Sherrie Maricle - Live Concert

Styles: Swing, Bop
Year: 1993
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 77:16
Size: 183,5 MB
Art: Front

( 7:47) 1. Cherokee
( 6:48) 2. Day Dream
( 7:53) 3. I Wanna Be Happy
( 6:40) 4. Zoom Blewz
(10:28) 5. Django
( 6:46) 6. Air Mail Special
( 7:01) 7. If I Had You
( 7:29) 8. Perdido
( 8:01) 9. Blues For Dear Bobby
( 8:20) 10. Fascinating Rhythm

From the drum set Sherrie leads The DIVA Jazz Orchestra, her quintet FIVE PLAY and co-leads the 3Divas. From Carnegie Hall, she performs with The New York Pops and from celebrated stages everywhere, she is music director and drummer for Broadway star Maurice Hines. Sherrie is also a busy freelance performer and a published composer/arranger.

With her bands Sherrie has performed at many of the world’s most acclaimed music venues and festivals; from Lincoln Center to the Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl, to Jazz Festivals in Germany, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Ireland, England, Croatia, Japan, Vietnam and Israel and beyond. Additionally, DIVA was featured at the 2017 NEA Jazz Master’s Awards Ceremony, the soundtrack for the NBC-Macy’s Fireworks Spectacular; on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, on TCM’s televised broadcast of the 25th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center and NHK Japan’s New York Jazz. The band also co-stars in the award-winning documentary film The Girls in the Band.

Sherrie has received several awards and honors which include a 2016 Audelco Award for “Best Musical” – Tappin’ Thru Life; a 2014 Ovation award for “Best Music Direction” in Tappin’ Through Life; the 2009 Mary Lou Williams-Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award, a 2013 State Department grant for FIVE PLAY to tour Vietnam, a tour grant from Arts International, The Kennedy Center Alliance Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts, a grant from Meet the Composer, a Doctoral Fellowship from New York University, the New York City Music Educator’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and was twice selected New York University “Music Teacher of the Year.”

As an educator, Sherrie runs a private drum set and percussion studio. She is also a clinician for Yamaha Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Aquarian Drum Heads and Vic Firth Drum Sticks. On a national level, she has served as guest conductor, soloist and adjudicator for many collegiate and high school jazz and All-State festivals. Sherrie also created and directs Musical Magic, a hospital outreach program for The Ronald McDonald House New York.

After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 from Binghamton University Sherrie moved to New York City and attended New York University, where she completed a Masters of Arts in Jazz Performance in 1986 and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Jazz Performance/Composition in 2000.

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra’s 25th Anniversary Project (2018, ArtistShare) is the band’s most recent Cd, featuring original music composed by band members. In 2019 FIVE PLAY released “LIVE” at The Firehouse Stage (independent) and in 2016 the 3Divas recorded their self-titled inaugural Cd (independent) “LIVE” at WVIA Radi0.https://maestramusic.org/profile/sherrie-maricle/

Live Concert

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Chihiro Yamanaka - After Hours 2

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:27
Size: 122,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:35) 1. Fly Me To The Moon
(4:03) 2. Wakey, Wakey
(4:09) 3. Drift Apart
(4:11) 4. Just One Of Those Things
(4:52) 5. Georgia On My Mind
(5:05) 6. I'll Close My Eyes
(4:08) 7. Moanin'
(4:09) 8. Beautiful Love
(6:14) 9. Skating In Central Park
(6:07) 10. Autumn Leaves
(5:48) 11. I Didn't Know What Time It Was

Chihiro Yamanaka, Universal Music/Blue Note recording artist, is one of the most exciting jazz pianists and composers of her generation, and the leader of the Chihiro Yamanaka Trio. The new Chihiro Yamanaka CD, Somethin' Blue, is her Blue Note Records debut.

Chihiro has been a Universal Music/Verve recording artist since 2005, the same year in which she was named Swing Journal’s “Best New Artist." On the occasion of Universal's recent acquisition of Blue Note Records in time for Blue Note’s 75th anniversary Chihiro made the move to Blue Note. As a newly minted Blue Note artist, she has been a big part of the 75th anniversary celebrations, including a concert at the Blue Note Tokyo in which she performed with all-stars including bassist Ron Carter.

Chihiro, who most often performs and records in trio format, assembled a sextet for the Somethin' Blue sessions and created a new compositional universe that places this 2014 album in the lineage of classic Blue Note recordings. Her impressive technical mastery of the piano combines with her improvisational command to make her a member of the pantheon of great pianists who have recorded for Blue Note throughout its history.

Chihiro’s music pivots between her strikingly original compositions and her unique arrangements in which she accomplishes the impressive feat of introducing the element of surprise into some of the most famous songs in the jazz repertoire, contemporary popular music, and even the works of classical composers.

On Chihiro's 2013 CD, Molto Cantabile, she lovingly fractures classical gems, including one that has become a staple of her live shows, Beethoven's "Für Elise," which is exposed to an improbable series of kaleidoscopic variations which could withstand the involvement of knuckles and which let loose a torrent of effects that could lead the listener to wonder whether it's the music of Beethoven or of Thelonious Monk. As this unusual music unfolds, one could easily imagine both Beethoven and Monk looking on with astonishment and, ultimately, complete approval.

Chihiro took this concept in a different direction with her Beatles tribute, the 2012 CD Because, a groundbreaking disc that features some of the most creative reworkings of Beatles classics ever recorded. Along with the title track, “Because” (from Abbey Road), Chihiro transforms such great songs as “Yesterday” and “Michelle” into glittering vistas of her musical imagination.

Chihiro does all of her studio recording in New York City, working with some of the greatest talent in jazz. Her recordings have featured prominent artists such as Jaleel Shaw, Ben Williams, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard, Kendrick Scott, Gene Jackson, Vicente Archer, Robert Hurst, Yasushi Nakamura, Yoshi Waki, John Davis and Bernard “Pretty” Purdie.

Chihiro performs regularly on three continents. In New York City, Chihiro’s home base, her latest appearance was a spectacular March, 2015 concert with her trio at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center, where she played to a sellout crowd. Her New York appearances in recent years have also included Iridium Jazz Club, the Blue Note and Carnegie Hall.

Chihiro is active on the west coast (with repeat appearances at Yoshi’s San Francisco, Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, and Dizzy's in San Diego), in Boston (Café 939, Regattabar), where her popularity is influenced by her status as a Berklee graduate, and in the Washington/Baltimore area (Blues Alley, Kennedy Center, An die Musik, Warner Theater). Among the highlights was her concert that opened the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, a set that was selected for broadcast on National Public Radio's "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater."

In Japan, Chihiro performs to sellout audiences at large venues across the country, and all of her Universal CDs have topped the Japanese jazz charts. As a classical pianist, she has performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue with major symphony orchestras. She has become a multimedia celebrity in Japan, hosting her own radio show, making TV appearances, and authoring a book, The Landscape With Jazz.

Europe is fertile ground for Chihiro’s tours, which have included the Umbria Jazz Festival, Bologna Jazz Festival, Sunset-Sunside in Paris, Blue Note Milan, A-Trane in Berlin, the major venues and festivals in Rome including Auditorium Parco Della Musica, Roma Jazz Festival and Alexanderplatz, and a recent weeklong engagement at Marians Jazzroom in Bern, Switzerland.

