Showing posts with label Judy Renaud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judy Renaud. Show all posts

Friday, November 17, 2017

Judy Renaud & Eddie Tobin - A Time For Love

Size: 129,1 MB
Time: 55:22
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2017
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. A Time For Love (5:05)
02. A Foggy Day (3:02)
03. Early Autumn (4:43)
04. Besame Mucho (5:11)
05. Always On My Mind (3:11)
06. No Moon At All (3:21)
07. The Gentle Rain (5:08)
08. Cry Me A River (5:23)
09. The Island (5:49)
10. Everytime We Say Goodbye (5:10)
11. This Masquerade (5:04)
12. With You I'm Born Again (4:08)

I've always enjoyed the intimate club venues and the camaraderie of the local and out-of-town people I meet on a weekly basis. These are the folks that keep me going, that make me want to show up every night. They listen, they hear, and then they want to take the music home with them. This past year I spent some time in the studio with one of my favorite piano players, Eddie Tobin and we managed to record a few great songs in a short time. The result was three albums of jazz standards done the way we do them every night in the club. Just nice stuff!

Our first album, "When Love Comes Around The Corner, released in October 2016, is in it's second pressing thanks to our fans and friends. Wow! It's a great feeling to get these songs out there and to know that you, the listener, are enjoying the effort and helping make dreams and goals become realities.

"Something Cool," is the second album Eddie and I recorded this year and the title song is in tribute to one of my favorite female vocalists, June Christy. Hope I did it credit June! I am excited about this album that we released early 2017. Some great songs that don't get recorded that often anymore and they were fun to do.

"A Time For Love" is the third and final album in this series of jazz standards that Eddie and I recorded this past year and the choices here make a nice velvety bookend to the trilogy. Lots of great love songs to sit back and just listen to and enjoy. It will be released in November 2017.

I re-entered this world of music 25 years ago and have been lucky to spend time with some pretty amazing musicians both on the job and in classes and clinics. Jazz vocalists like Madeline Eastman whose credits include Director of the Stanford Jazz Clinic Vocal Workshop, and Artistic Director of Jazz Camp West who taught me to stretch, take chances and what it means to “swing” a song – no matter the tempo. Rebecca Paris, who I credit with making me aware of the importance of being authentic in my presentation of a song and telling the story so it can be understood and embraced by everyone listening. Mark Murphy who taught me why phrasing and dynamics are important in making a song interpretation my own. My husband, Tom Renaud who taught me that while I may be fronting the band, the best thing about the experience is being “part” of the band. And Diane Schuur, who after giving me a few critical pointers on presentation said, “I hope you are singing somewhere and often. You need to be heard.” Pretty fast company for me at the time. Still is! These are just some of the people who have been influential in helping me become the singer and performer I am today.

In my career I have always stuck around my home base where I live and play. Home for me was San Francisco for many years. I've also lived and worked in Ft. Lauderdale, Sacramento, Virginia Beach, Charlotte, San Jose, and for several years now, back in the Sarasota area of Florida. I've had the good fortune to perform with some of the most amazing musicians who, like me, have either stuck to their home base, or returned to their home bases after years on the road. We have the distinct pleasure of creating musical magic for ourselves and our fans. The list is long, but just to name a few musicians you might recognize, there is Steve Homan and Boyd Phelps in California. Jim Stack and Doug Henry in North Carolina. The After Six Big Band in Sacramento, opening for Pete Escovedo and Pancho Sanchez in a concert series with Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams and Louie Bellson. In the Sarasota area, Charlie Prawdzik, Fred Williams, and Mark Neuenschwander and concerts for the Sarasota Jazz Club. And for eighteen years my amazingly talented husband, Tom Renaud and I have worked a duo act wherever we've lived.

For the past five years, Eddie Tobin, my musical collaborator on this album, has become a huge part of my musical life. When we make music together it ebbs and flows, circles with energy and fun, softness and stillness, magical sounds and spaces. It just flows. We communicate and it feels good! Let me tell you a little about him.

