French-born synth and keyboard ace Wally Badarou recorded with the group Level 42 between 1980 and 1994 and also graced albums by Gwen Guthrie, Grace Jones, Black Uhuru, Robert Palmer, Herbie Hancock, and many more. His most well-known solo recording, at least to these ears, is the 1983 instrumental “Chief Inspector” from his album “Echoes”….
Singer Kenia, who grew up in Rio de Janeiro and moved to the US in 1980, now living in Pittsburgh, continues her streak of recordings that combine contemporary Brazilian material with US standards and top-notch production. The title track opens the set, with lyrics by the great Lorraine Feather. Thick keyboards from Mark Soskin and…
So the story goes that Norah Jones met Wayne Shorter two years ago at the 75th birthday celebrations of her label, Blue Note Records, at Washington’s Kennedy Center. The story also goes that this was the inspiration for her latest release “Day Breaks”. Wayne Shorter is prominently featured on four tracks here, even though he…
The much anticipated Soul Togetherness edition for this year is finally out and it is, yet again, a great round-up of consistently high-quality modern soul. The 15-tracker starts out with a deep disco-dance groove with the ever so graceful Jocelyn Brown on “Don’t Quit” by Dutch house producers Diephuis & Eastar. I already can’t get enough of…
There are new twists on pianist and composer Orrin Evans‘ new album – adding the guitars of Kurt Rosenwinkel and Kevin Eubanks is just one of them. The short electronic gimmicks over his piano lines on the opening and final title cuts show another face. The interaction of his piano, Kevin’s guitar and the sax…
You might as well call Macy Gray‘s new album “The Real Macy” – it is simply her best yet because of three simple things: the studio technique, the master musicians, and of course her exceptional voice, too. The recording, her first for the audiophile Chesky label, was done with just one mic and it features…
Madeleine Peyroux recorded her latest country/folk/jazz/blues album in a church in Great Milton, Oxfordshire or in the middle of nowhere. Her partners are Jon Herrington on guitar and Barak Mori on bass. And the repertoire is a potpourri of different styles and genres we’ve become familliar with: Songs by Tom Waits (“Tango Till They’re Sore”),…
So this time around, after so many different projects with guest singers and what have you, the Experiment is back to its core design: all four artists have written tracks for the new album and all of them take over vocal duties, too. Robert Glasper, bassist Derrick Hodge (also with a new album out), drummer…
Prince, Barry Manilow, Cyndi Lauper, Kraftwerk, and Peter Gabriel all on one album – a cover album by piano trio extraordinaire The Bad Plus. It is anyone’s guess if the title of the album refers to the difficult process of finding suitable cover songs for an album like this or to the fact that it can indeed…
The multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Derrick Hodge has released his second album on Blue Note called, well, “The Second”. This time around though, he has played all the instruments himself (almost all). The Marcus Miller-like bass lines on the opening title track pave the way for this ultra-relaxed, somehow experimental, always entertaining set which is…