Keeping pace with Chihiro’s whirlwind touring schedule is her prolific international recording career with Universal Music and Blue Note Records. In the past three years she has had six CD releases. Besides Somethin' Blue, Molto Cantabile and Because, they include After Hours 2, the U.S. release of Reminiscence, and a compilation, My Favorite Blue Note, on which Chihiro served as producer and contributed original music. In the same period Chihiro and Universal also have released an EP, Still Working, and two DVDs, Live In New York, videotaped at Iridium Jazz Club, and Live at Blue Note Tokyo. A Chihiro Yamanaka DVD gives her fans the opportunity to experience on video the spectacular visual presentation that has been seen by anyone who has witnessed the fireball of energy and virtuosity on display at a live Chihiro concert appearance.

Chihiro has received numerous awards, including Jazz Japan’s “Album of the Year” and the Japan Gold Disc Award for best-selling jazz record of the year, along with acknowledgments from critics, fans and musicians for her recordings and live performances. Jazz Life Magazine called Chihiro “one of the greatest jazz talents in decades,” and the late George Russell hailed her as “a very gifted and imaginative musician.”

In JazzTimes Magazine, Giovanni Russonello wrote an enthusiastic review of Chihiro's set at the 2011 Umbria Jazz Festival, opening for Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Marcus Miller. “Opening for the Tribute to Miles band with her trio, the Japanese pianist tore into two originals at the top of her set…When she announced ‘Take Five,’ the crowd let out a gleeful 'ahh' but they weren’t ready for the voracious reharmonization, full of upward-creeping bass lines and chromatic descents, or her mid-song interpolation of 'In Your Own Sweet Way,' retrofitted in 5/4 time. Right and left, jaws were dropping."Chihiro Yamanaka, Universal Music/Blue Note recording artist, is one of the most exciting jazz pianists and composers of her generation, and the leader of the Chihiro Yamanaka Trio. The new Chihiro Yamanaka CD, Somethin' Blue, is her Blue Note Records debut.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/chihiro-yamanaka/

Personnel: Chihiro Yamanaka - piano; Avi Rothbard - guitar; Yasushi Nakamura - bass; Yoshi Waki - bass

After Hours 2

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JoosTVD - Just Say kNOw

Styles: Jazz Funk
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 34:35
Size: 81,1 MB
Art: Front

(3:04) 1. Not Now
(3:48) 2. The Vanished Romeo
(2:48) 3. Indie
(1:48) 4. My Cat Is Stoned
(2:56) 5. Loaded
(4:38) 6. Gameface
(3:09) 7. Rottendance
(3:28) 8. Crest Of A Wave
(3:51) 9. There's No Sense In Making Sense
(1:35) 10. All The Way
(3:20) 11. Not Ever

When you are a really competent musician who just wants to have fun, the result is JoosTVD. Just Say Know is 11 songs worth of expertly played, groovy, smooth progressive funk. The project’s style is very interesting and out there, not conforming to traditional songwriting and instrumentation.

There’s a playful mood to the record there’s a song about one’s cat partaking in weed, for goodness’ sake! But what strikes us most is how much fun JoosTVD is having performing such tricky, jazzy, funky parts. It’s a lovely thing to observe and hear, yet JoosTVD is never comical or goofy.

Just Say Know is clearly a labor of love and that shows through the masterful songwriting, tight performance, and challenging, compelling song structures. This is a progressive project, after all, and the person behind it did one hell of a job!

If you ever wondered how Faith No More may sound if they dialed back the edginess, give Just Say Know a spin.https://blog.drooble.com/joostvd-want-you-to-just-say-know-to-progressive-funk/

Just Say kNOw

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Simon Spillett Big Band - Dear Tubby H

Styles: Jazz, Big Band
Year: 2023
File: MP3@128K/s
Time: 68:13
Size: 63,2 MB
Art: Front

(6:28) 1. Dear Johnny B
(5:44) 2. As Close As You Are
(5:46) 3. Take Your Partners For The Blues
(6:21) 4. Fish Soup
(4:04) 5. Star Eyes
(4:56) 6. Soft And Supple
(6:44) 7. Rumpus
(5:15) 8. Peace
(5:22) 9. Seven Steps To Heaven
(3:35) 10. Solweig
(6:33) 11. Blues For Pipkins
(7:19) 12. She Insulted Me In Marrakech

Superlatives along the lines of ‘tour de force’ do little justice to this new recording by the Simon Spillett Big Band; an album of rarely heard, newly rediscovered arrangements from the library of the Little Giant himself ~ Tubby Hayes.

Simon Spillett has long been recognised as the keeper of the Tubby Hayes flame. His life, his work and his legacy may well be residing only in the distant memories of those that were there were it not for Spillett’s tireless efforts to remind the jazz public of his immense contribution to British jazz.

The story of how a pile of dog-eared, yellowing manuscript was ultimately rescued and restored after 50 years is fascinating in itself. The mere fact that these wonderful charts weren’t, at some point along the line, thrown in the bin is a minor miracle! Let’s not think about that. Instead let’s concentrate on this heroic feat of musical archeology.

Spillett’s enthusiasm for Tubby’s work led to him being sent, over the years, all manner of Hayes-related artefacts, information, lost recordings and, eventually, lost big band charts. Enough, as it turned out, to record a full albums-worth of material separate to that found on Tubby’s two recorded large ensemble outings Tubbs Tours and 100% Proof.

Enter Mark Nightingale who not only takes his place in the trombone section but also assumed the Dr Frankenstein role of bringing the scores to life. There were missing parts to consider, various copyist errors and the small matter of the poor quality of the original paper after having languished in a dark corner for so many years. One can only imagine the “it’s alive” moment as the band played the opening bars of the first chart at the first rehearsal.

Enter Pete Cater, ace drummer and bandleader in his own right. Also a permanent member of Simon Spillett’s quartet, Cater’s passion for the project has found him wearing several hats at once – producer, executive producer, record company boss as well as percussionist!

Sixteen of Britain’s finest section players, soloists, bandleaders and arrangers make up the Simon Spillett Big Band. It’s as it should be. Tubby’s band was an equally all-star outfit.

This is not an album that features a solitary star soloist (Spillett) endlessly blowing over a series of brass and reed backing figures. Solo’s are distributed equally and skilfully among the band personnel with Spillett featuring himself on just two of the twelve tracks choosing, instead, to fill the role of conductor and catalyst.

From start to finish the whole album crackles with an infectious energy. The reed passages, at times intricate and snakelike, are delivered flawlessly. The brass offer knockout punches with expert precision one minute and beautifully gentle melodic lines the next. The rhythm section swings relentlessly accenting the brass, at times, for even more impact. Each soloist positively shines. This band sounds like a happy band! The feeling of camaraderie and mutual respect is plainly evident on each and every track.

The music itself manages to sound contemporary and yet ‘of its time’, and in equal measure. Post Swing-era the big band was presented with a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge was to stay as a relevant and vibrant art form outside of the dancehalls that had created it in the first place. The opportunity was to see, free of the shackles of commercialism, how the recent developments in small group jazz could be incorporated into the large ensemble. Many established bandleaders that had enjoyed enormous success during the 1940’s fell into obscurity; left behind by a new generation that grabbed the big band from the brink and reinvented it. Twenty years later the original Tubby Hayes big band began performing these arrangements. Over fifty years later, Spillett and his crew resurrect them; breathing new life into them. There’s something in this story that connects all the dots, completes a chapter in British jazz history and, hopefully, opens up a new one.

