Mingus Big Band - The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions

Styles: Jazz, Big Band
Year: 2022
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 63:30
Size: 146,2 MB
Art: Front

(7:22) 1. Work Song (Break The Chains)
(7:42) 2. The I Of Hurricane Sue
(1:01) 3. Intro To Nobody Knows The Bradley I Know
(5:46) 4. Nobody Knows The Bradley I Know
(8:15) 5. Meditations For Moses
(7:43) 6. All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother
(6:35) 7. Don’t Let It Happen Here
(6:49) 8. Profile Of Jackie
(8:21) 9. Hobo Ho
(0:22) 10. Intro To Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting
(3:29) 11. Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting

The legacy of Charles Mingus is continuing to be celebrated this year by his legacy bands. Now the Mingus Big Band has released The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions, which marks the 100th anniversary of the bassist and composer’s birth with 22 of his compositions.

The work includes new arrangements of his timeless songs with narrations by Charles’s son Eric Mingus. The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions was recorded with over 30 of the world’s leading musicians, rotating in the Mingus Big Band tradition, they say.

Bass on the album is handled by three men: Boris Kozlov, Andrew McKee, and Mike Richmond. Each has played an important role in the group. Kozlov has been in the band for over two decades and is the current co-leader of the group. McKee spent a decade in the ’90s and is featured on many recordings. When Mingus died in 1979, his widow Sue Mingus (who passed away in September 2022) launched the Legacy band with Mike Richmond in the bass seat.
https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2022/10/20/mingus-big-band-releases-the-charles-mingus-centennial-sessions/

Musicians: Dr. Alex Pope Norris, Tatum Greenblatt, Walter White, Philip Harper, Anthony Fazio, Jack Walrath, Alex Sipiagin - Trumpets; Conrad Herwig, Joe Fiedler, Robin Eubanks, Coleman Hughes - Trombones; David Taylor - Bass Trombone; Earl McIntyre - Bass Trombones & Tuba; Alex Foster (co-leader), Brandon Wright, David Lee Jones, Ron Blake, Alex Terrier - Alto Saxophones - Abraham Burton, Wayne Escoffery, Scott Robinson, Sam Dillon - Tenor Saxophones; Jason Marshall, Lauren Sevian - Baritone Saxophones; David Kikoski, Theo Hill - Piano; Boris Kozlov (co-leader), Andrew McKee, Mike Richmond - Bass; Adam Cruz, Donald Edwards, Johnathan Blake, Tommy Campbell - Drums; Eric Mingus, Renee Manning, Alex Foster - Vocals

The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions

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Roberta Piket - West Coast Trio

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:40
Size: 140,8 MB
Art: Front

(6:25) 1. Mentor
(8:19) 2. Falling In Love With Love
(7:03) 3. A Bridge To Nowhere
(5:16) 4. Humpty Dumpty
(5:44) 5. Flor De Lis
(6:31) 6. Yemenja
(3:33) 7. My Buddy
(5:31) 8. Conception
(6:14) 9. Windmills Of Your Mind

Roberta Piket is now on a don’t-touch-me-pinnacle and the release of this West Coast Trio, album has everything to do with it. The prodigiously-gifted pianist is also joined here by guitarist Larry Koonse on two songs and her partner and (otherwise) ubiquitous drummer, the mighty Billy Mintz on Djavan’s exquisite piece, “Flor de Lis”. However, the electrifying momentum for the West Coast Trio recording has been sustained with intoxicating energy by Darek Oleszkiewicz, who’s justifiably all the rage in music circles these days and by Joe La Barbera the drum-playing member of the legendary “La Barbera” Music dynasty.

Those of us familiar with Miss Piket’s work from elsewhere vividly recall her virtuosity and immaculate taste in melody as well as her harmonic and rhythmic genius, but nothing can prepare one for the utter beauty of her playing on this disc. Clearly Miss Piket is possessed of a virtuoso two-handed technique that allows her to make melodies rise in parabolic arcs that vary from fluid and gentle to wild and spine-tingling. And we hear both kinds in songs such as “Humpty Dumpty” and “Conception” (the latter kind) and “Falling in Love with Love” and “Windmills of Your Mind” (the former kind).

However, more than anything the music on this recording is affirmation that Miss Piket ticks all the Romantic virtuoso boxes: sweeping tunes, kaleidoscopic orchestral colours, moments of lyrical reflection, passages of demanding chordal piano (writing and) playing. And it’s capped off with a soaring, epic and dancing finale that ends in triumphant swirling peals, performed to perfection by the pianist together with this extraordinary trio. And certainly one cannot emphasize this neo-Romanticism that brings out the contrasts in tone and colour turning each of these pieces into a seductively habitable sound world not only for Miss Piket but for all lovers of this music.

