Rhoda Scott - Beyond The Sea

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 74:12
Size: 169.9 MB
Styles: B3 Organ jazz
Year: 2010
Art: Front

[ 7:14] 1. Half Moon Bay
[ 9:31] 2. My One And Only Love
[ 5:42] 3. Falling In Love With Love/By The River Saint Marie
[10:11] 4. Beyond The Sea
[ 5:56] 5. Green Dolphin Street
[ 8:16] 6. Beyond The Sea
[ 7:00] 7. Roll'em Pete
[10:26] 8. Secret Love
[ 9:51] 9. Blue Bossa

This is Rhoda Scott’s second release for Doodlin’ Records and her first live recording in the United States in many years. Hear how she thrills the audience with her patented organ style and how saxophonist Ricky Woodard and drummer Akira Tana move her forward with their energy. Vocalist Kim Nalley adds extra spice with three vocals straight from the duo performances that she and Rhoda have been known for in the Bay Area.

"For her second album, it was decided to return Rhoda to her original format of organ, tenor sax and drums. Ricky Woodard was an inspired choice and his playing here is some of the best he has put on record. Woodard has been one of the major voices on his instrument for almost thirty years and has worked with Ray Charles, the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Jimmy Smith and Jeannie Cheatham’s Sweet Baby Blues Band.

Drummer Akira Tana completes the cast. He had originally been inspired by Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey and, after studying with Alan Dawson, had worked with almost everyone of note in the New York area, including bassist Rufus Reid, with whom he co-led his own combo. He returned to his native California in 1999 and has continued his active free-lance work." ~Bob Porter

Beyond The Sea mc
Beyond The Sea zippy

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John Firmin, Dick Fegy Project - The Ripple Sessions

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:37
Size: 125.0 MB
Styles: Country, Folk, Blues, Jazz
Year: 2010
Art: Front

[4:22] 1. Dick's Fourteen Bars
[4:56] 2. Ripple
[3:11] 3. Apache
[4:58] 4. Wild Women Don't Get The Blues
[4:04] 5. The Jakester
[3:45] 6. Lee Allen
[3:23] 7. Cow Cow Boogie
[5:51] 8. Johnny Nocturne Tango
[4:05] 9. Keep Movin'
[3:12] 10. Makes No Difference
[3:20] 11. Lil Liza Jane
[4:37] 12. Dick's Goin Down The Road
[4:46] 13. Snake Eyes

Dick Fegy: banjo and mandolin, guitar; John Firmin: tenor and bass sax, clarinet, bass clarinet; Peter Ecklund: trumpet; Henry Salvia: organ, piano and accordion; Alex Baum: bass; Kent Bryson: drums; Kathleen Enright: vocals on Ripple, Makes No Difference; Kim Nally: vocals on Cow Cow Boogie, Lil Liza Jane, Wild Woman Don't Get the Blues.

The Ripple Sessions is an eclectic mix of David Bromberg, Grateful Dead-style folk, New Orleans and swing, country, and rock & roll. Most tracks featuring Dick's unique mandolin playing. Dick Fegy and John Firmin met each in the spring of 1975 when they both joined what became the legendary period of the David Bromberg Band. In the mid 1990's till Dick's passing in December 2001, John and Dick recorded a series of tunes, compositions, songs at Alex Baum's studio in Berkeley, California. In the spirit of of being complete most of the titles recorded are available. Fellow Bromberg Band member Peter Ecklund plays trumpet on several tracks helping with the eclectic mix of styles.

The Ripple Sessions

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Johnny Nocturne Band With Kim Nalley - Million Dollar Secret

Styles: Jazz, Vocal, Big Band
Year: 1999
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:47
Size: 105,5 MB
Art: Front

(5:36)  1. Million Dollar Secret
(3:54)  2. Comes Love
(3:18)  3. Fine Brown Frame
(3:47)  4. If I Could Be With You
(3:21)  5. Visegrip
(3:36)  6. I'm Stickin' With You Baby
(4:04)  7. Imagine My Frustration
(4:07)  8. Jump Tonight
(3:23)  9. Johnny Nocturne
(3:31) 10. Black Velvet / Don't Cha Go Away Mad
(2:39) 11. I'm Checkin' Out Go'om Bye
(4:25) 12. Harlem Nocturne