Dear Tubby H reminds us of how so many great jazz musicians revelled in a big band setting. None less so than Tubby Hayes himself. Simon Spillett and his orchestra have created something way beyond a tribute or homage to Tubby. It serves more as a love letter to the continuing vibrancy of great big band jazz as much as it honours Hayes himself. It’s an album that is beautifully played and beautifully recorded by all involved; one which deserves to sit proudly on the record shelves of any discerning jazz lover.By Denny Ilett
https://londonjazznews.com/2023/10/07/simon-spillett-big-band-dear-tubby-h/

Personnel: Simon Spillett – musical director and tenor saxophone; Sammy Mayne – alto saxophone/flute; Pete Long – alto saxophone/flute; Alex Garnett – tenor saxophone/clarinet; Simon Allen – tenor saxophone/clarinet; Alan Barnes – baritone saxophone/bass clarinet; Nathan Bray – trumpet/flugelhorn; George Hogg – trumpet/flugelhorn; Freddie Gavita – trumpet/flugelhorn; Steve Fishwick – trumpet/flugelhorn; Jon Stokes – trombone; Mark Nightingale – trombone; Ian Bateman – trombone; Pete North – trombone; Rob Barron – piano; Alec Dankworth – bass; Pete Cater – drums

Dear Tubby H

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Linda Woodson - Come A Little Closer

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:30
Size: 88,5 MB
Art: Front

(5:05) 1. Stolen Moments
(4:34) 2. FHJ
(4:38) 3. Feeling Coy
(2:34) 4. I'm In
(4:35) 5. All Roads Lead To Nashville
(5:23) 6. You Are Something Special
(6:03) 7. La Costa
(4:35) 8. Come A Little Closer

Linda Woodson is a US singer songwriter with a penchant for soulful, lounge jazz. She’s been making music since 2006 and she’s just released her fourth album, ‘Come A Little Closer’. The paucity of her releases is probably down to the fact that Ms Woodson also has another ”career”; she’s a fully qualified dermatologist!

The new 8 tracker is named for Linda’s version of the Broadway show tune and easy to hear why its name’s out there. It’s a big production (gorgeous strings) and showcases the purity of the singer’s voice. The album’s other covers are the Latino ‘La Costa’ (an Aziza Miller song best known in its Natalie Cole version) and ‘Stolen Moments’ (a jazz standard written by Oliver Nelson, to which Linda has added lyrics).

The remaining five songs are Woodson originals which she says: “reflect the diversity in my music and through this journey I was able to weave the many facets of my life.” Amongst the highlights are ‘FJH’(Faith, Hope, Joy’) a sweet and precise item; the busy, bustling ‘I’m In’ and ‘All Roads Lead To Nashville’ which, you won’t be surprised to learn, has a country flavour. By Bill Buckley
https://www.soulandjazzandfunk.com/news/come-a-little-closer/

Come A Little Closer

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Bill Gati - Piano Expressions

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:36
Size: 117,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:12) 1. All of Me
(4:51) 2. April in New York
(2:23) 3. Bye Bye Blues
(4:17) 4. Building Blocks
(2:07) 5. Good Times
(4:08) 6. Hit It
(1:41) 7. Joy
(4:11) 8. Love Song
(4:29) 9. Love
(3:32) 10. May in New York
(9:13) 11. Peace in the Valley
(5:25) 12. Something Else

William Gati Bom April 1O, 1959, in Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil Initially trained as a classical pianist (he studied at Juilliard from the age of 8), William Gati has been drawn to Jazz while studying with the great John Lewis (Modern Jazz Quartet). After graduating from City College (1981), he has played in various church venues and has been influenced by gospel music. He has also been involved in directing and performing in musicals and has been influences by the Broadway Show style. His greatest strength, however, is in improvising and performing jazz standards and original compositions.

He has been influenced by Sir Roland Hanna (a good friend and Professor at Queens College), John Lewis (another friend), Herbie Hancock, Dr. Billy Taylor and Duke Ellington. He has performed with various local Jazz artist such as John Dooley (bass),Hank Holzer (drums), Premik Tubbs (wind), and John Smith (drums). He has played in Lincoln Center, Queens College, Forest Park Band Shell, local halls and various other venues.

He has three CD's independently produced called "Piece of Pie," "Box 0' Chocolates," and "Intricate". All three recordings are collections of original jazz compositions written, performed and recorded by Mr. Gati. He explores various musical concepts in a truly jazz style.

William Gati is also a talented saxophonist, vocalist, writer, architect (he is registered) and painter. He believes that we must all let the music out from within us. His work has been featured in many books and articles for example "Who's Who in the East," "Who's Who in the World," "Newsday," "Creations in Space," and "Personality Types".

His jazz style is soulful, smooth and technical all in various proportions. He loves to play straight-ahead jazz but particularly enjoys playing original compositions. His performances are lively and interesting because they are spontaneous and inspired by the moment. He will play the piano, play the saxophone and sing (but not all at the same time) as well as tell stories and inspiring anecdotes. He can put on a very entertaining, creative and memorable performance
.https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/bill-gati/

Piano Expressions

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Adi Braun - Live At The Metropolitan Room

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 64:22
Size: 147.4 MB
Styles: Jazz vocals
Year: 2008
Art: Front

[5:40] 1. That Old Black Magic
[4:45] 2. Witchcraft
[5:59] 3. That Old Devil Moon
[7:23] 4. That Ole Devil Called Love
[3:17] 5. Love Me Or Love Me
[4:36] 6. Easy To Breathe
[4:40] 7. You Do Something To Me
[6:09] 8. Besame Mucho
[4:54] 9. Honeysuckle Rose
[5:43] 10. Miss Celie's Blues
[3:36] 11. Night And Day
[3:10] 12. Some Other Time
[4:24] 13. Ocean Eyes

"You really should record a live album" is what I have heard now for a few years from friends and colleagues. "But how and when and what if it's not perfect?" has been my question. "Perfect!" has been their answer.

New York has become a second home for me over the past few years and I am filled with excitement every time I sing in that crazy and wonderful city. New Yorkers are unparalleled in their support and enthusiasm for good music and I have been very fortunate to have sung at several great venues there, including the fabulous Metropolitan Room, which is where this CD was recorded.

I loved making my two previous albums, The Rules of the Game and Delishious, and learned much about the process of putting together a studio recording. But since the very essence of jazz is one of freedom, spontaneity and "being in the moment", it made sense to me, at this point in my career, to embark on my first live recording. Though we didn't plan to turn the evening of October 26th into a live recording, which would have meant using a multi-track recording technique (instead of the one-track recording technique that was used, which doesn't allow for any "fixes" later on), all the stars shone in our favour that night.

From the piano that had just been tuned the day before, to the great skills of recording engineer Jean-Pierre Perreaux, to all the special people in the audience, and to the fact that all the musicians - myself, pianist Tedd Firth and bassist Steve Watson - were very much in synch and having tremendous fun that night everything seemed like a blessing for this project. One song that was not a part of this show was my own composition, "Ocean Eyes"; by popular demand, I have included it here as a bonus studio recording.

I had called my show "Heart to Heart" and my intention was to musically engage in an open and heart-felt dialogue between singer, song and audience. So sit back and relax as you are about to listen to as "naked" and truthful a delivery of music as I could have hoped for - joyful and honest. ~Adi Braun.

