Vocalist and pianist Kandace Springs has recorded twelve songs of her idols for her third project “The Women Who Raised Me” on Blue Note Records. The swinging “Devil May Care”, inspired by Diana Krall’s version, features some very lively and astute bass playing by Christian McBride and subtle drum work by Clarence Penn. Kandace shows…
So many concerts, shows, and festivals have been cancelled or at least postponed these days (that’s why we’re currently not updating our events calendar), but nevertheless, the Detroit Jazz Festival has announced the line-up for the 41st edition. And yes, maybe the timing for the announcement does look strange (yesterday) in these troubled times, but…
Manu Dibango, saxophonist from Cameroon, best known for his 1972 worldwide hit “Soul Makossa”, has died from complications of Covid-19, aged 86. After forming his own band in Cameroon in 1963, he moved to Paris a couple of years later before he finally made his breakthrough. Manu released his first album “Saxy-Party” in 1969. Three…
Israeli tenor saxophonist and composer Oded Tzur has released his first album on the prestigious ECM label. Oded, who is working in or from New York since 2011 (where else?), debuted in 2015 with “Like A Great River” which was followed in 2017 with “Translator’s Note”. It seems as if his new-found home at ECM…
In these uncertain times, it’s always a good thing to fall back on household names, to old habits, to vinyl, to Stephanie Mills who turns 63 today. Happy birthday! And I wanted to take this opportunity and remind you of another album in our new category of LPs you won’t find on Spotify. Stephanie recorded…
When I went to Bremen for the annual Jazzahead convention in 2015, there was this big hype about 12-year old pianist Joey Alexander who was about to release his debut album “My Favorite Things”. Alas, I wasn’t impressed and his showcase left me cold. But he wasn’t really to blame for it. After all, when…
As nobody knows where exactly the current corona crisis will lead us and since official warnings change every day, I just wanted to copy the latest info from two of New York’s West Village clubs, the Blue Note and Le Poisson Rouge, about their precaution measures etc. I went to see Baby Rose in concert…
Luxury Soul 2020, your reliable source for the best indie soul, has finally arrived and the three-disc collection is once again the best overview of quality modern-day soul that you can get. Lots of familiar names on this one, like Glenn Jones, featured with a 2009 recording by producer and writer Herb Middleton (“Better Man”)…
Tal Arditi, guitarist and composer from Israel, will open this year’s garden concert matinee season in Berlin’s Gartenlokal Alte Baumschule on Sunday, April 19th, at 1pm. Recognised as a young guitar prodigy, Tal started to study at Rimon Music University when he was only 16. At the age of 18, he graduated with a Jazz…
In the liner notes to McCoy Tyner‘s 2000 trio album with Stanley Clarke and Al Foster, Donald Elfman writes: “It’s been some forty years since McCoy Tyner changed jazz piano. Moving away from the post-bop and hard-bop stylings of the 50s, he created a massive, volcanic orchestral approach to soloing in the John Coltrane Quartets…