The Lucinda Belle Orchestra - My Voice & 45 Strings

Styles: Vocal And Harp Jazz
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:56
Size: 104,7 MB
Art: Front

(4:05) 1. My Voice & 45 Strings
(3:10) 2. Valentine
(4:35) 3. Keep on Looking
(4:02) 4. Northern Lights
(4:08) 5. Dodo Blues
(3:19) 6. I'll Get By
(3:48) 7. Jimmy Choo's
(3:45) 8. Rose Marie and Bobby Mcgee
(3:38) 9. These Broken Things
(3:17) 10. Unlucky in Love
(3:50) 11. Let the Tide Roll In
(3:13) 12. Right Here

The Lucinda Belle Orchestra is the sum of one harp, a harmonium, the melodica, some strings, horns, an upright bass, drums, the ukulele, a clarinet, guitar...and one quite extraordinary songwriter and front-woman. She is Lucinda Belle, and My Voice & 45 Strings is her debut album.

Lucinda Belle’s musical life began aged six, when she was dragged kicking and screaming by her mother to classical recitals at the Royal Festival Hall. Before the album was released she had already appeared on tour and record with the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Rufus Wainwright, Annie Lennox and Missy Elliot, as well as a slot as support to Robbie Williams at the Electric Proms 2009. Yet by day, Belle still owned and occasionally ran the family heirloom: a launderette in Balham, South London. The album was recorded in various locations including Nashville where Lucinda once studied jazz Los Angeles, London, Stockholm and Paris; and includes co-writes from the likes of Graham Lyle ("What’s Love Got To Do With It?") and Ed Harcourt. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Voice-Strings-Lucinda-Belle-Orchestra/dp/B0030BYWW8

Personnel: Backing Vocals – The Pilgrim Jubilees (tracks: 11); Bass – Dave Monsey (tracks: 1, 4, 6, 9, 11-12), Karl Odlum (tracks: 2), Robert Rickenberg (tracks: 7), Simon Johnson (tracks: 3, 5, 10); Cello – Amy Langley (tracks: 2, 6, 12), Matthew Sharp (tracks: 7, 10); Cello [Cello Bass] – Adrianne Wininsky (tracks: 2); Clarinet – Dave Shulman (tracks: 8), Oleg Lapidus (tracks: 3, 5, 10); Double Bass – Duncan Thompson (tracks: 8); Drums – Derrick McKenzie (tracks: 3, 5, 10), Duncan Thompson (tracks: 7), Earl Harvin (tracks: 1-2, 4, 6, 9, 11-12); Flute – Oleg Lapidus (tracks: 7); Guitar – David Odlum (tracks: 12), Duncan Thompson (tracks: 8), Simon Johnson (tracks: 1-3, 5-7, 9-12); Harp – Lucinda Belle (tracks: 1-10, 12); Lead Vocals – Lucinda Belle; Melodica – Dave Palmer (tracks: 1); Organ – Dave Palmer (tracks: 1-2, 4); Percussion – David Odlum (tracks: 2, 6,1 1-12); Piano – Ben Robbins (tracks: 3, 5, 7-8, 10), Dave Palmer (tracks: 1-2, 4, 6, 9,1 1-12), Ed Harcourt (tracks: 4); Strings – Dirty Pretty Strings (tracks: 1, 4, 9); Trombone – Harry Brown (tracks: 3, 5, 8, 10); Trumpet – Andy Greenwood (tracks: 3); Ukulele – Duncan Thompson (tracks: 8); Violin – Giles Broadbent (tracks: 8), Helen Greenham (tracks: 7); Vocals – Ed Harcourt (tracks: 2)

My Voice & 45 Strings

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John Boutté - A 'Well Tempered' Boutté

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:03
Size: 130,6 MB
Art: Front

(4:07) 1. Nevertheless I'm in Love with You
(3:00) 2. Welcome Table
(5:22) 3. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans
(3:34) 4. My Indian Red
(3:36) 5. All the Things You Are
(3:45) 6. La Vie En Rose
(4:34) 7. Little Red Rooster
(5:57) 8. Let Them Talk
(5:06) 9. Must Be Right, Can't Be Wrong
(3:33) 10. Nature Boy
(4:54) 11. I Need Your Love so Bad
(3:49) 12. Fly Me to the Moon
(4:42) 13. The Very Thought of You

Let’s face it: if an album of John Boutté singing (mostly) standards with a jazz trio had turned out to be anything less than magnificent, anyone who knows the man’s music would have been surprised. His way with a standard is a calling card by now; most of these songs have been in his live repertoire for years, and they’re a large part of the reason people float out of his best shows instead of just walking.

