The eight-piece group Breakwater recorded two brilliant albums back in 1978 and 1980, during a period that was one of the richest and satisfying in soul music. One of the members of the group, keyboardist and songwriter and composer Kae Williams, Jr., was later part of The B.B. & Q. Band and wrote unforgettable songs…
Gabrielle Stravelli was one of only ten finalists selected internationally for the 2011 SHURE Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition and she was also 1st runner-up in the 2009 Jazzmobile Vocal Competition in Harlem. In the ensuing years, she has received numerous awards, has toured the world over, opened for Cassandra Wilson and Esperanza Spalding, was in…
Australian singer, pianist, and composer Sarah McKenzie has just released her new Impulse! album “Paris In The Rain”, produced by Brian Bacchus and Jay Newland and with a stellar cast of musicians: Reuben Rogers on bass, Gregory Hutchinson on drums, Dominick Farinacci on trumpet, Scott Robinson on alto sax, Ralph Moore on tenor sax, Jamie…
Twenty more quality soul gems from the Real Side Soul Coalition have come my way – numbers 3, 4, and 5 were also reviewed on these pages and the rare 1974 “Funny How We’ve Changed Places” by the great Debra Anderson opens up this great collection of songs which were recorded between 1969 and 1985….
When singer Bilal was invited up on stage on Wednesday night at the Blue Note, the whole concept of trumpeter Keyon Harrold‘s show took on a new direction, and a pretty unorthodox and cool one. With a set heavily reminding me of Bitches Brew material, but not at all copying it, here was another example…
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…