Sullivan Fortner - Solo Game Cd1, Cd2

Sullivan Fortner - Solo Game Cd1

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2023
Time: 46:38
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Size: 107,5 MB
Art: Front

(3:50) 1. Don't You Worry About a Thing
(9:24) 2. I Didn't Know What Time It Was
(4:39) 3. Congolese Children
(4:29) 4. I'm All Smiles
(4:45) 5. Invitation
(6:31) 6. Once I loved
(3:17) 7. Cute
(5:01) 8. This Is New
(4:37) 9. Come Sunday

---

Sullivan Fortner - Solo Game Cd2

Time: 32:32
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Size: 75,4 MB
Art: Front

(0:15) 1. Power Mode
(5:07) 2. It's a Game
(5:28) 3. Snakes And Ladders
(1:25) 4. Hounds and Jackal
(2:04) 5. King's Table
(1:07) 6. Stag
(2:54) 7. Cross and Circle
(4:51) 8. Space Walk
(3:20) 9. Valse du petit chien
(1:56) 10. Fred Hersch, notes on Solo
(3:58) 11. Jason Moran, notes on Game

Mentored by Fred Hersch and Jason Moran, and produced by Hersch, Solo Game puts pianist Sullivan Fortner in a really good place. That is before the music even starts. Then it does start with a sly and subdued solo on Stevie Wonder's buoyant 1973 top tenner, "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing," while dropping subtle hints to the trip ahead, forged by Fortner's quixotic self.

Fortner, who has steadily grown a discography which includes his own quartet recording Aria (Impulse!, 2015), a seven year stint with Roy Hargrove, and choice sessions with Paul Simon, Cecile McLorin Salvant (who adds her ethereal magic to the "Tubular Bells" like "Snakes and Ladders"), and Melissa Aldana just to name a few. With his perfect pitch and classic stride approach, the pianist has a long and illustrious career ahead of him.

An autumnally seasoned approach to Richard Rodgers' "I Didn't Know What Time it Was" belies Fortner's age. There is a clear sense of yearning yet knowing the years reveal as they will. Hersch's production is pristine, throwing light on Fortner's clearly articulated vision a new and most assured take on things of beauty over convenience, things with eternal presence.

The pianist does what all great artists, innovators, and true creators (not Tik Tok spin offs) do; they challenge themselves and rise well above said challenge. So, Randy Weston's "Congolese Children" sounds fully conceived and of a piece, as does Antonio Carlos Jobim's luscious "Once I Loved." Fortner is so aware of those who have mastered the keys before him that, by the time we get to singularly malleable romps through Neil Hefti's bouncing "Cute" and Kurt Weill's neo-ragtime "This Is New," visions of Art Tatum and Bud Powell are dancing in our heads.

These solo ventures can get over-wrought at times think of young Keith Jarrett's one man Restoration Ruin (Vortex, 1968) but Solo Game for the greater part avoids those youthful pratfalls. Though it does have its wrought moments, such as "It's A Game" the second track on Disc Two it runs a bit too long, predictably. Here the pianist takes on a host of instruments including vibes, celeste, chime tree, Moog, Vocoder, Rain Maker, Hammond B3, and egg shaker.

Fully composed by Fortner, the brooding Shaft-like undertow "Snakes and Ladders" falls victim to, once again, its length. "Hounds and Jackals" on the other hand, is too short. "Space Walk " is. well, the new generation watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. But, given the gravity and the gravitas of Solo Game, this is really nitpicking. These two discs are beyond question worth the time it takes to get pulled into their gracious and sustainable orbit. By Mike Jurkovic Sullivan Fortner: Solo Game album review @ All About Jazz

Personnel: Sullivan Fortner: Piano (Steinway B), Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3 Organ, Vibes, Celeste, Chime Tree, Moog, Vocoder, Rain Maker, Hand Percussion, Egg Shaker, Triangle, Vocals, Hand Claps, Shakers, Canopus Bass Drum, Mongolian Gong (2); Kyle Pool: hand claps on (2-2); Cecile McLorin Salvant: vocals on (2-3).