So we’re glad to report that this is exactly the album you’d expect and hope for. Which is not to say there wasn’t some art involved in capturing these particular performances: The trick of making a standards album is to make the songs sound like they were written last week, and Boutté manages that here: it’s no small feat to put a thrill of discovery into songs this familiar. It’s the delight in his voice that makes “Fly Me to The Moon” fresh again, as he playfully stretches syllables and holds off on the “I love you” until the song’s very end. The Mardi Gras Indian anthem “My Indian Red” gets one of the subtler treatments it’s had; he finds the hymn within the marching song. On “The Very Thought of You” it’s the sound of his voice that delights; he becomes a muted trumped on the “my love” before the instrumental break. And on “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans”perhaps the most oft-recorded of all the songs here his high-register glide on the line “Wish that I were there” says it all about yearning. (Notably he also pluralizes the last line“I miss the ones I care for”maintaining the post-Katrina content he gave it on the Treme soundtrack).

The gamble of recording the whole album with only three players pays off, as accompanists Christopher Todd Duke (guitar), Nobumasa Ozaki (bass) and Oscar Rossignoli (piano) know when to add subtle shadings and when to step forward and swing. Guitarist Duke, who passed away soon after the sessions, carried a lot of the percussive role with his strumming, and added in some standout solos. There’s some especially nice guitar/voice interplay on “Little Red Rooster” one of the few times here when Boutté calls on his funkier R&B side.

True, it would have been nice to hear an original song here, since Boutté’s written a local standard or two himself. But this is above all a singer’s album, and you’re unlikely to hear a better vocal disc this year. https://www.offbeat.com/music/john-boutte-a-well-tempered-boutte-independent/

Personnel: John Boutté – vocals; Christopher Todd Duke – electric guitar; Nobumasa Ozaki – bass; Oscar Rossignoli – piano

A Well Tempered Boutté

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Lawrence Sieberth - An Evening in Paris

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:21
Size: 118,4 MB
Art: Front

(7:28) 1. August
(8:17) 2. The Phantom
(7:31) 3. La Valse Parisienne
(4:15) 4. A Melody's Tale
(5:48) 5. Kinetic #8
(4:38) 6. Pastoral
(6:24) 7. The Singing Bowl Song
(6:58) 8. Lessons in the Fast Lane

New Orleans-based pianist Lawrence Sieberth is a versatile music man a bandleader, keyboard accompanist, composer, producer. A trip to Paris and a teaming with Parisian players resulted in An Evening In Paris, an atmospherically cohesive set that covers a wide range of styles. The set of eight Sieberth originals opens with "August," a tune that exudes the loveliest of straight ahead moods deceptively, perhaps. There is a gentleness and delicacy to the sound initially, saxophonist Stephane Guillaume blowing cool, in a Stan Getz-ian mode. Sieberth's piano is as lush and pretty as can be. Then the sax solo goes out there, in a nuanced way, to the edge. Then the theme resurfaces, and the intensity level cracks up, turning the tune into an anthem.

If the opener could be tagged mainstream, "The Phantom" moves over to a modern funk sound, dark and relentless, riding the rhythmic angularity of bassist Michel Benita and drummer Jeff Boudreaux. Out of this Sieberth lays down an eerie, crinkly solo that smooths out in an ominous groove, the quartet locked into each other's musical mind sets. "La Valse Parisienne" has a melancholy, late night feel, featuring Guillaume's smooth as silk soprano sax, while "A Melody's Tale" brings a brighter, more hopeful feeling.