Live At The Metropolitan Room

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Chihiro Yamanaka - Lach Doch Mal

Styles: Piano Jazz 
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:18
Size: 124,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:01)  1. Quand Biron Voulut Danser
(3:58)  2. Sabot
(5:41)  3. Serenade To A Cuckoo
(3:54)  4. RTG
(4:25)  5. The Dolphin
(2:51)  6. Night Loop
(4:14)  7. One Step Up
(0:45)  8. Lach Doch Mal
(5:35)  9. Liebesleid
(4:54) 10. Mode To John
(7:06) 11. What A Diff'rence A Day Made
(5:49) 12. That's All

Chihiro Yamanaka is an internationally renowned, hard-swinging jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, whose fluid, athletic technique has drawn rave reviews and very favorable comparisons to legends such as Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum. She is based in New York. Yamanaka was born in Kiryu, in Japan's Gunma Prefecture, in 1976. At age four she began formal piano studies. While she began with classical music and still practices it, she shifted her focus to jazz studies in high school. After graduation she attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston as part of the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residency program. She played with a wide range of musicians in Boston and in New York before heading back home to Japan after she graduated from Berklee in 2000 with honors and took first place in Down Beat's Outstanding Performance Award competition.Temporarily returning to Japan, she began her recording career there in 2001 with Living Without Friday, the first of four annually released titles issued by the Japanese label Atelier Sawano. Nonetheless, Yamanaka's long-player gained notice immediately from critics and radio stations. Her 2002 follow-up, When October Goes, hit the top rungs of the Japanese jazz charts, and word began to spread among fans and critics across the Pacific back to America. Yamanaka had reached the level where she could tour not only in her home country but also Europe and select U.S. dates. During this time she was also a member of DIVA, the all-female big band led by drummer Sherrie Maricle. Yamanaka also performed with the DIVA spin-off quintet Five Play, who backed Marlene VerPlanck on her 2003 album It's How You Play the Game, all while continuing to tour and release her own recordings.

In 2005 she signed a worldwide deal with Universal's Classics and Jazz division and issued her North American debut with the trio effort Outside by the Swing, recorded in New York City with drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts and bassist Robert Hurst. Yamanaka immigrated to the States and issued the audio-video package Lach Doch Mal in 2006 with Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard. While neither record made the jazz charts in the States, they reached the Top Five in Japan and upped the pianist's reputation to the degree that she became a global nomad, touring in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Arriving in 2007, Abyss was her first recording to feature drummer Kendrick Scott and bassist Vicente Archer, who became her working trio. She broke the trio mold with 2009's Runnin' Wild, where her piano fronted a sextet. On 2010's Forever Begins, bassist Ben Williams replaced Archer in her trio. The following year saw the release of Reminiscence, which placed a live performance at the Iridium in New York with a studio album that featured Yamanaka in three different trio settings. In 2012 Yamanaka released the first of two tribute albums, Because, a loving nod to the Beatles on which she backed by a quartet played not only piano but synthesizer, organ, guitar, ukulele, and harmonica. 

Because was followed by the standards releases After Hours and After Hours 2. In 2013, she offered her tribute to classical music with Molto Cantabile. In 2014, Yamanaka moved from Verve to the Universal-owned Blue Note label just in time for its 75th anniversary. Her debut, Somethin' Blue, was a sextet offering, and in addition to originals offered striking renditions of Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco" and Herbie Hancock's "I Have a Dream." It reached into the Top Five on the jazz charts. She followed it the same year with Syncopation Hazard, her tribute to Scott Joplin. Yamanaka returned to the trio format for 2016's Blue Note-issued Guilty, which placed her original compositions alongside select pieces by Hoagy Carmichael. Near the end of 2017, Yamanaka produced and arranged Monk Studies. She played acoustic and electric piano, synth, and Hammond B-3 organ in an almost exclusively Monk program backed by drummer Deantoni Parks and bassist Mark Kelly. ~ Thom Jurek https://www.allmusic.com/artist/chihiro-yamanaka-mn0000283696/biography

Personnel: Chihiro Yamanaka(piano).

Lach Doch Mal

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Céline Rudolph - Soniqs

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 48:21
Size: 111,9 MB
Art: Front

(3:30) 1. Good News
(4:49) 2. Seven Butterflies
(6:30) 3. Sundance
(2:01) 4. Birds In The Sky
(5:43) 5. Inner Room I
(5:35) 6. The Sun In Me
(5:51) 7. Footprints
(4:26) 8. 69 Année Érotique
(7:16) 9. Inner Room Ii
(2:36) 10. The Muse

Vocalist and composer Céline Rudolph glides between Berlin, São Paulo, Paris and New York, between tongues and genres, always landing in the very heart of music. „Music is like breathing, it was there ever since I could remember“ Céline Rudolph says and recollects how her father always played a break when jamming on the guitar, so that there was a space for his children to create improvised lines or percussive fills. Born in Berlin and raised with her parents’ rich record collection, the daughter of a Frenchwoman from Bordeaux and a cosmopolitan musical enthusiast from Berlin, started singing along with an LP from João Gilberto performing the Brazilian classic “Rosa Morena” to an LP at the age of five. Her mother was singing French chansons to her at home, while Céline learned to play Nat Adderley’s “WorkSong” on her recorder.

She picked up the piano and started composing as an autodidact, then started writing French songs on the guitar, which became her main tool of expression. In short: multi-path orientation was on the cards from the very beginning. After university studies of rhetorics and philosophy, she realized that music exerted a much stronger pull, so she switched to a degree in vocal jazz and composition at Hochschule der Künste Berlin with mentors David Friedman, Jerry Granelli, Kirk Nurock and Catherine Gayer. Soon, she plunged into African music and studied with the percussionist Famoudou Konaté in West Africa. Her love of Brazilian music led her to São Paulo where she met Rodolfo Stroeter who produced three of her albums and four tours across Europe and Brazil so far: The albums are BRAZAVENTURE, METAMORFLORES (enja records) and SALVADOR (Verve,Universal).

Since 2015 she is collaborating with New York based Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, having recorded the duo album OBSESSION and then playing together at 12th Jarasum Int. Jazz Festival in South Korea. “This is a very unique project because there are no boundaries. I knew from the start that we are kind of from the same tribe,” says Lionel Loueke. Since then, the duo toured Europe, Asia and Africa (including a tour to West Africa on behalf of the Goethe Institute). The album OBSESSION reached the annual list of the German Critics Award „Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik“, and won Céline Rudolph the prestigious German Jazz Award ECHO JAZZ 2018 for best jazz vocalist. Now, praised as „a jewel of European jazz vocals“ by the French radio station, TSF, having recorded numerous albums with many wonderful musicians including Gary Peacock, Bob Moses, Naná Vasconcelos, Diego Figueiredo and Marcos Suzano, and esteemed by colleagues like Bobby McFerrin, Lee Konitz or Jay Clayton, the adventurous pearl fisher sailed from Berlin to Brooklyn for her new album PEARLS (out 21st of June 2019).