Saxophonist John Firmin's Johnny Nocturne Band has long been riding the top of the heap in the retro-swing sweepstakes, doing it better and longer than anybody. However, the band got a major kick in the pants with the addition of vocalist supremo Kim Nalley. A grade-A throwback to Ivey Washington, Dinah Washington, and Helen Humes, Nalley seductively purrs these tunes to life, giving a great band a great vocalist to front them. There's lots of retro swing out there, but this is the stuff that not only sounds right, but actually cooks the way this music is supposed to. Great, simply great. ~ Cub Koda  http://www.allmusic.com/album/million-dollar-secret-mw0000252585

Johnny Nocturne Band: Kim Nalley (vocals); John Firmin (leader, clarinet, saxophone); Anthony Paule (guitar); Rob Sudduth (baritone saxophone); Bill Ortiz, Pete Sembler (trumpet); Marty Wehner (trombone); Henry Salvia (piano); Tommy Kesecker (vibraphone, percussion); Alex Baum (bass); Kent Bryson (drums)

Million Dollar Secret

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Kim Nalley - Blues People

Size: 163,7 MB

Time: 70:46

File: MP3 @ 320K/s

Released: 2015

Styles: Blues/Jazz/Soul Vocals

Art: Front

01. Summertime (5:55)

02. Big Hooded Black Man (2:19)

03. Trouble Of The World (Acoustic Version) (3:55)

04. Listen Here!/Cold Duck/Compared To What (6:23)

05. Movin' On Up (6:59)

06. Never Make Your Move Too Soon (4:46)

07. Sugar In My Bowl (4:12)

08. Trombone Song (Big Long Sliding Thing) (5:55)

09. Ferguson Blues (4:46)

10. Trouble Of The World (Organ Version) (4:05)

11. The Chair Song (If I Can't Sell It) (9:06)

12. Sunday Kind Of Love (3:29)

13. Amazing Grace (4:04)

14. I Shall Be Released (4:46)

In looks, Kim Nalley exudes the aura of Billie Holiday. Vocally, she has pipes to burn, packing a 3 1/2 octave range that can go from operatic to gritty blues on a dime, projection that can whisper a ballad yet is capable of filling a room with no microphone, and the ability to scat blistering solos without ever losing the crowd's interest or the intense swing. Her song selection at times harkens back to Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, but it is delivered with the brass sauciness and R&B sensibilites of Ruth Brown. Kim Nalley's orginal songs are gutsy, bold and political with the earthiness of Mavis Staples. A consummate stage woman with a penchant for story-telling ala BB King, Nalley's concerts are always an interactive experience between the band and audience.

Her brand new CD, "Blues People," captures an extraordinary singer at the height of her amazing vocal and artistic powers. The mood and substance throughout — indeed the album in its entirety — reveal a singer who can not only sing awesomely, but also, a singer who can “really sang,” as those in the know like to say For Nalley, like Amiri Baraka, the blues range across the full continuum of human experience: sacred and secular; love and hate; joy and sadness; success and failure; highs and lows, and, the infinite crossings and mixes of these human fundamentals. Equally important, the blues are about struggle, endurance, survival, all too often “making a way where there is no way,” and transcendence. The sighs, shouts, moans, groans, and shrieks as well as the exciting call-and-response with her outstanding band not only give the album a gritty, downhome feel, these elements also reveal a searching exploration of both the distinctive and universal qualities of the worlds of Blues People.

Awarded "Most Influential African American in the Bay Area" in 2005 and "Best Jazz Group" in 2013, vocalist Kim Nalley is already being called "legendary" and "San Francisco institution." No trip to San Francisco is complete without seeing Kim Nalley perform. With an international reputation as one of world's best jazz & blues vocalists, she has graced concert halls from Moscow to Lincoln Center. A true Renaissance woman, Kim Nalley has also been a featured writer for JazzWest and SF Chronicle's City Brights, shortlisted for a Grammy nomination, a produced playwright, a former jazz club owner, an accomplished stage actress, a Ph.D. candidate in history at UC Berkeley, and an avid lindy hop & blues dancer. Her many philanthropic endeavors include founding the Kim Nalley Black Youth Jazz Scholarship.

"GOD, CAN THIS WOMAN SING! It's as if a vocalist from the great post-war blues and jazz combos had been transported to the end of the century." Blues Access Magazine

"Kim Nalley has pipes to burn and works the stage like she means it." San Francisco Chronicle

"Sultry voiced Kim Nalley brings an irresistibly sexy sense of swing, rhythmic dexterity and beautiful sound to the classic, with her crisp diction and playful delivery of earthy lines." Down Beat

Blues People

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Kim Nalley - Ballads For Billie

Size: 100,4 MB

Time: 38:45

File: MP3 @ 320K/s

Released: 2006

Styles: Jazz Vocals

Art: Front

01. Don't Explain (5:08)

02. Them There Eyes (2:21)

03. Crazy He Calls Me (2:45)

04. Fine & Mellow (3:25)

05. I'll Be Seeing You (3:50)

06. I Cover The Waterfront (3:13)

07. Body And Soul (4:32)

08. The Man I Love (2:43)

09. God Bless The Child (2:47)

10. Lover Man (4:26)

11. Strange Fruit (3:29)

Kim Nalley doesn't just sell a song. Her body dancing as her remarkably full and flexible voice sails all around and through the melody, Nalley sells the whole room - and then some.

