The wonderful voice of Keely Smith first got me in the mid 80s when I discovered her “I’m In Love Again” album. Back then in 1985, after a 20-year recording break, she was already at a stage in her career where, like other popular singers such as Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Barbra Streisand,…
I came across an interview in The Vulture magazine, published yesterday, where saxophone giant Sonny Rollins was in a reflective mood with interviewer David Marchese who talked to him on the phone. “…my life has been in a reflective mode for some years now…It’s gotten more that way since I became unable to blow my…
I have good news from Detroit-based singer Kathy Kosins today. Her new album “Uncovered Soul”, a brilliant mixture of soul, jazz, and some hints at r&b, with a strong focus on actual songs, will finally be released on February 9th. Even though I have lived with the finished product for some time now, it still…
The 19th Cape Town International Jazz Festival, produced by espafrika, will be held on March 23rd and 24th in this beautiful capital of the Western Cape of South Africa. The International Convention Centre will once again be the host venue and now, the first artists for 2018 have been announced, with the second half to…
Singer Sheila Jordan posted a comment on Facebook after the death of the legendary Jon Hendricks, saying that “Jon was the first rapper on the scene.” And of course he was one of the very few who could set lyrics to difficult melodies (and it always matched) and he could perform them so gracefully and…
Those were his words describing his band and what was going on on stage. “insane, out there, weird, spacy”. Indeed, the opening number was an atmospheric track right out of space, with a heavy and thick keyboard curtain from his Korg Kronos. It was the first time that I saw the keyboard maestro with his…
It’s Thanksgiving week and we were supposed to be in New York right now. But Airberlin unfortunately had other plans. So we’re going to prepare a turkey ourselves here. And it is also the start of the holiday music season. This year again, a few interesting Christmas albums have been released. Smokey Robinson has come…
It was an interesting coincidence to open her act with “Got To Love”, a song about gentrification and about her old Brooklyn neighborhood being transformed over the years, in a new boutique hotel right in the middle of Kreuzberg’s Oranienstrasse (yes, the same street where we ended up partying all night long in the early…
After the wise and successful move to Kreuzberg’s Lido for the first two nights of this year’s festival, the remaining four days were staged at the traditional, main venue, the Haus Der Berliner Festspiele (and various club/church locations again). Friday night was the most difficult one for me. It turned out that the concert…
After the very fitting move to Kreuzberg’s Lido on the first two days, Jazzfest Berlin moved to its home location at Haus der Berliner Festspiele for the first of four concerts of artist-in-residence Tyshawn Sorey. The multi-instrumentalist is not really using a regular drum set, but rather a gigantic smorgasbord of various percussion instruments plus…