Eddie Tobin is a piano player, arranger, vocalist, and entertainer extraordinaire and the consummate musician who truly cares about what he is presenting to the public. He started out on accordion at 5, piano at 11, and then studied music at the University of Miami with his mentor, Vince Laurence Maggio. For years he played around the Miami area, on cruise ships, and then performed all over the United States. Tell him where you are from and he has probably played there. Really! In 1987, he made Nashville his home for 15 years. He played for the Forester Sisters, opened for Kenny Rogers, played with Brenda Lee, and then became pianist and conductor for a show band for four years. Then came a seven and a half year ride as pianist, music director and conductor for Engelbert Humperdinck, performing all over the world at places like the London Palladium, Montreal’s Place Des Arts, the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, and the Kremlin Palace of Moscow and traveling to Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium, and at various casinos in Las Vegas and around the country. Over the years his repertoire has grown to include a lot of genres. He covers most of it. For the past twelve years he has resided here on the west coast of Florida and has become one of Sarasota's fraternity of fine musicians and one of the busiest musicians in the area. Aren't we lucky!

I've always enjoyed the intimate club venues and the camaraderie of the local and out-of-town people I meet on a weekly basis. These are the folks that keep me going, that make me want to show up every night. They listen, they hear, and then they want to take the music home with them. And while it's been a long time coming, this album is a result of those requests. An album of requested favorites and some personal favorites. Two more albums are in production for release in 2017. Just like the kid I was so long ago, I just couldn't stop singing my songs. It's been quite a journey so far - one I wouldn't want to have missed for the world. And far from over!

A Time For Love

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Judy Renaud & Eddie Tobin - Something Cool

Size: 140,4 MB
Time: 60:07
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2017
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. Almost Like Being In Love (3:24)
02. It Never Entered My Mind (5:33)
03. Girl From Ipanema (3:57)
04. It's Magic (4:48)
05. Love Is Here To Stay (3:41)
06. Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most (7:27)
07. Sand And The Sea (4:02)
08. I've Grown Accustomed To His Face (5:06)
09. Haunted Ballroom (2:56)
10. Stronger Than Us (3:56)
11. Something Cool (5:28)
12. Mean To Me (5:07)
13. I'll Be Seeing You (4:36)

The songs on this album are ones that have woven their way into my heart and my soul over the years because they speak to me personally and they feel good musically. They invoke feelings and memories that make me reflect and reminisce, and remind me that love is the basis for everything in life. Singing is, for me, about sharing the lyric and the melody with as much truth and emotion as possible so that you, the listener, actually feel it and get it. I hope I succeed. And Eddie Tobin, my very special and talented and hard working friend, thank you for always resting on my shoulder and having my back while providing the musical background and sharing this experience with me. Making music with you is always about the love and always seems like Carnegie Hall. It's special! And for you, the listener, thank you for sharing in my musical world! Judy Renaud

Judy Renaud has waited a long while to deliver this gift to lovers of great music (mostly by virtue of her dedication to family), but as you'll soon learn, her timing is sublime. Properly assaying these songs demands a depth of feeling that is unattainable without a lifetime of leading with one's heart, and - lucky for us - this is precisely how she has lived. So much has been written about most of these songs, that there's nothing for me to contribute here; what I will say, is that in my years of enjoying her work in various musical venues, I've never once heard Judy make an ill-advised choice in either her material, or the way she conveys it, and this recording is no exception. Her accompanist (and musical kindred spirit) Eddie Tobin, orchestrates as he goes; putting his consummate pianistic skill, marvelous harmonic sense, and constant good taste, in the service of his duo partner and her nicely diverse repertoire, resulting in a reading of the tunes which stays true to the intent of the lyricists and composers at once. Judy Renaud is immersed in the catalog from which these titles are drawn, and her husband Tom (a gifted saxophonist and singer in his own right) is a gently encouraging force for good, cheering her on at every turn. Keep it up, Tom - hopefully, lots more people can now be lifted by the expressive and touching vocal stylings which Judy brings to all these great songs; most likely, they'll wind up being as beloved by them as they obviously are by her! David Pruyn

Singers come and go (most often not quickly enough). The great majority never progress beyond the anonymity of the shower, the karaoke bar, or one of those cacophonous nightmares referred to variously as “jam sessions,” “jazz jams,” or “open mics.” Some conspire to torture club musicians by engaging in that private hell called “sitting in.” All that needs to be known about how most musicians regard this predicament is most eloquently portrayed in Dave Tull’s insightful masterpiece, “The Minutes Pass Like Hours When You Sing.”