Co-producer Jamire Williams: „I’ve never heard anything like Céline’s music, she writes in such a unique way, and her vocal sound is second to none. Her vibes and flow in connection with what our band has created make this production so special.“ Besides performing with Lionel Loueke and PEARLS, Céline Rudolph started a solo programme combining loops, effects, percussion and guitar.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/celine-rudolph

Soniqs

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Fay Victor - Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 40:09
Size: 92,9 MB
Art: Front

(2:38) 1. Black Woman's Music
(2:48) 2. Breezy Point Ain't Breezy
(3:53) 3. Vocal Layer of Pandemic Doom (Dedicated to All the Loved Ones We've Lost)
(5:22) 4. Scared To Be Happy
(3:46) 5. Governorship/Senate (For Stacey Abrams)
(5:10) 6. How Can You Do It?
(5:55) 7. I Will Be Erased
(6:21) 8. Signs (A Question For Sages Everywhere)
(4:14) 9. Trust The Universe

“Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful is the very first solo record by Fay Victor, whose 30-year-long music career has covered everything from House, New Music, Jazz (Blues) and Free Improvisation. Her deep history with dance music, her genreless output, and her lived experience as a Black woman in the world shaped the brand new process she used to create this prismatic album which touches on all the decades of her life like diary snapshots. It’s a mesmerizing collection of composed work that could only be made by an extraordinary improviser.

From hearing the raw, almost gospel vocal style over a heavy beat of Donna Summer and Sylvester, to obsessing over shows like Soul Train, Solid Gold, and Dance Fever on TV, to experiencing the sweat and groove, the freedom of bodies moving at NYC clubs like Danceteria, The Loft, and the Paradise Garage – her life changed forever. As she was developing as a jazz singer in Amsterdam in the 90s, she danced to trance music in clubs like Mazzo and The Soul Kitchen. She landed on the Billboard charts with a club hit “You Make Me Happy” in ’91. Stoned on the sacred dance floor, Fay found ecstasy in the moving body, the groove, the beat.

As she entered deeper into the world of jazz, she was attracted to the rhythmic qualities of Thelonious Monk, Eddie Harris, Eric Dolphy, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Betty Carter, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Nicole Mitchell, Milford Graves, Julius Hemphill, Charles Mingus, Herbie Nichols. Their confrontational rhythm sends her soul leaping, connecting her back to her clubheadheart.

With Mavin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” as a template, Fay started thinking about how her solo album might unfold. She sang, played keyboards, added textures and further dimensions with no other humans, without electronics. That was her process. Thoroughly creative, composed with music and words straight from her spirit.”
https://www.fayvictor.com/2023/08/25/new-fv-album-blackity-black-black-is-beautiful-released-today/

Blackity Black Black Is Beautiful

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Chris Connor - Softly And Swingin'

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 34:19
Size: 79,5 MB
Art: Front

(3:08) 1. Softly As In A Morning Sunrise
(4:57) 2. 'Round Midnight
(3:44) 3. Cry Me A River
(4:09) 4. Misty
(3:48) 5. Someone To Watch Over Me
(2:55) 6. Fool On The Hill
(3:06) 7. I've Gotta Be Me
(2:29) 8. What The World Needs Now
(2:55) 9. It's All Right With Me
(3:02) 10. Goodbye

Chris Connor has won every conceivable critical and popular accolade in her half century reign as one of the most gifted and distinctive vocalists in jazz history. Born in 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri, Connor studied clarinet, but her career direction was clear at an early age. “I always knew I wanted to be a singer,” she said, “I never wanted to be anything else.” After completing her schooling, she took a secretarial job while commuting on weekends to the University of Missouri to perform with a Stan Kenton-influenced college jazz band. An admirer of Kenton singers Anita O’Day and June Christy, Connor recalls, “I had my sights set on singing with Kenton.”

Frustrated by the lack of vocal musical opportunities in her hometown, Connor pulled up stakes and headed east in 1949. She was hired by Claude Thornhill and spent the next five years touring with his orchestra. Then, while appearing with Jerry Wald’s band, she received the phone call she had been dreaming of. June Christy, Stan Kenton’s current vocalist, had heard Connor on a radio broadcast and recommended her to the orchestra leader, who chose her from dozens of other vocalists eager for the job. “My voice seemed to fit the band,” Connor said, “with that low register like Anita’s and June’s.

Connor’s ten-month stint with Kenton during 1952-53 won her national recognition. Her haunting recording of Joe Greene’s ballad “All About Ronnie” announced the arrival of a fresh new artist. But the years of one-night stands, fast food and interminable bus rides soured Connor’s enthusiasm for life on the road. “By that time, I’d endured about six years of one-nighters and I’d just about had it.” To this day she values the musical training she received with Kenton, especially the skills relating to time, phrasing and “how to come in on exactly the right note while 18 or 20 musicians are playing their parts.”

Determined to forge a career as a solo artist, Connor returned to New York and signed with Bethlehem Records in 1953. Her three albums for that independent label, featuring Ellis Larkins, Herbie Mann, Kai Winding and J.J.Johnson, established her as a major jazz voice. In 1956, she began a six-year association with Atlantic Records that produced a string of chart-topping recordings arranged by Ralph Burns, Al Cohn, Jimmy Jones and Ralph Sharon, showcasing a host of jazz legends - John Lewis, Oscar Pettiford, Lucky Thompson, Phil Woods, Kenny Burrell, Milt Hinton, Clark Terry, Oliver Nelson and, in a particularly memorable pairing, Maynard Ferguson’s big band.

The rock youthquake of the late ’60s and ’70s derailed the careers of many jazz artists, but Connor persisted, performing in clubs, touring Japan and recording for a variety of labels. The early ’80s resurgence of interest in jazz singing revitalized her career, leading to a brace of highly-acclaimed Contemporary CDs. In the ’90s she began to record for the Japanese label Alfa. Connor recorded two CDs with jazz pianist Hank Jones and his trio, “Angel Eyes” and “As Time Goes By.” She then recorded two additional CDs with her own quintet, “My Funny Valentine,” arranged by Richard Rodney Bennett, and “Blue Moon,” a collection of movie songs, arranged by Michael Abene.

The new Millennium brought the timeless singer into yet another recording agreement, signing with the New York based High Note Records in 2000. Her first release, “Haunted Heart,” also arranged by Michael Abene, was released September 2001, and a second CD "I Walk With Music," was released in 2002, also with Michael Abene arranging and producing.

Chris then returned to another Japanese label and recorded "Lullaby Of Birdland" for King Record Co.Ltd, with pianist/arranger David Matthews. It was released in September 2003.

Of her current singing, Connor said, “I haven’t changed my approach, although my voice has become deeper and softer, and I don’t experiment as much. When you’re young, you overplay as a musician and you over-sing as a singer because you’re trying all these ideas, and I was throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I’ve eliminated a lot of things I used to do. The simpler it is, the better it works for me.” She remains, as critic Larry Kart proclaimed in the Chicago Tribune, “a dominating vocal presence whose music is full of hard-earned wisdom and truth.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/chris-connor/

Personnel: Chris Connor (v), Shungo Sawada (g), Takashi Mizuhashi (b), Hideo Ichikawa (p), George Otsuka (d).

Softly And Swingin'

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Martial Solal - Live in Ottobrunn (Solo Piano)

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2022
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 94:06
Size: 216,4 MB
Art: Front

( 5:45) 1. My Funny Valentine
( 3:32) 2. Histoire De Blues
( 7:26) 3. Tea For Two
(10:20) 4. Caravan - Sophisticated Lady - Satin Doll
( 6:50) 5. I'll Remember April
( 2:12) 6. Brother Jack
( 7:30) 7. Lover Man
( 5:22) 8. Cherokee
( 8:23) 9. Improvisation
( 6:44) 10. Coming Yesterday
( 7:02) 11. Happy Birthday
( 3:58) 12. Here's That Rainy Day
( 8:04) 13. Round Midnight
( 6:13) 14. Köln Duet, Improvisation
( 4:40) 15. My One And Only Love

This concert was recorded on December14 2018, just a month before Solal’s final concert in Paris. Like the final concert it is difficult to believe that the playing is the work of a man of over ninety. Solal gives no indication that the years have slowed him down, playing with all the zest and exuberance of a young man intent on establishing his reputation. Sadly, these two concerts are the work of an artist saying goodbye. And what a farewell.

