This album comes right on time. Just the other day it seemed to me that you always had to go back to Dexter Gordon or Coleman Hawkins to hear some beautiful sax ballad playing. Here comes Dayna Stephens with his superb new album which has everything: eleven ballads, imaginative playing, first-class band, and top production….
Waiting for 45 minutes for the show to start at Berlins Columbiahalle is really nothing compared to the 14 years we all waited until his third album was released late last year. What D’Angelo came up with on stage was pretty impressive: a nine-piece band, among them Pino Palladino on bass, Kendra Foster on vocals…
Like Siggi Loch said in his opening remarks to the 8th Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic concert last night, the accordion was never really taken seriously until Astor Piazzolla came around in the early 70s. And he showed us in a two-hour show, how different and versatile this instrument can sound like in a jazz setting….
The new trio of bassist Avishai Cohen went into the studio straight after a worldwide tour. Nitai Hershkovits on piano and Daniel Dor on drums complete the group for this new Razdaz Recordz release. The central piece here is the almost eight minutes long “Ballad For An Unborn” which works with a lot of stop…
There is much more to the accordion than a classical, folk, or Tango approach. I have written here several times about the magic accordion playing by French master Vincent Peirani who just released his latest album “Living Being”. Now, in the very successful Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic series curated by ACT Music chief Siggi Loch,…
It is one of the better documentaries about a celebrated figure with a more than difficult life. Nina Simone, who started out wanting to be the first black female classical pianist to play at New York’s Carnegie Hall and who became one of the leading forces of the civil rights movement, is the topic of…
After exploring Giuseppe Verdis “Otello” and Richard Wagners “Parsifal”, bassist Dieter Ilg is now turning to Ludwig van Beethoven for his latest ACT Music release. This is not one of those typical Jazz Classic cross-over projects, though, but rather an album of simply adventurous, beautiful, and innovative interpretations on 13 of Beethoven’s pieces. The bassist,…
Bassist Stephan Crump opens the new CD by guitarist Rez Abbasi, the #1 Rising Star Guitarist in the 2013 International Critics Poll by Downbeat Magazine. He introduces the Weather Report classic “Black Market” which soon unfolds into the familiar 70s fusion piece written by Joe Zawinul. And also marks the starting point to a fresh,…
So Sam Smith is the big winner at this year’s Grammy Awards. Congratulations go out to all the winners, especially those who were not seen in the big telecast. I have collected the more important categories here. And didn’t Gloria Gaynor look amazing? The Jazz announcements were preceded by a top performance of Joe Lovano,…
The 65th Berlin Film Festival is in full gear and offers over 400 movies over a period of 11 days. One of the movies which runs in the Panorama documentary section, is a recapture of Nina Simone‘s life called “What Happened, Miss Simone?” The film, directed by Liz Garbus, will have its Berlin premiere tonight….