It is always a pleasure at the beginning of each year to receive the consistently brilliant independent Luxury Soul compilations. I have checked in my files and found all discs going back to 2004 with great music by Leon Ware, Frank McComb, Keni Burke, Sandra St. Victor, or Ronnie McNeir. The latest 3 CD Box…
To grow up with an aunt who owned a luncheonette in Harlem right behind the Apollo Theater and see all the stars coming in and hear them talk, must have a big influence on a future musician. Singer Allan Harris (who also plays guitar and writes songs) saw them all: from Marvin Gaye to Louis…
The incomparable Randy Crawford is back on the road for seven stops in Germany this spring. The singer was last heard and seen with the late great Joe Sample who died last year. She will have a new trio backing her for her shows which start on April 28th at the Jazzfest Gronau. Crawford, who…
Melody Gardot, who celebrates her 30th birthday today, is among the first few artists confirmed for this year’s Northsea Jazz Festival. One of the biggest indoor jazz festivals worldwide, the organisers of the 40th edition, to be held again in Rotterdam’s Ahoy venue, recently came up with the first names for the weekend of July…
February 1st is the birthday of several great musicians, like saxophonist Sadao Watanabe from Japan who turns 82 today. Another saxophonist, but from another generation, is Joshua Redman who celebrates his 46th birthday today. And then there are two artists who are no longer with us but who keep on fascinating us with their timeless…
The German pianist and his latest album “Weltentraum” is the most successful for the Munich-based ACT Music label for the past year. But that’s not all. In a press release, the label yesterday announced that Michael Wollny was voted European Jazz Musician Of The Year by the French Académie Du Jazz which gives away this…
For her new album “Wallflower”, Diana Krall mostly recorded songs from the 70s with the help of producer David Foster who also did the plush orchestral arrangements, Joachim van der Saag who programmed the disc and was responsible for the so-called sound design, and lots of first-rate musicians. But those musicians are kept in the…
At yesterday’s press conference to Berlin’s next XJazz Festival in early May, artistic director Sebastian Studnitzky (pictured at right) introduced some of the bands and the clubs and this year’s focus country which happens to be Israel, partly because there seem to be so many musicians from Israel playing the Berlin clubs and off scene….
Vincent Peirani‘s new album “Living Being”, to be released this Friday, starts with a mystique accordion and Fender Rhodes motif segueing into the hymn-like “Suite En V” and featuring an intense soprano saxophone by new band member Emile Parisien. Five artists from different musical perspectives have found each other, or rather Vincent has found them,…
Singer, keyboardist, composer and producer Jarrod Lawson, who gave us the best soul album of 2014, adds three stops to his European tour schedule for April/May. Jarrod’s album is clearly the most soulful album of the past year with stunning vocals, a superb production, deep lyrics, and crisp background vocal arrangements. I first heard him…