You don't need those gardenias in her hair to realize that her tuneful, buoyant, sexy and joyfully jazzy Rrazz Room debut is one helluva tribute to Billie Holiday.

That's right, joyful. Anyone looking for an evening with the cracked husk of a voice but still fine stylings of Holiday's final years will have to go elsewhere. Nalley's "The Heart of Lady Day," which opened Thursday, celebrates the young songbird who made her voice one of the greatest of jazz instruments.

Nalley is the woman for the job. A fine vocalist, she has the range - 3 1/2 octaves - to cover everyone from Bessie Smith, whose earthy tones infuse her version of a very, young Holiday on "'Taint Nobody's Business," to the vocal pyrotechnics of Ella Fitzgerald - as she does, hilariously, in her and Holiday's takes on "Fine and Mellow." And she performs with a generosity of spirit that embraces and energizes the entire audience.

She's also a first-rate jazz historian, sketching the story of sexually abused child Eleanora Fagan's rise to jazz stardom and some of her problematic career as Lady Day between songs - just as her song stylings, and those of brilliant pianist Tammy Hall (at the head of a strong quartet), trace the development of jazz from the '30s to '50s.

The 90-minute Rrazz Room set is an abridged version of a longer tribute Nalley developed after playing the young Holiday in the play "Lady Day in Love." Thursday, she was still shaping the show on the fly, editing the song list as she went along.

It scarcely matters which songs get left out and which included. Every one Nalley and her band perform is a classic. She doesn't imitate Holiday so much as channel her spirit - at its most spirited and musically inventive - whether in evoking the familiar swing from rapid phrasings to a long drawl, swooping from angelic highs to guttural low notes or delighting in a rapid scat duet with drummer Kent Bryson.

This is the Billie Holiday of my youth, the one who sang in the club downstairs when I was an infant in Greenwich Village and whose 78s were the soundtrack of my childhood. Nalley makes her sing again. ~Robert Hurwitt. San Francisco Chronicle

Ballads For Billie

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Kim Nalley - Need My Sugar

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:37
Size: 88,6 MB
Art: Front

(3:21)  1. September In The Rain
(5:36)  2. At Last
(3:39)  3. Say It Isn't So
(6:13)  4. Nature Boy
(2:51)  5. Need My Sugar
(3:06)  6. I Was Telling Him About You
(2:59)  7. Too Close For Comfort
(4:12)  8. Goin' To New York
(6:34)  9. Our Day Will Come

Vocalist supreme Kim Nalley put her mark on the Johnny Nocturne Band's "Million Dollar Secret" album, seductively purring the band's tunes to life. On her new album "Need My Sugar," she presents a selection of nine tunes, revealing the work of a singer with an expansive musical sensibility. Backed by Etta James' pianist Dave Mathews, superlative bassist Jeff Chambers and the deft drummer Kent Bryson (who holds down the drum chair in the Johnny Nocturne Band), Nalley moves gracefully through a range of material that displays her respect for the tradition of Ivie Anderson, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington and her determination to add to the lineage. ~ Editorial Reviews  http://www.amazon.com/Need-My-Sugar-Kim-Nalley/dp/B00006SM92

"In a world where any pretty young thing is touted as the next jazz superstar, Nalley is the real deal." ~ CultureVulture - Mark Jennet

"Love the CD! I play it often both on air & at home." ~ Clifford Brown, Jr. (KBLX, KSCM)

"She can give us sugar any time she wants to. This is a CD offering some fine sounds." ~ California JazzNow -Ferdinand Maylin

"Sultry voiced 28-year-old Kim Nalley brings an irresistibly sexy sense of swing, rhythmic dexterity and beautiful sound to the classics." ~ Andrew Gilbert - Down Beat

"The entire album is a treat, 40 minutes of excellence." ~ All About Jazz - Forrest Bryant

Personnel: Kim Nally (vocals); Dave Mathews (piano); Jeff Chambers (bass); Kent Bryson (drums).