The gap between the ideas and the fingers for most of us is unbridgeable: for Martial Solal there is no gap. the fertile mind invents variations, multiple rhythms. Solal is simply one of the greatest pianists to have graced jazz. He is in the pantheon with Tatum, Monk and Powell. Fortunately, Solal at Ottobrunn chose to play solo and that is the best way to appreciate his work.

You have to listen to Solal, listen intently, he compels attention. His has a deliberately limited repertoire rather like Lee Konitz, largely restricted to standards. How many times has he played ‘Round Midnight’? Hundreds? At least. His facility and Autorun invention can be seem like cleverness but it is more than that. He parades his variations not to be clever but so that we can share his joy and delights as he finds other avenues in the tune to explore. Note the use of the left hand which explores darker sonorities and almost seems as though he loses the theme. Not that he does. Solal is not one of those pianists who refer to a theme at the beginning and then a reprise at the end. The theme is there throughout, sometime hiding in a thicket, sometimes cleverly disguised, a musical sleight of hand, but it is always there. He will use classical techniques; he will pull in shades of Debussy, Ravel to overlay Ray Noble’s ‘Cherokee’.

The challenge from Solal is clear. He credits the audience with sophistication. He says to the audience: here is the theme; you probably know it; you have heard it before; now listen as I improvise on the theme: you can judge the quality of my improvisation because you know exactly what I am doing; how innovative I am; you can hear the variations; judge the quality of the variations.

Never forget that Solal likes to joke. Sometimes, in his halting English, he will joke verbally with the audience. He is also happy to create musical jokes. Jazz can be very po-faced, taking itself too seriously: listen to ‘Brother Jack’ or ‘Happy Birthday’ as the fugues roll out.

In some ways Solal is a musical cubist. He deconstructs a tune or theme and rearranges the component parts just as Braque and Picasso did with painting, enabling multi viewpoints. Picasso created his own 45 variations on ‘Las Meninas’ a painting by Velazquez graphic improvisations paying homage to the original painter. Solal has created many versions of Ellington pieces like ‘Caravan’ deepening our understanding of the pieces and Ellington.

Avoidance of the cliche is his constant quest, and he does avoid them. The delightful album, is a triumph, it is beautifully recorded and will be evidence for future generations who will be able to see how comprehensively the amazing pianist was under-rated. By Jack Kenny https://jazzviews.net/martial-solal-live-in-ottobrunn/

Live in Ottobrunn (Solo Piano)

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Echoes Of Swing - Harlem Reflections

Styles: Swing
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:59
Size: 126,1 MB
Art: Front

(3:19)  1. Hold My Hand
(3:19)  2. April In My Heart
(4:34)  3. The Mooche
(3:52)  4. Love Nest
(4:11)  5. I Dreams Come True
(3:30)  6. Russian Lullaby
(4:19)  7. Swinga-Dilla Street
(2:51)  8. Flamingo
(4:46)  9. Love For Sale
(3:58) 10. How High The Moon
(3:59) 11. I Repent
(3:31) 12. When Lights Are Low
(4:19) 13. Gone With The Wind
(4:25) 14. Just One Of These Things

Free from any museum nostalgia, the four musicians take their inspiration from the gigantic treasury of swinging jazz, from Bix to Bop, from Getz to Gershwin, while constantly searching for the hidden, the unexpected, the exquisite. The Great American Song book and the immeasurable recordings of great Jazz pioneers form the humus for the creativity of the combo, with astonishing arrangements, virtuoso solos and expressive compositions of their own. Two horns, drums and piano. This unique, compact formation permits the greatest in harmony and flexibility and allows freedom for an agile, exact ensemble.  

The group thrives on a mixture of clever arrangements and interaction of improvised dialogue, performing for, and with one another. The contemporary interpretation of an enormously varied repertoire and not last the humorous moderation and spontaneous stage presence, has helped gain ECHOES OF SWING great popularity and made the ensemble a much renowned and celebrated attraction on the international jazz scene. Sixteen years of touring have led the ECHOES all across Europe and the USA, to Japan, New Zealand and even the Fiji Islands. The exceedingly diverse musical development of the band is in the meantime impressively documented on five CDs.  The last ECHOES OF SWING album ‘Message from Mars’ received the ‘Prix de l’Académie du Jazz’ in Paris, and in Germany was awarded the ‘German Record Critics' Award’. Bio ~ https://www.actmusic.com/en/Artists/Echoes-Of-Swing/Biografie

Personnel: Colin T. Dawson - trumpet & voc, Chris Hopkins - alto sax, Bernd Lhotzky - piano, Oliver Mewes - drums

Harlem Reflections

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Lake Street Dive - Side Pony

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 40:19
Size: 92.3 MB
Styles: Pop/Soul/Funk
Year: 2016
Art: Front

[3:47] 1. Godawful Things
[4:17] 2. Close To Me
[3:25] 3. Call Off Your Dogs
[2:31] 4. Spectacular Failure
[3:37] 5. I Don't Care About You
[2:45] 6. So Long
[2:13] 7. How Good It Feels
[3:02] 8. Side Pony
[3:22] 9. Hell Yeah
[4:07] 10. Mistakes
[3:24] 11. Can't Stop
[3:43] 12. Saving All My Sinning

The four band members drummer Michael Calabrese, bassist Bridget Kearney, singer Rachael Price, and guitarist/trumpeter Michael "McDuck" Olson—worked with Nashville based producer Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Secret Sisters) on the record. Cobb's working method was to keep the recording fast and loose, as live-in-the-studio as possible, and to embrace the unorthodox. This provided Lake Street Dive with a welcome challenge: an opportunity to experiment with sound and arrangements and to collaborate on songwriting in a way the band had never attempted before.

Side Pony takes its name from a song on the record that refers to a whimsical hairstyle, but it also serves as a metaphor for Lake Street Dive's philosophy and personality as a band. As Kearney puts it, "When we were settling on the album title, that one just stuck out to us as embodying the band's spirit. We've always been this somewhat uncategorizable, weird, outlying, genre-less band. That's the statement we wanted to make with this record: be yourself."

Olson echoes her sentiment: "It has also come to mean anything you're doing for the sheer joy of it. We have always 'rocked our side pony.' Now we have a convenient phrase for it." Calabrese says of the recording process, "Dave's process was mercurial, changing direction quickly, going from 'we don't have anything' to 'we've got it!'" He continues, "We weren't always so sure. But then we'd listen to a comp and we'd agree that he'd heard something we hadn't." Price adds, "It was great to see, through this particular recording process, how beautifully our individual strengths complement each other."

Side Pony

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John Zorn - 444

Styles: Avant-garde Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:40
Size: 107,0 MB
Art: Front

(4:25) 1. Splendour Solis
(7:35) 2. Retort
(2:59) 3. In Sulphur And In Flame
(7:31) 4. Astral Projection
(3:29) 5. Civil Disobedience
(5:49) 6. With Blood I Summon Thee
(5:38) 7. Salt And Mercury
(9:11) 8. Tayy Al-Ard

John Zorn’s work is abundant and consistently good, often great. It is reliably intriguing and fascinating. Sometimes I feel as if I’m repeating myself in these reviews (check out this Zorn review, and this one, and this one, and tell me if I’m lying), but the music is never repeating itself, either because there are new structures, new partners, new ingredients into the mixture, or new improvisations by old partners.