The compelling cover art a man in a fashionable chapeau atop one of those early twentieth century bicycles with the impossibly big front wheels, about to eclipse the Eiffel Tower under a breakup of dark clouds could fool you into thinking that an old timey music is at hand. But Sieberth's artistry is anything but old timey, the prickly, driving "Kinetic #8" having twenty-first century written all over it, while "Lessons In The Fast Lane," the set's closer, opens with saxophonist Guillaume and pianist Siebert engaged in a wild chase down the freeway, before they go off road, picking their ways carefully over open fields of free jazz, skirting the boulder outcroppings and the gullies, as clouds gather and drummer Boudreaux rumbles out some thunder, until the freeway is achieved again, full speed ahead.~ Dan McClenaghanhttps://www.allaboutjazz.com/an-evening-in-paris-lawrence-sieberth-quartet-musik-blocu

Personnel: Lawrence Sieberth: piano; Jeff Boudreaux: drums; Michel Benita: bass; Stephane Gullaume: saxophone.

An Evening in Paris

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Gene Ammons - Young Jug

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:42
Size: 134.4 MB
Styles: Bop, Saxophone jazz
Year: 1994/2009
Art: Front

[2:08] 1. Swingin' For Christmas
[2:50] 2. It's The Talk Of The Town
[3:04] 3. Stuffy
[3:23] 4. Once In A While
[3:07] 5. Pennies From Heaven
[2:44] 6. More Moon
[2:53] 7. Tenor Eleven
[3:39] 8. Goodbye
[2:58] 9. You Go To My Head
[2:47] 10. My Foolish Heart
[3:10] 11. Jug Head Ramble
[2:50] 12. Don't Do Me Wrong
[2:58] 13. Prelude To A Kiss
[2:47] 14. Baby, Won't You Please Say Yes
[2:46] 15. Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe
[2:52] 16. You're Not The Kind
[2:44] 17. I'll Walk Alone
[3:15] 18. Old Folks
[2:41] 19. Breezy
[2:56] 20. Somewhere Along The Way

A young Gene Ammons asserted his formidable ability to play the tenor saxophone in Chicago from 1948 to 1952. These sessions from the Chess label (reissued when the GRP label bought the masters) represent this coming of age in jazz contexts ranging from bop and blues to many ballads and hints of the big-band sound. While his sound is typically robust and gutsy, there's also quite a bit of evidence that Ammons was capable of playing tender and sweet, but at the base of all this music is the blues. A variety of bands are heard, but certain groups with certain sidemen are most notable, as they showcase the tenor man in distinctly different ways and means. Guitarist Leo Blevins and pianist Junior Mance are the finest contributors on the first two-thirds of this collection. Blevins uses a restrained tone mostly on chords during the classic swinger written by Coleman Hawkins, "Stuffy," and is marvelous in his restraint during the ballads "Once in a While" and "Pennies from Heaven," the latter with a featured second line from muted trumpeter Bill Massey. Mance is the best in a jazz-blues vein, whether on the slower, fully flowered tunes "Goodbye," "You Go to My Head," and "My Foolish Heart," the best small group swingers "Baby, Won't You Please Say Yes" and "You're Not The Kind," or in a larger combo aside the wailin' and boppin' of Ammons, Massey, and trombonist Matthew Gee during the quintessential Shorty Rogers number "More Moon" based on "How High the Moon" or titled "Full Moon." Energized and animated, Ammons goes to town on the hucklebuck style of "Jug Head Ramble," honking and sprawling in a call-and-response with Mance and Blevins, baritone saxophonist Sonny Stitt, and unsung drummer Wes Landers. The last four tracks again have Stitt on baritone, not tenor as he and Ammons would adopt in later life as a most famous tandem, with Massey and trombonist J.J. Johnson forming a mighty horn line. Massey's "Beezy" is the hottest and heaviest tune, "I'll Walk Alone" uses the most teamwork, and the other two, "Old Folks" and "Somewhere Along the Way" are more the sultry vehicles for Ammons with the others taking a back seat. This CD is an interesting window into the early germination period of a true jazz giant, and despite a somewhat thin production sound indicative of the era, is well worth finding and owning. ~Michael G. Nastos

Young Jug

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