Solo Game Cd 1, Cd 2

---

Cécile McLorin Salvant - Mélusine

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:16
Size: 104,3 MB
Art: Front

(5:26) 1. Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent ?
(5:58) 2. La route enchantée
(2:47) 3. Il m'a vue nue
(2:41) 4. Dites moi que je suis belle
(5:34) 5. Doudou
(2:20) 6. Petite musique terrienne
(1:03) 7. Aida
(3:13) 8. Mélusine
(0:58) 9. Wedo
(3:44) 10. D'un feu secret
(3:49) 11. Le temps est assassin
(5:18) 12. Fenestra
(0:44) 13. Domna N'Almucs
(1:33) 14. Dame Iseut

A serpent woman haunts Cecile McLorin Salvant's dreams on her boldly realized seventh album, 2023's Mélusine. Inspired by the European folktale most famously detailed by 14th century French writer Jean d'Arras, Mélusine tells the tale of a shapeshifting maiden, half-serpent/half-woman, whose righteous anger takes on ever-more dualistic meanings under Salvant's dynamic musical sway. Having been lavished with accolades, including several Grammy Awards for her clarion, swinging jazz and French chanson-infused albums, Salvant has increasingly leaned into the more stylistically experimental and personal aspects of her artistry.

It was an approach she took to new levels with 2022's Ghost Song, performing her poetic originals alongside unexpected covers of songs by Kate Bush and Sting. Centered on the title track, which she composed during the Ghost Song sessions, Mélusine is a gorgeously realized production. Although there are some English lyrics here, the album features the most French Salvant has sung on record. Thankfully, she offers translations of each song with a sentence that also highlights how each track illuminates the story.

The album also finds Salvant (who produced the album with Tom Korkidis) pulling together all of her disparate influences, from her moody cabaret jazz reading of Charles Trenet's "La Route Enchantee" to her playfully mischievous interpretation of the 14th century composition "Dites Moi Que Je Suis Belle," the latter of which is done in dancerly duet with djembe percussion master Weedie Braimah. Along with Braimah, she's joined throughout by several longtime associates including pianists Sullivan Fortner and Aaron Diehl, bassists Paul Sikivie and Luques Curtis, drummers Kyle Pool and Obed Calvaire, and saxophonist Godwin Louis.

Shifting the line-up track to track, Salvant offers inspired forays into '70s sci-fi-inspired Canadian musical theater ("Petite Musique Terrienne" from Starmania), the dramatic French pop of Veronique Sanson ("Le Temps est Assassin"), and an Afro-Latin take on 12th century troubadour Almuc Castelnau's "Dame Iseut" that Salvant sings in both Occitan and Haitian Creole, languages that underline her own rich dual heritage.

There's even a synthesizer-accented take on Michel Lambert's haunting 1660 air de coeur "D'un Feu Secret" that sounds like electronic composer Suzanne Ciani, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Modern Jazz Quartet giving a Baroque court performance. Her originals here are just as stylistically wide-ranging as she pulls together jazz and Haitian compas rhythms on "Doudou," accompanies herself on analog synth on "Wedo," and weaves a dreamy overlay of vocals and electric piano on "Aida."

It almost goes without saying that Salvant's voice is utterly sublime on Mélusine, rich with an earthy jazz warmth on one song and shimmering with a brightly attenuated operatic resonance on another. There's also a feeling that for her, the story of a half-serpent half-woman is in keeping with her life as a Black woman raised in Miami by a Haitian father and French mother. Whether it's with the themes of romantic heartbreak and bodily autonomy, or the global boundary-pushing musicality at play on Mélusine, Salvant's work is transcendent.By Matt Collar https://www.allmusic.com/album/melusine-mw0003926207

Mélusine

---

Cécile McLorin Salvant - The Window

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 70:22
Size: 162,1 MB
Art: Front

(5:11)  1. Visions
(2:09)  2. One Step Ahead
(2:34)  3. By Myself
(4:55)  4. The Sweetest Sounds
(5:53)  5. Ever Since The One I Love's Been Gone
(2:05)  6. A Clef
(3:10)  7. Obsession
(3:21)  8. Wild Is Love
(3:00)  9. J'ai L'Cafard
(7:10) 10. Somewhere
(4:29) 11. The Gentleman Is A Dope
(3:47) 12. Trouble Is A Man
(3:20) 13. Were Thine That Special Face
(5:00) 14. I've Got Your Number
(3:28) 15. Tell Me Why
(1:10) 16. Everything I've Got Belongs To You
(9:34) 17. The Peacocks

