Growing up with the music of Bill Withers, I always thought that “Lean On Me” was the least attractive. Which of course still means that it’s an amazingly great piece of music, coming from the mind of this brilliant artist. And so it was this particular song last night at Neukölln’s Heimathafen where José James…
It is hard to believe that 20 years have gone by since the groundbreaking “Godsdog” album by Heidelberg-based De-Phazz. It was their second album (after “Detunized Gravity” from 1997), I was still working as a bartender in a hip Mexican restaurant in Kreuzberg (and played their music), but had already started my career in radio….
Her very first concert in Berlin turned out to be a big party for a large part of this city’s huge Brazilian community (about 4.000 Brazilians live here), so when singer Maria Rita entered the stage at Astra at about 9:30pm last night, there was a big welcoming roar. In contrast to this other Brazilian…
It adds some additional spice to have legendary background singers Maxine Waters, Julia Tillman Waters, and Clydene Jackson singing on her new album “Anthem”, which is the 8th album for this hard-to-categorize artist who nevertheless has found her own niche which is a somewhat quirky mix of folk, country, pop, soul, and jazz. Most of…
It’s been an incredibly busy summer which just last Sunday, culminated in our first ever terrace concert in our beer garden. We hosted the wonderful singer Desney Bailey who, together with Joel Holmes on keys and Daryl Taylor on bass, brought a great mix of standards and soul tunes from Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and…
It’s been two months now since my last post here – summer season is incredibly busy at our beautiful beer garden. Nevertheless, I’m constantly listening to new music and I also discovered a wonderful soul station on the web (thank you Frank). Please check out www.soulradio.nl which features a lot of the music I grew…
Apologies first of all for not posting anything in the past two weeks. It’s that time of year again when all of a sudden, the weather changed from cold and wintry over Easter to almost summer-like temperatures within just a couple of days. So we moved out again from our Prenzlauer Berg apartment to our…
Thank you Lakecia. “Rise Up” is just what we need now. Full of funky grooves, imaginative, evocative and cool sax lines, fantastic vocals which all come with a message. We can’t get enough of the ultra sexy “Flashback” at the moment and its amazingly catchy hook. What you also get on the album are all…
A solo record from guitarist Bill Frisell, who recently celebrated his 67th birthday, is also a reminder of how poetic his songwriting skills are. Some of the tunes on his album are re-recordings of former, older pieces from earlier albums. Some of them have become popular in the Frisell oeuvre, like “Rambler” for example, which…
Palatia Jazz goes into its 22nd year in 2018. Hard to believe that it’s been this long. And congratulations! The fact that internationally known acts, with a focus on Europe, play in various cities and breathtakingly beautiful locations in the hearty Pfalz region, seems like a hot recipe. If you plan to visit, don’t forget…