Brian Marsella (electric piano), John Medeski (organ), Matt Hollenberg (electric guitar), and Kenny Grohowski (drums and percussion) form a group for the ages. The electric piano always sends me back to Bitches Brew and you might consider that a limitation for me but its ability to float between shimmering elegy and wild abandon is unmatched. You can do things on the electric piano you can’t do anywhere else (as Sun Ra taught us), and Marsella does so many of those things on 444.

I spotlight Marsella because his voice drew my attention first. The four musicians are the quartet Chaos Magic, which started as Marsella+Simulacrum (a “heavy metal organ trio”). They are bound by the expectations of heavy metal or organ trios. “In Sulphur and in Flame” is a thrashy speed fest with the guitar sounding like an ax counting time. “Astral Projection” sounds like it could live behind a montage of Audrey Hepburn and a bombed-out city in France, just as the plants are starting to grow back.

Shifting time signatures and jump scares are par for the course, as are evocations of beauty. The electric piano arpeggios that open “Tayy al-Ard,” with the shimmering cymbals underneath, are poetically powerful, pensive and filled with curiosity. The guitar and organ come in to lay a field, but the tune relies on persistence and repetition to say what it needs to say. By Gary Chapin
https://www.freejazzblog.org/2023/08/john-zorn-fourth-way-and-444.html

444

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Bill Gati & The Roaring 20's Band - 8 By 8

Styles: Swing
Year: 2016
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 29:48
Size: 68,8 MB
Art: Front

(3:08) 1. 'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do
(4:31) 2. Ja Da
(3:22) 3. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
(5:37) 4. Indiana
(3:44) 5. You Made Me Love You
(2:22) 6. Margie
(3:56) 7. I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate
(3:04) 8. There'll Be Some Changes Made

These are “mood setting” originals that intend to create emotional reactions in the listeners. The idea is to express emotions and feelings inspired by architecture and space. Since I am also an architect, I view music as an extension of space and form. I perform weekly at the Water’s Edge Restaurant in Long Island City, NY. I experiment with different styles, tempo and volume to see how people react to the music.

My conclusion is that music does more to set the mood and change people’s emotions than anything else. Music is the ultimate conveyor of emotion. The best music is able to express.http://www.apianoman.com/store/

Personnel: William Gati - sax; Adrian Cunningham - tenor sax, clarinet; Vinny Raniolo - guitar; Charlie Caranicas - trumpet; Harvey Tibbs - trombone; Chris Pistorino - bass; Rob Garcia - drums; Martina DaSilva - vocals (1, 3, 5, 7)

8 By 8

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Lake Street Dive - Bad Self Portraits

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:11
Size: 89.7 MB
Styles: Pop-Soul
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[3:22] 1. Bad Self Portraits
[3:32] 2. Stop Your Crying
[3:35] 3. Better Than
[2:12] 4. Rabid Animal
[3:27] 5. You Go Down Smooth
[3:57] 6. Use Me Up
[3:29] 7. Bobby Tanqueray
[5:02] 8. Just Ask
[3:39] 9. Seventeen
[4:14] 10. What About Me
[2:37] 11. Rental Love

Lake Street Dive is powered by the voice of Rachael Price; it's what hits you first when you listen to this quartet. It's a ringingly clear, strong voice, a sound that's at once beseeching and in control. Price regularly harmonizes with the other members of Lake Street Dive bassist Bridget Kearney, drummer Mike Calabrese and Mike Olson, who also plays guitar and trumpet.

When Lake Street Dive performed "You Go Down Smooth" amidst all the big stars T-Bone Burnett had gathered for his Inside Llewyn Davis tribute concert, it provoked cheers. The song, like much of Lake Street Dive's material, looks to the past in this case, a driving pop-soul '60s sound. One thing that raised Lake Street Dive's profile was a YouTube video of the group performing the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" on a Boston street. It's racked up more than a million views, popular for the way it not only displays the group's talent, but also frames it as something both spontaneous and studied, a throwback to doo-wop groups crooning on street corners. This is the kind of thing that plays to the least interesting thing about Lake Street Dive: the privileging of technique over originality, the domestication of music that was once more unruly. You can sometimes hear this on Lake Street Dive's original material, in a song such as "Rabid Animal," which is catchy but hardly embodies the fervid intensity implied by rabidness.

Price also has a career as a jazz vocalist, performing with musicians such as Joshua Redman and T.S. Monk. And she's released solo albums that include interpretations of standards like "Skylark" and "Serenade in Blue." There's a mood to this music that Lake Street Dive occasionally captures in a song such as Bridget Kearney's composition "Better Than." When you look at YouTube videos of Lake Street Dive performing covers such as The Mamas and the Papas' version of "Dedicated to the One I Love," what you get is not a fresh interpretation of a song initially made famous by the 5 Royales and the Shirelles, but rather a very nice Mamas and the Papas impersonation. But enough times on this album to make it worth your while, Lake Street Dive powers past nicety to connect with the passion that brings blood and sweat to the tears that heartache songs need in order to thrive. ~Ken Tucker

Bad Self Portraits

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The Australian Jazz Quintet - In Free Style

Styles: Jazz, Swing
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:26
Size: 97,8 MB
Art: Front

(5:33)  1. Swingin' Goatsherd Blues
(5:53)  2. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
(4:29)3. Takin' a Chance on Love
(4:36) 4. The Way You Look Tonight
(4:32)  5. I'll Remember April
(4:05)  6. Detour Ahead
(3:35)  7. Too Marvelous for Words
(9:41) 8. Take Three Parts Jazz: Rout 4

The group was formed in 1953 by three Australians and one American. The group was unusual in that it featured bassoon, flute, and vibraphone along with the more conventional jazz instruments, saxophone, piano, bass, and drums. Australians Errol Buddle (bassoon and tenor saxophone), Bryce Rohde (piano), and Jack Brokensha (vibraphone and percussion) arrived in Windsor, Canada during 1952-1953. These three planned to form a group and tour the U.S., but visa difficulties initially prevented this, so they settled down to local work in Windsor. Then, Phil McKellar, a Jazz DJ at CBE Windsor, arranged for them to record radio programs and for Brokensha and Rohde to play at the Killaney Castle in downtown Windsor. This led to Brokensha appearing across the border in Detroit on a local WXYZ-TV show and for him to obtain employment visas enabling the three musicians to play in the U.S.

They soon met American (b. 1929, Youngstown, OH) Richard J. (Dick) Healey (alto sax, clarinet, flute, bass) at recording sessions in Detroit, and together the four musicians began playing as a quartet on weekly TV shows and performances at the Kleins Jazz Club.

Early 1954 appearances on the Detroit WXYZ-TV show "Soupy's On" led comedian Soupy Sales to recommend the group to a Detroit suburb club owner Ed Sarkesian to accompany jazz vocalist Chris Connor for two weeks at the club (Rouge Lounge in River Rouge, a Detroit suburb)  and to have the group perform between each of her sets. Since Buddle had been playing bassoon regularly with the Windsor Symphony, Healey and Rohde quickly decided to make arrangements for the flute-bassoon-vibes combination, giving the group a distinctive sound. This unusual instrumentation created much interest in the quartet, not only from jazz enthusiasts, but also from classical music aficionados. During the two week engagement with Connor, Sarkesian contacted Joe Glaser of Associated Booking Corporation in New York. Sarkesian named the group The Australian Jazz Quartet/Quintet, and based on a quickly recorded 78 disk, he garnered a five-year contract with ABC and Bethlehem Records for the group. Sarkesian then became the group's personal manager, which worked out very well because he also soon became a major promoter of jazz concerts and festivals.

