Mixing material from their two highly successful albums, the rara avis of a working male/female singing team of Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler wowed the audience with an evening that swung harder than Reggie Jackson and had more hip moments…
Month: August 2018
Hristo Vitchev CD Release Concert @ The Blue Whale 08.16.18
With Pat Metheny’s appearances becoming all the rarer, the question comes to which artist will take his baton forward. Bulgarian born and CA-stationed Hristo Vitchev has thrown his hat into the ring and showed at his recent cd release concert…
****RINGER OF THE WEEK****THE BUD POWELL OF PARIS…Rene’ Urtreger: Early Trios 1954-1957
Back in the early 1960s, bebop pioneer released a classic album Bud Powell in Paris. Playing off of that album’s title, you could argue that Rene’ Urtreger was the Bud Powell of Paris, as his touch, drive, verve and song…
IN THE MOOD TO BE OUD…Issam Rafea & Gao Hong: Life As Is, Amos Hoffman & Noam Lemish: Pardes
Once confined to albums of North Africa, the oud is creating its own niche in the jazz world. Here are two recent releases Sounds from the Middle East and Far East are mixed and contrasted, as Issam Rafea plays the…
Lionel Loueke: The Journey
Lionel Loueke turns it down a notch or two on this subtle and gentle album. Instead of his normal working trio of Massimo Biolacati/b and Frenec Nemeth (who only appear in cameo roles), he does much of the material in…
ADIEU…Cyrille Aime’e: Live
The end of a long love affair is documented as vocalist Cyrille Aime’e parts was with her long time band of Adrien Moignard/ag, Michael Maleanu/eg, Dylan Shamat/b and Dani Danor/dr on this final concert, fortunately documented for posterity. The winning…
Coro Del Mundo: Coro Del Mundo
A blend of cultures, languages, faiths and voices is delivered here from harmonious music conducted by Schola Cantorum Coralina, Alina Orraca, Vocal Luna and Maribel Nodarese Valdes. The songs range from English sung Latin pulsed pop as on “Dance to…
Alain Mallett: Mutt Slang
Alain Mallet plays piano, keyboards and electronics as he mixes and matches moods with a rotating team including Peter Slavov/b, Jamey Haddad/perc, Abraham Rounds/d, Jacob Matheus-Leandro Pellerino/g and a large group of cameo guests. The team gets modal with Daniel…
Spencer Day: Angel City
Spencer Day is one of the few crooners that a) does his own material and b) doesn’t try to sound like Michael Bubbles, two major plusses. Here, he teams with the Budman/Levy orchestra that boasts Jeff Driskill/sax, Josh Nelson/p and…
Jean Chaumont: The Beauty of Differences
Guitarist and composer Jean Chaumont tries to use music and lyrics to bridge cultural differences on this album with a core team of Michael Bond/p-key, Ike Sturm/b, Sam Sadigursky/ss-ts and Rudy Royston/dr along with guests Tierney Sutton-Vinod Gnanaraj/voc, John Hadfield/perc…