It would have been his 65th birthday today. While writing this, I am listening to his brilliant 1988 LP “Joy” which sums up the amazing artistry of Teddy Pendergrass. Eight classic tracks, mostly mid-tempo swayers with extraordinary background vocals and tight production. Even though the album was recorded in the late 80s when bizarre keyboard…
The last time I saw the amazing singer was in a duo setting with Raul Midón at New York’s Highline Ballroom. And her last album is the 2010 release “Fellowship”. It’s about time that Lizz Wright is coming up with something new don’t you think. Concord Records announced yesterday that she now has signed with…
Here comes a singer who defies categorization, who doesn’t want to sing the usual standards because “everything has been said”. That’s what she told me during our meeting on a late Sunday afternoon in a Kreuzberg café. But she does include one or the other better known song in her repertoire, albeit not really what…
International stars and members of the young German Jazz scene are among the artists programmed for the first ever Jazz Festival in Esslingen, near Stuttgart. On two full weekends there will be concerts, workshops, or a Jazz & Dining special. The Festival will run June 19th-21st and from June 26th to the 28th. The first…
Gina is getting ready here for her stroll through the Prenzlauer Berg Green Market where she usually collects her groceries, fish and meat for the week. She recently changed her diet to fresh meat and additional carrots, salad, cucumber, or parsnip with a dose of oatmeal and a little cotton cheese thrown into the mix….
There were many moments during singer Rumer‘s show on Thursday night at Neukölln’s Heimathafen where I was wondering if this voice was really coming from a human being. She sings like an angel, crystal-clear, with perfect pitch and flawless intonation and she writes songs in timeless and majestic Burt Bacharach style. Rumer is currently on…
Happy Birthday to the one and only Al Jarreau who is turning 75 today! The singer from Milwaukee whose latest CD is a dedication to his old friend and producer George Duke (“My Old Friend – Celebrating George Duke”, 2014), is still touring and I wanted to let you know where to catch him in…
The one-hour showcase concert was announced on a very short notice so that’s why this trio from Israel was playing before a half-empty room at A-Trane yesterday. Singer Irit Dekel, accordionist and pianist Eldad Zitrin and drummer and percussionist Elat Cohen Bonen are interpreting well-known standards in a quiet unusual way, not only because of…
The Louis Armstrong Museum in New York is among the many participants worldwide to celebrate the International Jazz Day (see report on these pages) on April 30th. The Museum, located in Queens, is showing “Louis Armstrong Live in Concert, East Berlin 1965″. Here’s what the museum’s homepage writes about the forthcoming event: “This concert was…
Lew Soloff, one of the busiest Jazz trumpet musicians, died unexpectedly yesterday after an apparent heart attack. He just turned 71 in February. It seems that he is on every second Jazz or Jazz-related LP from the 70s and beyond – his style always crisp and on the mark, with fiery solos and brimming high-notes,…