Under the new arrangement with ABC the AJQ performed at the Blue Note in Chicago; and on a concert in Washington DC. with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Carmen McRae. Soon they began playing at clubs like The Hickory House, Birdland (jazz club), Basin Street, and the Roundtable in New York; the Blue Note, Modern Jazz Room, and Robert's Show Room in Chicago; Storyville in Boston; Jazz City in Los Angeles; Macumba in San Francisco; Sonny's Lounge in Denver; Peacock Alley in St. Louis; Rouge Lounge in Detroit; Peps and Blue Note in Philadelphia; Midway Lounge in Pittsburgh; Colonial in Toronto, Ball & Chain in Miami and many others. At many of these clubs the AJQ shared the band stand with well-known groups such as the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Les Brown Orchestra, Johnny Smith Quartet, Bud Shank Quartet, Miles Davis, Pete Jolly Trio, J. J. Johnson, Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet, Art Blakey Quintet, Teddy and Marty Napoleon Quartet, Bud Powell Trio, Thelonious Monk, Conte Candoli/Al Cohn Quintet, Ahmad Jamal Trio, Don Shirley Trio, Lee Konitz Quartet, Woody Herman, Billie Holiday and others.

National concert tours took place in 1955-57. In 1955 there was the "Modern Jazz Show" with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Gerry Mulligan, and Carmen McRae. In 1956 there was "Music For Moderns" with Count Basie, Erroll Garner, the Kai Winding Septet, the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. In 1957, there was again "Music For Moderns" with the George Shearing Quintet, the Gerry Mulligan Quintet, Chico Hamilton, Helen Merrill, Cannonball Adderley, and Miles Davis.

These tours included performances at major concert halls, including Carnegie Hall in New York. The AJQ appeared on several national television shows, the most notable being the Steve Allen Tonight Show, The Dave Garroway Today Show, The Arthur Godfrey Show, In Town Tonight Chicago, and the Ed Mackenzie and Soupy Sales Shows from ABC in Detroit. On the Radio they were heard on CBS's "Woolworth Hour", NBC's "Monitor", and ABC's "Parade of the Bands".

During 1955 to 1958 the AJQ recorded seven albums under the Bethlehem label. The first album, distinguished by its cover illustrated by four side-by-side kangaroos, was a 10" LP recorded in February, 1955 and featured arrangements of eight standard songs. A 12" version of this album, released in 1956, added three standards and one original song by bassist Jimmy Gannon, who also assisted on the recording. Meanwhile, another album, this one with scores of kangaroos on its cover, was released with 10 songs including two originals, one by Gannon and the other by Healey.

In 1958 the group travelled to Australia for The Australian Concert Tour for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Also, there were TV and Radio Broadcasts, and, in Melbourne and Sydney, there were concerts with Sammy Davis Jr. These performances were broadcast nationally by the ABC. After the 1958 tour the group members decided to terminate the AJQ and become independent performing and recording artists. However, reunion concerts occurred in Adelaide in 1986 and 1993, and a recording of the 1993 concert was distributed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Jazz_Quartet


Personnel: Alto Saxophone – Dick Healey;  Bass – Jerry Segal;  Drums – Osie Johnson;  Piano – Bryce Rohde;  Tenor Saxophone – Errol Buddle;  Vibraphone – Jack Brokensha

In Free Style

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Michael Dease - Swing Low

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 65:45
Size: 151,6 MB
Art: Front

(5:16) 1. Dancing In The Dark
(5:30) 2. Don't Look Back
(5:58) 3. Appreciation
(5:20) 4. Phibes' Revenge
(7:06) 5. Just Waiting
(6:00) 6. Melancholia
(7:13) 7. Galapagos
(6:11) 8. New Blues
(7:00) 9. Up High, Down Low
(4:11) 10. Julian's Tune
(5:56) 11. Embraceable You

Really rich sounds from reedman Michael Dease a baritone player, and one who handles the large horn with effortless ease taking us back to some of our favorite bari players of the 50s who could carve out a line as if they were swinging an alto or a tenor!

The rest of the group have an equally compact sort of vibe tight, yet always thoughtful, as they pack plenty into each of their solo spaces, while also coming across with that sharp sound as a whole that can make the best Posi-Tone sessions so great! Ingrid Jensen plays trumpet, Art Hirihara plays piano, Boris Kozlov handles bass, and Rudy Royston is on drums and on three tracks, Altin Senclar also joins the group on trumpet.

Titles include "New Blues", "Galapagos", "Appreciation", "Don't Look Back", "Melancholia", and "Just Waiting". © 1996-2023, Dusty Groove, Inc.

Musicians: Michael Dease - baritone saxophone; Ingrid Jensen - trumpet, flugelhorn; Altin Sencalar - trombone on #7,8,10; Art Hirahara - piano; Boris Kozlov - bass ; Rudy Royston - drums

Swing Low

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Johnny Dodds - New Orleans Jazz

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 73:56
Size: 169.3 MB
Styles: New Orleans jazz, Clarinet jazz
Year: 2016
Art: Front

[3:10] 1. Wild Man Blues
[2:54] 2. Come On And Stomp, Stomp, Stomp
[2:33] 3. Clarinet Wobble
[3:13] 4. After You've Gone
[3:27] 5. Billy Goat Stomp
[2:47] 6. Drop That Sack
[2:49] 7. Weary City
[3:23] 8. Flat Foot
[2:49] 9. Forty And Tight
[2:40] 10. Ballin' The Jack
[3:13] 11. Blue Clarinet Stomp
[2:53] 12. Bull Fiddle Blues
[2:56] 13. Too Tight
[2:52] 14. Someday, Sweetheart
[2:41] 15. Grandma's Ball
[3:13] 16. Bucktown Stomp
[2:42] 17. Carpet Alley-Breakdown
[3:02] 18. Gatemouth
[2:51] 19. Red Onion Blues
[2:55] 20. San
[2:48] 21. Get 'em Again Blues
[2:53] 22. Pencil Papa
[3:06] 23. Perdido Street Blues
[2:50] 24. Piggly Wiggly
[3:05] 25. Weary Way Blues

One of the all-time great clarinetists and arguably the most significant of the 1920s, Johnny Dodds (whose younger brother Baby Dodds was among the first important drummers) had a memorable tone in both the lower and upper registers, was a superb blues player, and held his own with Louis Armstrong (no mean feat) on his classic Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. He did not start on clarinet until he was 17 but caught on fast, being mostly self-taught. Dodds was with Kid Ory's band during most of 1912-1919, played on riverboats with Fate Marable in 1917, and joined King Oliver in Chicago in 1921. During the next decade, he recorded with Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and on his own heated sessions, often utilizing trumpeter Natty Dominique. He worked regularly at Kelly's Stables during 1924-1930. Although Dodds continued playing in Chicago during the 1930s, part of the time was spent running a cab company. The clarinetist led recording sessions in 1938 and 1940, but died just before the New Orleans revival movement began. ~bio by Scott Yanow

New Orleans Jazz

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