Cécile McLorin Salvant has one of the most powerful voices in jazz. Which doesn't make her always easy to listen to. Sometimes she instills new meaning to an old lyric, other times she tries too hard and goes over the top. Still, at least she tries. She comes from Miami, daughter of a Haitian father and a French mother. Aware of the power of her voice from an early age, she trained in classical music, but then fell in love with the voice of Sarah Vaughan when she was 14. "I just wanted to sound as much like her as I possibly could," she recalls. She went on to win an assortment of awards, including, in 2010, the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, and attracted rave reviews. Wynton Marsalis says of her, "You get a singer like this once in a generation or two." That's a maybe. Singers that impress you are not necessarily those you'll want to hear again and again. Especially when they go into diva screech mode. But McLorin Salvant says: "I never wanted to sound clean and pretty. In jazz, I felt I could sing these deep, husky lows if I want, and then these really tiny, laser highs if I want, as well." On The Window, her fifth album, she is accompanied on nearly all tracks by pianist Sullivan Fortner. On only one, "The Peacocks," is anyone else present, this being Melissa Albana playing wispy tenor saxophone. The sparse setting grows tiresome. Highlights? There are plenty: "Ever Since The One I Love's Been Gone," singing to a live audience; "Wild Is Love," "The Gentleman Is A Dope," "Trouble Is A Man" and "I've Got Your Number" and "Everything I've Got Belongs To You." On Richard Rodgers' "The Sweetest Sounds," she is upstaged by a magnificent solo by Fortner. She sings in French on two numbers, her own "A Clef" and "J'ai L'Cafard," on which Fortner plays organ. Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere," from West Side Story, suffers from being given the big treatment and "Were Thine That Special Face" is Cole Porter at his most precious and should have been left in the dusty vault from which it was taken. ~ Chris Mosey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-window-cecile-mclorin-salvant-mack-avenue-records-review-by-chris-mosey.php

Personnel: Cecile McLorin Salvant: vocals; Sullivan Fortner: piano; Melissa Aldana: tenor saxophone.

The Window

---

Cécile McLorin Salvant - Ghost Song

Styles: Vocal
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:07
Size: 106,6 MB
Art: Front

(2:44) 1. Wuthering Heights
(7:23) 2. Optimistic Voices / No Love Dying
(3:22) 3. Ghost Song
(1:32) 4. Obligation
(6:31) 5. Until
(3:40) 6. I Lost My Mind
(3:04) 7. Moon Song
(2:23) 8. Trail Mix
(4:48) 9. The World Is Mean
(2:36) 10. Dead Poplar
(3:36) 11. Thunderclouds
(4:21) 12. Unquiet Grave

In the 12 years since Cécile McLorin Salvant arrived on the jazz scene by winning the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, she has diligently redefined the popular concept of a jazz singer. In addition to being a vehicle toward a romantic vision of emotional bliss as told in the words of the classic American songbook, Salvant has added numerous other identity tropes. She’s the cultural-studies professor examining, even interrogating the lyrics of classics. She’s the crate digger, finding nuggets from forgotten musicals and films, and obscure songs by great songwriters and singers. And she’s a storyteller, bringing an actress’ arsenal of nuanced theatricality, wit, and intelligence to her stage persona. Her accomplishments extend beyond her five albums as a leader or co-leader, several noteworthy collaborations, and three Grammy Awards. In 2020, she won a MacArthur “genius grant.”

On Ghost Song, her debut recording for Nonesuch Records, she expands her ambitions. The recording opens with a stunning cover of the Kate Bush classic “Wuthering Heights.” Salvant begins singing a cappella, bringing full operatic splendor to the verses about longing and yearning, so that when the band kicks in and she sings straightforwardly, “Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy/I’ve come home, I’m so cold,” the vulnerability and ache strike like a power chord. The other 11 tracks contain similar juxtapositions of elegance and force. The title track, for instance, starts with Salvant referencing the might of field hollers and finishes with the gentle croons of the Brooklyn Youth Choir. “Trail Mix” is a solo piece that features Salvant on piano, and on “Dead Poplar,” she sings a letter written from the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz to his wife, the legendary artist Georgia O’Keeffe. The album closes with “Unquiet Grave,” on which she sings a cappella again, bringing a symmetrical finish to a powerful recording about pain and loss.~ Martin Johnson https://jazztimes.com/author/martin-johnson/

Ghost Song

---

Cecile McLorin Salvant - For One to Love

Styles: Jazz, Vocal
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 52:57
Size: 124,2 MB
Art: Front

( 5:16)  1. Fog
( 4:34)  2. Growlin' Dan
( 2:19)  3. Stepsisters' Lament
( 2:44)  4. Look at Me
( 2:50)  5. Wives and Lovers
( 4:27)  6. Left Over
( 3:51)  7. The Trolley Song
( 2:00)  8. Monday
( 4:17)  9. What's the Matter Now?
( 6:14) 10. Le Mal de Vivre
(10:33) 11. Something's Coming
( 3:46) 12. Underling

