Trombonist Michael Dease is on my radar ever since his brilliant Jazz Legacy Productions CD “Grace” (2010) which featured compositions by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ivan Lins, Randy Brecker, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, etc and only one original song, the title track. Also, the cast of performers on the album was top-notch with people…
One good thing about the Grammy nominations is that I usually listen back to a record or two which somehow fell under the radar. This time around, I totally neglected Tierney Sutton‘s last release (nominated as Best Vocal Jazz Album) with the songs from Sting. My favorite Police albums remain the three records the group…
Once again this year, a lot of new holiday records were released in the past weeks and even now, a new track or a single or two are coming in digitally. But there are a few new recordings that we’ve come back to over and over again this year and we wanted to give you…
Tony Monson did it again. Compiling a superb collection of “deep laid-back soulful grooves” pretty much exactly a year after the first volume came out (see review on these pages). And once again it is a brilliant mix of songs from the 70s and today’s cream of the crop. Some of the tracks already belong…
It was exactly 32 years ago today when I bought my first Matt Bianco album “Whose Side Are You On”. At the time, it was something totally new and fresh, with the signature vocals of Mark Reilly and Basia Trzetrzelewska and the keyboards of Danny White and hits like “More Than I Can Bear”, “Half…
I can’t help comparing singer, songwriter, actress, and producer Rhonda Ross to her mother, the great Diana Ross. After all, their voices are surprisingly similar. But this is where the similarities end. Thankfully, Rhonda refrains from simply copying her mother’s work so this isn’t another Motown record or a Supremes best-of kind-of collection. No, Rhonda…
There has been a big void ever since Mark Murphy‘s death in late October of last year. There is really no other male singer around with his skills, talent, style, and character. His ability to put words to well-known tunes from the jazz canon, his love for Brazilian music, his vast amount of unpredictability when…
Backed by a Chic groove reminiscent of “Chic Cheer”, Chanté Moore opened her set at B.B. King’s last night with a medley of a couple of songs from her early 90s records when she started her recording career, most notably with “Love’s Taken Over”. It was a perfect start for a pretty groove-oriented show which…
With his new album “I Thought About You”, released in September, Alexander Stewart from Manchester is now on a short tour through Germany. I know that comparisons with Michael Bublé are often made, but with Michael’s focus on more pop-oriented fare on his latest “Nobody But Me”, the swinging and crooning is now left to…
What’s coming out of Detroit these days is certainly something to check out. It is surely worth digging deeper into the local scene which is about to step out globally with the release of this excellent new single by jazz singer Kathy Kosins and singer, producer, bassist, and composer Paul Randolph. From the golden Motown…