Occasionally, however, a singer comes along who can properly be referred to as a musician whose instrument happens to be the human voice. These relatively rare individuals exhibit all the traits that serious instrumental musicians possess: spending countless hours developing their craft, expanding their musical knowledge, selectively exploring repertoire, and so forth. Whereas the dilettante merely uses music to further his or her own trivial agenda of self-aggrandizement (much in the same way that one uses a Kleenex), the real musician devotes herself or himself entirely to the service of music, sacrificing ego to render the most authentic performance possible.

In the context of this template, Judy Renaud is a musician. The first time I heard her sing, I told her that the word that best applies to her style and presentation is “genuine.” Nothing has dissuaded me from this assessment since. This CD illustrates the point beyond anything further that I can say. Listen to it, enjoy it, but not in the shower stall! Bob Hores, Indiana University Berkelee College of Music, U.H.K (University of Hard Knocks)

It has been my pleasure to play for Judy and accompany her with these songs. The world always has room for more happiness and beauty and this has been both for me. It was fun to record and is enjoyable to listen to the results of our collaboration. I hope you all feel the same way after you listen. Thank you to Judy for the beauty that she gave to the recording so nicely and naturally. ~Eddie Tobin

Something Cool

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Judy Renaud & Eddie Tobin - When Love Comes Around The Corner

Size: 140,0 MB
Time: 60:10
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. I'll Remember April (3:37)
02. What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life (6:23)
03. Over The Rainbow (6:28)
04. East Of The Sun (3:25)
05. Midnight Sun (7:06)
06. I Will Wait For You (5:03)
07. You Are My Sunshine (3:47)
08. The Frim Fram Sauce (3:25)
09. Maybe You'll Be There (5:28)
10. Out Of This World (5:25)
11. Smile (3:44)
12. When Love Comes Around The Corner (6:12)

"Some say, Doris Day - Some say, Diana Krall - You'll say, Judy Renaud - is Timeless!" What a nice quote from a great fan.

What a fun time it was having some of my best friends with me at the studio while Eddie and I were recording this album. Sharing the experience with them made it all that much more special for me. And to my husband, Tom, thank you for supporting me with patience and love in this effort to fulfill one of my dreams. "What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life" is for you. Love you forever.

And for my sons who have provided me with so much joy and excitement and love over the years I want to dedicate these three songs. “You Are My Sunshine" is for you Danny. You have always been my sunshine and always will be. For Jack Allen, it's "Over The Rainbow." You are already there son – I miss you so much. For Ronnie it's "Smile" just because it fits. Love you guys so much.

And without my great friend, Eddie Tobin, this recording never would have happened. Over the past few years you have shared yourself and your magical music and knowledge with me in so many ways, always giving me what I need whether you are playing or arranging for me and always challenging me to stretch and grow musically in all ways. You are an amazing talent and friend whom I am grateful and honored to spend time with professionally and personally. My world is a little bigger and brighter because of you. You know you own a very special corner of my heart and my soul. Thank you for letting me play in the corners of your sandbox my friend.

I wrote "When Love Comes Around The Corner" as a result of the love and encouragement from all of you. Love has come around so many corners in so many ways in my life. I am truly grateful for it all. I hope we have provided some enjoyable and thoughtful songs that might touch you with love and bring back some memories from your own lives. I do smile a lot. It just doesn't get any better than this! Thanks for listening! ~Judy Renaud

In everyone's life there comes a time when you meet special people. They may be artists, athletes, educators, friends or the person in your life that you marry. Judy and Tom are two of those special people. They are friends and musicians.

This is Judy's album with me accompanying. It was an opportunity to play solo piano with a lady who can beautifully sing a melody and create and bring out many nuances that the composer may or may not have thought about. That's jazz. She has a tone that makes you smile!

I must thank Bud, our recording engineer at The Spirit Ranch Studio. He is a real gentleman and awesome engineer. It is always a pleasure to do any kind of project with him. Way to go, Bud!

I am happy that we recorded these songs. It's voice and piano with a few strings added sparingly. It came out quite nicely and I really enjoy listening to the performances. Hope you all enjoy the album. ~Eddie Tobin

When Love Comes Around The Corner