A brilliantly realized follow-up to her Grammy-nominated 2013 effort, WomanChild, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant's third album, 2015's For One to Love, is at its core a small-group jazz album featuring a thoughtfully curated set of standards and originals. However, with Salvant at the mike, backed here with nuanced skill by pianist Aaron Diehl, bassist Paul Sikivie, and drummer Lawrence Leathers, it's also a series of virtuoso performances, each one seemingly more engaging and emotionally resonant than the last. Conceptually centered around notions of romantic love from conflicted, melancholic expressions to more bawdy, sensual ones the album finds Salvant further demonstrating the poetic compositional skills and feminist themes that helped make WomanChild so much more than just a solid album from an accomplished jazz vocalist. However, Salvant's feminism here, while finely articulated, isn't explicit. It lies more subtly in the context of her choices. Her exuberant reading of the swing-era "Growlin' Dan," a song by Blanche Calloway, Cab's lesser-known older sister and mentor, seems to symbolize Salvant's distinctly female point of view.

The same might be said of her sardonically faithful rendition of Burt Bacharach's infamously misogynistic "Wives and Lovers" or her playful take on the Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers standard "Stepsisters' Lament," in which she coyly asks "Oh, why would a fella want a girl like her?/A girl who's so unusual/Why can't a fella ever once prefer a usual girl like me?" Of course, not to split hairs, but there isn't really anything usual about Salvant. A true sculptor of song, she is the kind of singer who exerts perfect control over everything she sings, molding each musical moment at will. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, to find out that she also painted the image on the cover of For One to Love, a woman's face, Picasso askew, crying from happiness or heartbreak. It's this kind of emotional dichotomy that Salvant, with her malleable talent, is so adept at expressing. She's able to push her voice to the edge of control, but that breaking point is most likely a product of her own virtuosic illusion since she never crosses it. 

As on the poignant "Left Over," in which she sings about an unrequited love, her voice soars into a wobbly falsetto one second, and pulls back into a throaty coo the next, whispering that "his hands on mine are all I know of love, of love." This is a theatrical move, an actor's stage approach to singing in character, only it's Salvant's own composition and it breaks your heart. Salvant's originals are all lyrical, sad, and personal, revealing achingly raw emotions. On tunes like "Underling," we're left to ponder whether the song is about her ruinous devotion to a lover or her painful dedication to her creative muse. Regardless, the results are heartbreaking and beautiful. https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/for-one-to-love/id1006896734

Personnel: Cécile McLorin Salvant (vocals); Aaron Diehl (piano); Paul Sikivie (double bass); Lawrence Leathers (drums).

For One to Love

---

Artemis - Artemis

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:54
Size: 119,6 MB
Art: Front

(7:24)  1. Goddess Of The Hunt
(7:20)  2. Frida
(6:12)  3. The Fool On The Hill
(5:01)  4. Big Top
(3:27)  5. If It's Magic
(5:27)  6. Nocturno
(6:25)  7. Step Forward
(5:29)  8. Cry, Buttercup, Cry
(5:05)  9. The Sidewinder

It's truly exhilarating yet sadly mundane and reductive that a recording as vital and victorious as Artemis will be universally hailed as a first from an all- female supergroup. That it cuts across all generational, cultural, international, and ethnic planes. That Blue Note Records has expanded its ever legendary ranks to include, well, you know, a female supergroup. It's like the more we think we've gotten past these worn, tired types of qualifiers we realize all the more we really haven't.

Until that day we no longer feel the need to identify such things, we turn, as every society does, to our artists to lead, and lead Artemis does. How could it not when pianist and musical director Renee Rosnes joins equally fierce forces with tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, clarinetist Anat Cohen, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, drummer Allison Miller, bassist Noriko Ueda, and featured vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant for a tough, tight and tenacious nine song set that catches fire immediately with Miller's "Goddess of the Hunt." A wily composition that brings each member to the fore without breaking the ensemble's inherent integrity. On "Goddess of the Hunt" propelled by Rosnes' and Ueda's insistence and Miller's persistence Aldana and Jensen run the gamut as Cohen binds it all together. It's a kick-off not to be to missed.