Need My Sugar

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Kim Nalley - She Put A Spell On Me: Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 55:04

Size: 126.1 MB

Styles: Jazz vocals, Soul jazz

Year: 2006

Art: Front

[4:01] 1. My Baby Just Cares For Me

[6:42] 2. On The Evening By The Moonlight

[4:11] 3. See-Line Woman

[9:23] 4. You Can Have Him

[4:23] 5. I Put A Spell On You

[7:38] 6. House Of The Rising Sun

[4:31] 7. Trouble In Mind

[4:59] 8. Mississippi Goddamn

[7:48] 9. I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

[1:23] 10. Extro (Band Introductions)

Kim Nalley (vocals) Tammy Hall (piano) Greg Skaff (guitar) Michael Zisman (bass) Kent Bryson (drums).

"Nina Simone was a singer, a social commentator, and a fighter. Often called the High Priestess of Soul, she was revered for her command of folk, blues, protest songs, and show tunes. So is it any wonder that Kim Nalley's CD "She Put a Spell on Me: Kim Sings Nina Simone" has been so popular? Nalley, whose hand in reopening the North Beach hot spot Jazz at Pearl's has made her into something of a hero in her own right, seems the perfect choice to interpret and pay tribute to the late, great Dr. Simone." -San Francisco Weekly.

"I've always been influenced by Nina Simone, " Nalley says, "by her singing and her absolutely amazing piano playing. And I've always been moved by her music and by her insistence on speaking out about civil rights and women's rights."

She Put A Spell On Me: Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone, has been shortlisted for Grammy Award consideration in the Best Jazz Vocal category (2006). Active members of the Recording Academy vote from among the CDs on this list to select the five nominees in each category that will go on to compete for the Grammy.

She Put A Spell On Me was recorded live in 2005 during a five-night run at Jazz at Pearl's, the classy San Francisco nightclub that Nalley co-owns with her husband, Steve Sheraton. The CD immediately attracted glowing reviews, not least for its impressive range of material. Nalley takes on difficult and controversial material such as "Mississippi Goddamn," Simone's protest of anti-civil rights terrorism, moving jazz ballads like Irving Berlin's "You Can Have Him, " African chant in "See-Line Woman" and well-known folk tunes such as "House for the Rising Sun." The degree to which Nalley succeeded in capturing the essence of Nina Simone's spirit, while remaining true to her own musical heart and style, has now been made clear once again by this well-deserved recognition from the Grammy Awards nominators for She Put A Spell On Me: Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone.

She Put A Spell On Me: Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone

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Kim Nalley - Alta Plaza Live!

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 1999
File: MP3@224K/s
Time: 71:12
Size: 118,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:16)  1. Summertime
(3:53)  2. Love Me Or Leave Me
(2:35)  3. I Got A Right To Sing The Blues
(4:48)  4. I Wanna Be Around
(4:01)  5. When You're Smiling
(4:24)  6. Dentist Song
(5:16)  7. Stormy Weather
(5:34)  8. St. Louis Blues
(4:17)  9. Miz Celie's Blues (Sister)
(3:09) 10. Presentation
(5:03) 11. We'll Be Together Again
(5:43) 12. Over Rainbow
(5:03) 13. Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby
(4:47) 14. Route 66
(8:07) 15. That's All
(0:09) 16. Kim Chant Applause

Michael Tilson Thomas produced this rare live recording May 25, 1999, featuring an acoustic band including Kim, singing WITHOUT AMPLIFICATION. This no easy task because Kim routinely ended her show singing on top of the bar. Mark Leno presents an award.  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/KimNalley1

Kim Nalley is an award-winning vocalist, bandleader and producer residing in San Francisco. With a formal background in classical music and theater, Kim Nalley's star ascended upon switching to Jazz. Her resume includes several CDs, numerous rave reviews, yearly concerts at some of the most prestigious jazz festivals and jazz-clubs throughout Europe, Canada, Japan & the USA, performing with everyone from Michael Tilson Thomas & the San Francisco Symphony to David “Fathead” Newman. Her acting credits include leading roles in “Swing!” and Madame Zinzanni in Teatro Zinzanni. She is the producer of several successful musical-historio-graphical shows in various venues including “Ladies Sing the Blues,” “She Put a Spell on Me: Tribute to Nina Simone” and the multimedia presentation of jazz “Black History Month Concert Series.” She also is the resuscitator and owner of the famous jazz club “Jazz at Pearl's.”  http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/kimnalley#.U3ejFii9a5w

Alta Plaza Live!

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