchinson, Jeremy Stacey, Ian Thomas - Drums; Mark Nightingale, Nichol Thomson - Trombone; Jim Mullen - Guitar; Antonio Hart - Alto Sax; Paul Stacey - Guitar/Bass Guitar/Keyboard; Robin Miller - Harmonica; Darragh Morgan, Anna Giddey, Brian Wright, Catherine Browning, Chris Payne - Violin; Charlotte Glasson, John Murphy, Sophie Sirota - Viola; Sarah Barker, Jo Richards - Cello; Mark Smith -Autoharp; Duncan Mackay, Alistair "Titch" Walker - Trumpet; Mornington Lockett - Tenor Sax; Robin Aspland - Wurlitzer; Andy Wallace - Hammond Organ

The Very Best of Claire Martin: Every Now and Then

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Eldar Djangirov - Letter to Liz

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:05
Size: 117,6 MB
Art: Front

(4:23) 1. Amazing Grace
(3:25) 2. Waltz for Debby
(4:42) 3. I Remember Clifford
(4:30) 4. Here's That Rainy Day
(3:52) 5. All the Things You Are
(4:49) 6. For All We Know
(6:03) 7. Sophisticated Lady
(5:59) 8. Lullaby Fantazia
(5:43) 9. It Might As Well Be Spring
(5:15) 10. For Liz
(2:18) 11. Tiger Rag (Arr.By Art Tatum)

Hard bop/post-bop pianist Eldar Djangirov has accomplished something that the vast majority of jazz artists pianists or otherwise will never accomplish: he landed a contract with a major label (Sony Classical) when he still wasn't old enough to vote. It is not uncommon for people to learn to play jazz during their adolescent years (especially in Western Europe), but most of them won't record an album as a leader until they are in their twenties; many won't even be recorded as sidemen until after they reach their twenties. Djangirov, however, started recording as a leader when he was in his mid-teens, and had recorded three albums before his 18th birthday. Djangirov, an immigrant from what used to be the Soviet Union, brings an intriguing variety of bebop, hard bop, post-bop and swing influences to his work. The acoustic pianist (who also plays electric keyboards but is essentially straight-ahead in his approach) has been greatly affected by the clear, crystalline playing of Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett, and Ahmad Jamal; like those musicians, he can be quite lyrical (sometimes in an impressionistic way). But he has also shown his appreciation of Oscar Peterson and Red Garland's funkiness at times, and his other influences range from McCoy Tyner to Bud Powell to pre-bop master Art Tatum. A Djangirov solo might acknowledge anything from Thelonious Monk's angularity to Garland's use of what musicians refer to as "block chords" (a technique that is easy for jazz listeners to recognize even if they don't understand the exact technical meaning of the term). Despite having recorded for Sony Classical, Djangirov is not a classical-oriented musician straight-ahead jazz is definitely his main focus. But like many jazz musicians, he has been influenced by the European classical tradition and can bring some of the Euro-classical vocabulary to his improvisations.

Djangirov was born on January 28, 1987 in Kyrgyzstan in the former Soviet Union, which did away with communism when he was only a child. At the age of five, he began studying the piano with his mother Tatiana Djangirov (who was a music teacher in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). In 1996, a nine-year-old Eldar Djangirov performed at a jazz festival in Novosibirsk, Russia, where a visiting American jazz supporter named Charles McWhorter heard him for the first time. Feeling that the young pianist had a great deal of potential, McWhorter arranged for him to attend a summer camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. Djangirov ended up staying in the United States; after leaving Michigan, he lived in Kansas City before making San Diego, CA his home. The improviser's first album, Eldar [D&D], was released in 2001, when he was 14; that disc was followed by the release of his sophomore disc, Handprints, in 2003. In 2004, Djangirov signed with Sony Classical and recorded his third album, which is also titled Eldar [Sony]; the album boasts John Patitucci on bass and Michael Brecker on tenor sax and was given a March 2005 release date. Two years later Eldar released Re-Imagination, which saw the pianist stretching out into solo acoustic piano and even electronica territory. Virtue appeared in 2009.
~ Alex Henderson https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eldar-mn0000648382/biography

Letter to Liz

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