For it is like the gathering and welcome storm that emphasizes intense passion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing ever-growing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension and awe especially in confronting the sublimity and beauty of human nature. It elevates the folk art of Jazz to its rightful nobility stressing its spontaneity as a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu). So that when assigning the justifiably high value to the achievements of “heroic” individualists and artists, it correctly locates Miss Piket, whose skill and great imagination is sublime, in the upper tier of artistry because her music heard here (and elsewhere) has indeed raised the very quality of the society in which we live.https://jazzdagama.com/music/roberta-piket-west-coast-trio/

Personnel: Roberta Piket: piano; Darek Oleszkiewicz: bass; Joe La Barbera: drums; Larry Koonse: guitar (3, 8); Billy Mintz: drums (5)

West Coast Trio

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Kim Waters - That Special Touch

Styles: Smooth Jazz
Year: 2022
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:08
Size: 99,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:11) 1. Joy Dance
(4:45) 2. House Call
(4:21) 3. Easy On Me
(5:03) 4. That Special Touch
(3:47) 5. Get Ur Groove On
(3:46) 6. If I Was Your Man
(3:58) 7. Listen To Your Heart
(4:19) 8. Morning Sunrise
(4:23) 9. Breathless
(4:31) 10. Pathway To Love

Kim Water's new album That Special Touch (2020) is his 25th recording and fifteenth CD for the Shanachie label. In contrast to his earlier recordings, he developed his musical ideas not in the studio but on the piano at home like he did on Shakedown. This concept has crystallized as productive.

Kim Waters is evolving into a multi-instrumentalist. He performs almost all instruments, but of course his focus is on the saxophone. Chris Harris plays the guitars, and his daughter Kayla guests on the track Easy On Me. With the exception of two covers, Kim wrote all the tunes himself.

The album opens with the emotional Joy Dance, which musically describes that feeling for which Kim's music stands, joy and love. “I think that everybody needs love. It’s something for certain that in today’s world, we need more of and if we had more of it, the world would be a better place,” explains Waters. Kim takes it up a notch with House Call. The goal is clear, the song should cause a sensation in clubs.

English singer Adele is known for writing and interpreting particularly heartwarming songs. Her song Easy On Me immediately caught the interest of Kim, who delivers a perfect rendition on the saxophone. Kim fosters a special relationship with his daughter Kayla. Her piano accompaniment reveals her extraordinary talent.

The title song That Special Touch has that Midas radiation immediately finding the attention of the listener. In the tradition of earlier R&B songs, Kim finds the approach to a contemporary interpretation. The drum programming of Get Ur Groove On is strongly reminiscent of the early songs of such formations as Al B Sure, Chuckii Booker or New Edition.

If I Was Your Man of the singer Bruno Mars is the second cover of the album. Kim cleverly uses the popularity of this hit to enrich his album with it. The rendition is featuring singer Raynard Gibson.

Also on his new album Kim follows the proven concept of putting the love relationship in the center of his musical performances. Listen To Your Heart, Breathless or The Pathway To Love are fashionable examples. Inspired by his fans, Kim Waters has nailed it again with That Special Touch. http://www.smooth-jazz.de/firstview/Waters/ThatSpecialTouch.htm

That Special Touch

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Massimo Farao, Francesca Tandoi - The Double Piano Sessions, Vol. 2

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2022
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 76:40
Size: 176,2 MB
Art: Front

(4:54) 1. Beat's Up
(5:56) 2. Darn That Dream
(4:36) 3. F.S.R.
(5:02) 4. You Are My Everything
(3:56) 5. I'm Confessing That I Love You
(5:47) 6. If I Were a Bell
(6:40) 7. The Summer Wind
(4:17) 8. I Will Wait for You
(4:48) 9. O sole mio
(7:23) 10. Body and Soul
(6:25) 11. How Deep Is the Ocean
(6:10) 12. Bis Blues
(5:24) 13. Goodbye
(5:15) 14. Work Song

Francesca Tandoi started to play classical piano at an early age. After a few years she got very much interested in jazz music and became a big fan of swinging virtuoso piano players like, Oscar Peterson, Phyneas Newborn, Gene Harris, Bobby Timmons, and other musicians of that generation. She started her carrier as a teenager in Italy, especially in the jazz scene of Rome, her own city. She had the chance to play and perform with many great italian musicians, joining some of the most important italian jazz festivals all around the country. In 2009 she moved to the Netherlands and in 2013 she gradueted with a special mention at the “Royal Conservatory of The Hague” in jazz piano and singing.

After that she moved to the Conservatory of Rotterdam “Codarts” and got her Master degree in 2015 writing a thesis about “The art of rearranging jazz standards for jazz piano trio” . In Holland she started playing with some of the finest dutch and international jazz musicians and performed all around the world. Jazz festivals in Japan, Malesya, Indonesia, India. Tours all around Europe. Holland, Italy, Swiss, Germany, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Ukraine. She also performed in many important jazz festivals as North sea jazz festival, Maastricht jazz festival, Breda jazz festival, Bosendorfer gala 2013, and many others, both as accompanist and as a leader of her trio. With her trio (Frits Landesbergen on drums and Frans van Geest on double bass) she recorded three CD's for a japanise label: Atelier Sawano For Elvira (2014) Something blue (2015) Wind Dance (2016) https://music.metason.net/artistinfo?name=Francesca%20Tandoi

The Double Piano Sessions, Vol. 2

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