Showing posts with label Angela Deniro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angela Deniro. Show all posts

Monday, August 26, 2024

Glenn Zottola/Angela DeNiro - Rare Elegance

Styles: Jazz
Year: 2024
Time: 29:12
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Size: 67,5 MB
Art: Front

(3:31) 1. It Might As Well Be Spring
(4:49) 2. Autumn In New York
(3:45) 3. Don't Go To Strangers
(5:11) 4. It Never Entered My Mind
(3:05) 5. Baubles, Bangles and Beads
(5:00) 6. What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life
(3:48) 7. My One And Only Love

Born Glenn Paul Zottola, 28 April 1947, Port Chester, New York, USA. Zottola first played trumpet at the age of three, his early start explained by the fact that his father not only played trumpet but was also a manufacturer of trumpet mouthpieces (his brother, Bob Zottola, played with the bands of Charlie Barnet, Maynard Ferguson and Billy May). At the age of nine Glenn was playing in public, and within three years was performing regularly on television and had made an appearance at the Atlantic City Jazz Festival. In the early 60s he played a leading role in a documentary film, Come Back. In 1967 he joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra, then under the direction of Buddy De Franco. In 1970, Zottola was briefly with Lionel Hampton and then began a fruitful decade that saw him backing a wide range of artists, including Bob Hope, Al Martino, Patti Page, Tony Martin, Robert Merrill and Mel Tormé. Towards the end of the 70s Zottola played lead trumpet in the orchestra accompanying the touring version of Chicago. In 1979 he joined Tex Beneke and that same year became a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet for a national tour.

Zottola began the 80s in fine style, playing, singing and acting in Swing, a musical presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, before playing in the pit bands of several Broadway shows including Evita, Annie and Barnum, and also for the Stratford, Connecticut revival of Anything Goes, which starred Ginger Rogers. In the early 80s he joined Bob Wilber’s Bechet Legacy band, playing on record sessions and international tours. Zottola has also recorded with Butch Miles, George Masso, Keith Ingham and Maxine Sullivan. In the mid-80s, in addition to his regular appearances with Wilber, Zottola led his own big band at the Rainbow Room in New York City and then joined forces with Bobby Rosengarden to co-lead a big band at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Greenwich, Connecticut. He toured overseas, playing jazz festivals in Ireland, Holland and Finland, while his US festival appearances have included St. Louis, Sacramento and the Kool Jazz Festival in New York. In 1988 he was featured soloist in Wilber’s recreation of Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. In 1990 Zottola was headlining at the Clearwater Jazz Festival in Florida and late in 1991 toured the UK and Europe with a band led by Peanuts Hucko.

Unusually among brass players, Zottola is also an accomplished saxophonist, playing alto with flair. Although rooted in the mainstream of jazz and with a marked kinship for the swing era, his playing shows flashes of a deep awareness of bop and post-bop developments in the music. The exceptional talent he displayed as a child has not been dissipated but has been nurtured into an impressive all-round ability.https://www.allmusic.com/artist/glenn-zottola-mn0002154652

Rare Elegance

Monday, January 15, 2024

Angela DeNiro - Angela DeNiro Swingin' with Legends 2 with the Ron Aprea Big Band

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 65:43
Size: 151,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:02) 1. New York City Blues
(5:20) 2. You'd Be So Easy To Love (Feat. Ken Peplowski)
(4:22) 3. Hello Young Lovers (Feat. Randy Brecker)
(5:50) 4. A House Is Not A Home
(3:50) 5. Willow Weep For Me
(7:47) 6. It Might As Well Be Spring (Feat. Lew Tabackin)
(2:25) 7. Don'cha Go 'Way Mad
(4:59) 8. Two For The Road
(3:09) 9. That Old Black Magic
(5:31) 10. Come In From The Rain
(4:10) 11. On Green Dolphin Street
(5:17) 12. My One And Only Love
(5:18) 13. For Phil
(3:36) 14. The Curtain Falls

On Swingin' with Legends 2, her fourth recorded collaboration with arranger (and husband) Ron Aprea's big band, vocalist Angela DeNiro sings beautifully and receives a lot of help from her friends, especially guests Ken Peplowski on clarinet, Randy Brecker on trumpet and Lew Tabackin on tenor sax and flute. And what a band! Well-stocked with stars who are eager to fly whenever Aprea raises his baton.

Not that DeNiro needs much help. She is quite simply a marvelous singer with excellent range, splendid diction and obvious respect for a lyric. She also sings on key, and as for breath control, dig the final note on Burt Bacharach's "A House Is Not a Home." And she scats respectably too (in sync with the band on Rodgers and Hammerstein's "It Might as Well Be Spring," on which Tabackin solos on tenor). Ballads pose no problem, as DeNiro readily nails "My One and Only Love" and Henry Mancini's "Two for the Road" but it's clear that she and the band relish every opportunity to step on the gas and flat-out swing. For crystal-clear examples, look no further than "That Old Black Magic" or Cole Porter's "Easy to Love" (with Brecker on trumpet).

"On Green Dolphin Street" is another burner, encompassing one of alto Todd Bashore's heated solos (the others are on "Willow Weep for Me" and "For Phil," Aprea's clever tribute to the late alto giant and close friend Phil Woods). "For Phil" leads to the tender-hearted finale, "The Curtain Falls," a closing theme often used by Bobby Darin. Aprea employs only one soloist on each number. Besides Bashore and the band's guests, they include trumpeter Bryan Davis on the opening "New York Blues," "That Old Black Magic" and "Come in from the Rain"; trumpeter Chris Persad ("A House Is Not a Home"), bassist Tim Givens ("Don't Cha Go 'Way Mad") and trombonist Wayne Goodman ("My One and Only Love").

If this isn't the best vocalist-with-big band album of the year, it is definitely a close second. And the other one would have to be downright spectacular. DeNiro and Aprea's partnership is awesome, and Swingin' with Legends 2 shines brightly from every angle. In other words, a definite keeper.

Angela DeNiro Swingin' with Legends 2 with the Ron Aprea Big Band