The guys from Real Side Records just released their fifth edition of “Soul On The Real Side”, a collection of twenty soulful cuts ranging from 1970 to 2015. As usual, there are real hard-to-find tracks on the album as well as contemporary tunes from Lisa Stansfield (1993) and R Kelly (2015). Several of the songs…
Singer Erin Bode first came to my attention through a couple of brilliant albums on the equally brilliant, now defunct, MaxJazz label: “Don’t Take Your Time” (2004) and “Over And Over” (2006). The former featured the hard-to-categorize jazz/pop/folk singer on more than a dozen tracks, ranging from fascinating originals (like the title track) to pieces…
Little Jacob Collier spent a lot of time in the music room of his family’s home and after years of spending thousands of hours there and filling the room with an abundance of sounds, he has now ended up on Quincy Jones‘ label. I saw him back in January during the annual APAP convention and…
There is a very long string and backing vocal intro on “Cold Little Heart”, the opening track of Michael Kiwanuka‘s long-awaited second album, produced by Danger Mouse, Inflo, and Paul Butler. After the haunting overture, Michael’s signature warm voice cushions a midtempo soul groove which ends up in an ambitious 10-minute little hymn. Michael’s serious…
Gina and I have been listening to a lot of new and recent releases in the last couple of weeks so we wanted to give you a quick rundown on a few of those: Singer Kat Parra has come up with a collection of eleven songs showcasing everything Latin from mambo to bossa nova, from…
It is a collection of songs that popular Brazilian singer Marisa Monte has released under the title “Colecao”. Songs that were recorded between her 1989 debut (the phenomenal “MM”) and today, sometimes with added vocals, sometimes with a new mix, always with heart and soul. That’s the core element here: the heart and soul of…
Vibraphonist Warren Wolf opens his third album with “Soul Sister”, one of six original compositions that shows his versatility and progress in writing his own songs: the track oozes class, spirit and yes, soul and features some bright and brimming playing by John Scofield, who, together with Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Jeff “Tain” Watts,…
If there is any singer which is able to sing the Great American Songbook without any hint of boredom or nuisance, it is Jane Monheit. She sings the Ella Fitzgerald songbook on her new Songbook Sessions album (hopefully there are more to come in this series) and loosely collected songs Ella sang (and then didn’t…
Singer Eleanore Mills unfortunately released only one album, the 1974 LP “This Is Eleanore Mills!”, which is now available as a re-mastered edition. The album came out on Astroscope, which was a subsidiary label of All Platinum Records, the lable of impresario Sylvia Robinson and was produced by Harry Ray and Al Goodman (The Moments,…
Hot on the heels of the soundtrack to the Don Cheadle Miles Davis biopic where Robert Glasper played a vital role, here comes Robert’s tribute album to the meister who would have been 90 this year. And thank heaven this is not a trumpet album. Not that I don’t dig the trumpet, but a Miles…