Aldana's precocious "Frida," one of the tunes the saxophonist didn't include on her emotionally weighted study suite of the painter Frida Kahlo, Visions (Motema, 2019) weaves more space for the five to establish both an intrinsic group synergy and individual personality. Never opting out for ego's sake, Jensen's intricate rendering of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's "The Fool On the Hill" allows for each voice to freely interpret one of rock's greatest ruminations with a real time urgency for the real time absurdity we live through daily. All five minutes of Rosnes' finger snapping, toe tapping "Big Top" is sheer joy to listen to and a virtuoso testament by the septet to the Greek goddess that inspires them. Salvant makes a stunning entrance with Stevie Wonder's elegant 1977 ballad "If It's Magic." Cohen, whose high flights of fancy and in depth explorations of shadow and light throughout the album almost steals the whole show, brings the contemplative "Nocturno" for each player to color. In stark contrast of mood and style, Ueda's punchy swing-fest "Step Forward" lets us marvel at Cohen's acrobatics, Jensen's lyrical agility, and Rosnes' whimsical sense of light. It's a remarkably fluid piece. Which is a fine way to describe the whole of this debut by a crew of veterans. Inspired by the times around them, Artemis returns the inspiration tenfold.~ Mark Jurkovic https://www.allaboutjazz.com/artemis-artemis-blue-note

Personnel:  Renee Rosnes: piano; Allison Miller: drums; Melissa Aldana: saxophone, tenor; Noriko Ueda: bass; Ingrid Jensen: trumpet; Cecile McLorin Salvant: voice / vocals; Anat Cohen: clarinet, bass.

Artemis

---

Cécile McLorin Salvant & Le Jean-Françoise Bonnel Paris Quintet - Cecile

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 48:43
Size: 111,8 MB
Art: Front

(5:13)  1. Exactly Like You
(3:25)  2. Moody's Mood For Love
(3:18)  3. I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
(4:35)  4. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
(3:24)  5. Social Call
(2:27)  6. Detour Ahead
(4:06)  7. No Regrets
(4:42)  8. Frosty Morning Blues
(3:27)  9. Easy To Love
(4:36) 10. I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone
(4:48) 11. Anything Goes
(4:37) 12. After You've Gone

Cecile is the debut album from 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition winner Cécile McLorin Salvant. Recorded before her Grammy-nominated 2013 major-label debut, WomanChild, 2010's Cecile is a swinging, urbane album that showcases Salvant backed by the Jean-François Bonnel Paris Quintet. With her impeccable phrasing, bell-tone voice, and knack for picking both time-tested and unusual standards, Salvant has been hailed as one of the best jazz vocalists of her generation, all of which is evident on Cecile. ~ Matt Collar  http://www.allmusic.com/album/cecile-mw0002558144

Personnel:  Cecile McLorin Salvant – vocals;  Jean-Francois Bonnel - saxophone, clarinet;  Jacques Schneck – piano;  Enzo Mucci – guitar;  Pierre Maingourd – bass;  Sylvain Glevarec - drums

Cecile

---

Cecile McLorin Salvant - Woman Child

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 59:31
Size: 136.3 MB
Styles: Vocal jazz
Year: 2013
Art: Front

[2:59] 1. St. Louis Gal
[6:05] 2. I Didn't Know What Time It Was
[3:22] 3. Nobody
[6:06] 4. Womanchild
[5:10] 5. Le Front Cache Sur Tes Genoux
[5:13] 6. Prelude There's A Lull In My Life
[5:05] 7. You Bring Out The Savage In Me
[3:19] 8. Baby Have Pity On Me
[5:11] 9. John Henry
[6:50] 10. Jitterbug Waltz
[8:11] 11. What A Little Moonlight Can Do
[1:55] 12. Deep Dark Blue

When Cecile McLorin Salvant arrived at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC to compete in the finals of the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, she was not only the youngest finalist, but also a mystery woman with the most unusual background of any of the participants. When she walked away with first place in the jazz world’s most prestigious contest, the buzz began almost immediately. If anything, it has intensified in the months leading up to the launch of her Mack Avenue Records debut, WomanChild.

“She has poise, elegance, soul, humor, sensuality, power, virtuosity, range, insight, intelligence, depth and grace,” Wynton Marsalis asserts. “I’ve never heard a singer of her generation who has such a command of styles,” remarks pianist Aaron Diehl. “She radiates authority,” critic Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times in response to one of her post-competition performances, and a few weeks later his colleague Stephen Holden announced that “Ms. McLorin Salvant has it all.... If anyone can extend the lineage of the Big Three—Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald—it is this 23-year-old virtuoso.”

Woman Child

---