Stevie Wonder has been playing everyone’s favorite album (including mine), “Songs In The Key Of Life” from 1976, in its entirety on a successful, sold-out US tour. He is now bringing the three-hour show to Europe and will play London’s Hyde Park on July 10th. The tour has run for 18 months in the US…
There are soul singers, soul preachers, soul crooners, and then there is Al Green. The wonder that is “Let’s Stay Together”, his number 1 hit from 1971, is still intoxicating and enthralling over 40 years later. Pieces like “”I’m Still In Love With You” (1972) or “Here I Am” (1973), “L-O-V-E” (1975) or “Keep Me Cryin’”…
New York-based singer and pianist Daryl Sherman has released her latest album on the Japanese label Muzak, Inc. Daryl has performed regularly at the Tableaux Lounge in Tokyo for the past several years and I am more than happy for her success abroad, especially since her long-running, steady gig at the Waldorf in New York…
Producer, director and arranger Doug Richards formed the Great American Music Ensemble in the mid-80s. He recorded this unusual big band in June, 2001 with a few very special guests. And unusual is this ensemble not only because of their distinctive playing, but mostly because of the really outstanding arrangements of the songs on offer….
As a music fanatic growing up in the late 70s/early 80s (mostly listening to the entire Stevie Wonder catalog) and soon exploring the bars, clubs and discos of Cologne, a perfect night-out always depended on the best music mix: the cherished disco classics combined with seldom-heard pieces and new discoveries. In those “formative” years, I’ve heard…
Norwegian producer, composer, and arranger John Derek Bishop has recorded under several, different names and Tortusa is his ambient music alias. Recorded with famous guitarist and composer Eivind Aarset for Bugge Wesseltoft’s Jazzland Recordings (celebrating 20 years in the business this year), “I Know This Place” is a pretty short, 8-song selection clocking in at…
It was Bill Henderson who recorded Horace Silver’s “Senor Blues” for Blue Note Records in 1958. Bill also worked with Wynton Kelly, Yusef Lateef, Ramsey Lewis, and started to release several albums in the late 50s on Vee-Jay Records. In the 60s, Bill worked with Eddie Harris, Oscar Peterson, and Count Basie and after settling…
This is an interesting record from guitarist Julian Lage in various respects: it is his first trio record, it is his first album where he plays electric guitar, and it is his first album produced by singer and songwriter Jesse Harris. All of the 11 tracks on offer are between two and four minutes long…
The passion and fire of tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri‘s playing and writing certainly had its artistic and commercial peak with his score for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango In Paris” from 1973, where the Argentinian musician, who was born into a very musical family, merged both his Latin and his jazz influences into a unique style….
It’s as if Tommy Flanagan and Bill Evans are coming together as one and meet Hank Jones, each time that I hear pianist Bill Charlap play. The last time he was heard on record was on the brilliantly relaxed and elegant Tony Bennett album with the songs of Jerome Kern. I was lucky enough to hear…