Showing posts with label Spencer Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spencer Day. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Spencer Day - Angel City

Size: 107,6 MB
Time: 45:19
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2018
Styles: Jazz/Pop Vocals
Art: Front & Back

01. Overture (0:32)
02. Angel City (3:55)
03. Lost In La (4:06)
04. Come And Save Me (2:48)
05. I Got Love (Gold Digger) (3:59)
06. The California Yes (3:12)
07. 72 And Sunny Interlude (0:46)
08. 72 And Sunny (3:51)
09. Riding On A Broken Dream (3:05)
10. Ghost Of The Chateau Marmont (3:08)
11. Who Do You Know (2:53)
12. I Wish I Didn't Care (3:32)
13. Training Wheel (5:10)
14. Somewhere There's A City (4:17)

Spencer Day – born in Utah, raised in rural Arizona, and currently living in New York City – has wandered amid the expansive and diverse landscape of American music, developing an artistic sensibility that borrows from numerous sources: jazz, musical theater, cabaret, soul, folk, traditional and contemporary pop. He uses intuition and improvisation as his primary tools to craft a sound that is familiar, yet fresh and innovative at the same time. Day’s album Vagabond peaked at #11 on the Billboard Album Chart and stayed on the chart for 47 weeks. The lead single, “Til You Come To Me,” peaked at #3. His recent album, Daybreak, debuted at #1 on the iTunes Jazz Chart.

Angel City, his seventh and latest album, was recorded at Capitol Records with the support of the Budman-Levy Orchestra. Using the fabled city of Los Angeles as a backdrop, the recording continues Spencer’s meditations on love, fame, narcissism, and how an artist can maintain integrity and authenticity. New Yorkers will be able to find their own parallels in the themes of the songs. The album’s lyrics and melodies reveal something of a stylistic departure from Spencer’s previous records, although you’ll certainly find his unique blend of blue-eyed soul, pop and film noir moodiness from the classic jazz era. Incorporating slices of life from legends and nobodies, the city of dreams is built on projections and fantasy, light and darkness.

The Washington Post praised his “cool jazz sensibilities” and “cleverly crafted tales,” with Time Out New York calling him “a compelling, quirky singer-songwriter.” According to The San Francisco Chronicle, “his melodies are infectious, his arrangements are dazzling and, most of all, his delivery is heartfelt and, often, heartbreaking. He is not only a superb pianist, but a brilliant arranger, who consistently celebrates the partnership between his voice and the piano.

Angel City

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Spencer Day - Vagabond

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2009
File: MP3@256K/s
Time: 52:16
Size: 96,1 MB
Art: Front

(4:14)  1. Till You Come To Me
(3:20)  2. Someday
(3:24)  3. Everybody Knows (The Family Skeleton)
(4:25)  4. Weeping Willow
(4:06)  5. Joe
(3:45)  6. Vagabond
(4:37)  7. Summer
(0:44)  8. Vagabond (Reprise)
(3:51)  9. Little Soldier
(4:45) 10. Out Of My Hands
(3:45) 11. I Got A Mind To Tell You
(3:07) 12. Maybe (Tuesday Morning)
(4:03) 13. 25
(4:02) 14. Better Way

Jazz-influenced singer/songwriter Spencer Day's third studio effort and debut for Concord Records, 2009's Vagabond is a softly cinematic piece of crossover pop that positions Day as a kind of thinking man's crooner, or at least a crooning storyteller. A piano player with a burnished baritone voice and a knack for literate moody ballads, Day will of course draw quick and easy comparisons to other similarly inclined contemporaries like Peter Cincotti, Jamie Cullum, and Norah Jones which, though true enough, slightly reduces Day's own weighty album presence. Vocally, Day has a bit of the emotional swagger of Michael Bublé leavened with just enough downtrodden urban skew as to make one think Day has, at the least, listened to Tom Waits. 

This is especially true on such cathartic pop moments as the character song "Joe" and the lilting and soulful title track. Elsewhere, Day evinces a kind of '60s Elvis quality on the slippery-slick opening number, "Till You Come to Me," and brings to mind a young Harry Connick, Jr. on the slow swinger "I Got a Mind to Tell You." However, it is such superb tunes as the yearning love song "Out of My Hands" and the would-be classic "Maybe (Tuesday Morning)" that help Vagabond rise above the crossover fray and reach toward something more akin to the best of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman. Ultimately, all of Vagabond is immaculately produced, and a steady mix of strings, horns, and other "old-school" elements combined with Day's own creative merits helps color the album as a kind of latter-day traditional pop love letter. ~ Matt Collar  http://www.allmusic.com/album/vagabond-mw0000822881

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Spencer Day - Daybreak

Size: 76,4 MB
Time: 32:49
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz/Rock/Pop Vocals
Art: Front

01. Missing Tonight (3:30)
02. Naturally (2:37)
03. These Boots Are Made For Walkin' (2:57)
04. Don't Let Me In (3:53)
05. Never My Love (2:57)
06. Wait Till I Get You Alone (3:26)
07. Groovin' (3:29)
08. Bad Moon Rising (3:27)
09. World Without Love (3:27)
10. You Don't Know You're Lonely (3:02)

Far more than a crooner, vocal artist Spencer Day is cutting a unique path as one of the top vocal artists in the country! ~Brent Black / criticaljazz.com

Spencer Day does an new school riff on classic music from the 60's with the release of Daybreak. A sweeping generalization would be Day fits in with Harry Connick, Michael Buble, Michael Feinstein bunch. Nice...yet artistic comparisons in this case are grossly unfair as Day is charting his own unique course down the harmonic road less traveled.

Daybreak is a well conceived and magnificently executed gem divided into two equal parts. Five somewhat eclectic covers from the 60's and five solid originals that match up to the vibe perfectly. A couple of thoughts on why Daybreak works so well would start with the arrangements. When considering the work of song stylist Spencer Day, a respectable cover of "These Boots Are Made For Walking" would seem to be the equivalent of pulling a lyrical rabbit out of the hat. The arrangements make the Nancy Sinatra hit work along with other favorites such as "Bad Moon Rising" and "World Without Love" from Lennon and McCartney. The first single would be the original "Missing Tonight" which has the deceptively subtle feel of a song destined for the Great American Songbook.

Spencer Day has a voice that is clean, neat and with a slight smoky finish. The horns add a pop of color and texture. While still early in what is destined to be a stellar career, Day has managed to find the ability to crawl inside a lyric and make it his own. Spencer Day does not sing the words, he makes the music. ~by Brent Black

Personnel: Spencer Day: Keyboards & Vocals; Erik Kertes: Bass, Multi Instrumentalist; Matt Mayhall: Drums, Tympani, Percussion; Brett Farkas: Electric and Acoustic Guitar; John Storie: Electric and Acoustic Guitar; Jeremy Levy: Trombone; Alex Budman: Saxophone; Alan Chang: Piano and Organ; Jamie Hovorka: Trumpet; Paul Cartwright: Violin; Cliff Goldmacher: Uulele: Rayna Dae: Vocals; Kathleen Grace: Vocals.

Daybreak