Growing up with “We Are Family”, “He’s The Greatest Dancer”, “Got To Love Somebody”, “Lost In Music” and dancing to those tracks in various clubs around Cologne, the music of Sister Sledge has played an important part in our lives. My favorite track is “Thinking Of You” from their 1979 “We Are Family” LP, produced…
Here is another great example of genre-crossing music where it really doesn’t matter how you want to call it. There is a lot of jazz, soul, funk, r&b, gospel, and spititual included in the new album by Jean and Marcus Baylor. I had the big honor and pleasure of seeing Jean perform live during last…
Everybody has his or her favorite Abbey Lincoln tune of course. And for me, there are dozens of it. So the question with interpreting the Abbey Lincoln songbook always has to be if the artist has something new to add to Abbey’s timeless repertoire. Atlanta-based vocalist Virginia Schenck succeeds in most parts on her new album…
Bronx-born flutist Dave Valentin, who started out playing percussion before he taught himself to play the flute after listening to Herbie Mann, died much too young yesterday. He was only 64. Dave had suffered a stroke and heart attack in 2012 and another stroke in 2015. Dave Valentin studied with Hubert Laws and was the…
In the late 70s, a lot of Jazz artists tried to incorporate other genres and styles into their music, like soul and disco of the days and most of them were heavily criticized for it. Undeservedly so, I think. In hindsight, that period is especially fruitful – at least for me who as a teenager…
It is only the 5th edition but it seems as if it is already a stalwart and long-awaited force in Berlin’s live music scene: this year’s XJAZZ Festival will run from May 3rd to May 7th with 80 concerts spread all around Kreuzberg in clubs, bars, and churches. 14.000 visitors came to last year’s event…
In an interview with the Miami Herald published on Monday, Gary Burton announced his retirement: “Right now, part of me says it will become frustrating to talk about music and focus on music if I’m not able to participate in it and enjoy it myself. That may well become frustrating, so I’m kind of assuming…
Here’s another great example why the melange of r&b, soul, hip-hop, and jazz works so well. The fat bass and drum foundation of the 2:30-minute “Small Moves Interlude” has all the right ingredients and the perfect groove; complete with cool keys it just has this uncompromising sound and mood where any genre or category is…
German-born vocalist Theo Bleckmann, in New York since 1989, has recorded his first ECM album (released in January) which isn’t your regular vocal jazz album, but more like a sound experiment where the overall mood and sonic palette is one of intense beauty and calmness that is so fitting with what we’ve come to expect from the…
As a songwriter and producer, Leon Ware has worked with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Marvin Gaye, Jeffrey Osborne, the Temptations, the Average White Band, Nancy Wilson, the Righteous Brothers, Stanley Turrentine, James Ingram, Ike and Tina Turner, the Miracles, Bobby Womack, and the list goes on. His schoolmates in Detroit were Aretha Franklin, Lamont Dozier…