Ya wanna go out and have a good time? Don’t want to answer all of the questions about the meaning of life, but just forget the daily troubles for a while? Here are a couple of records to get you…
Author: George W. Harris
DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE…Cannonball Adderley with Milt Jackson: Things Are Getting Better, Chet Baker: Plays the Best of Lerner & Loewe, Bill Evans Trio: How My Heart Sings!, Wes Montgomery: So Much Guitar!, Gerry Mulligan/Thelonious Monk: Mulligan Meets Monk
Just like the old spiritual, you’re gonna lay down your cares and woes down by the Riverside when you hear these 5 reissues from the label that delivered some of the best music from the 50s and 60s and stands…
Perry Beekman: So In Love-Sings and Plays Cole Porter
Do we really need another reading of Cole Porter’s songbook? Well, if it’s done like this, we’ll welcome it in. Guitarist/vocalist Perry Beekman delivers a low key and cozy sample of well known, and, Thank God, more obscure Porter compositions.…
Putumayo Presents: Women of Brazil
If you want old school Brazilian, when bossa nova WAS a “new bump,” then this collection is going to want to walk the shores of Ipanema to find this release. Simple support by gentle guitars, sensitive percussion and little else…
Steven Lugerner: For We Have Heard
I was initially very excited by the premise of this album, as it claims to be a musical commentary inspired by the Biblical book of Joshua. Remember the walls falling down? Rahab? Anyone out there go to Sunday or Hebrew…
HOT SUMMER SOUNDS
One of the real ways I knew that I was a grown up was when I didn’t have summers off from school anymore. What do you mean I have to work?!? Those three months of sleeping in late, staying up…
Kathleen Grace w/ Anthony Wilson@The Blue Whale
What exactly constitutes a “jazz singer”? If it’s improvisation and scat singing, then Billie Holiday doesn’t even qualify. Is it in the song selection? Norah Jones writes her own stuff, and Peggy Lee went from Benny Goodman to “Fever” within…
BLACK SOUNDING WHITE AND VICE/VERSA…Carmen McRae: Something Wonderful, Barbara Dane: Livin’ With The Blues
Post bebop and pre rock, what was a singer to do? Well, the major options were either the blues or show tunes. Here are two ladies of their times that deliver some exciting sounds within these limited choices. One of…
THE AGONY & THE ECSTASY…Andy Bey: The World According to Andy Bey, Mary Stallings: But Beautiful
What mood do you want your singer to put you in? Here are a couple of vocalists that have mastered their art and can create an environment of either dark hues or fresh pastels. Andy Bey has been releasing some…
Jason Seed Stringtet: In The Gallery
Guitarist Jason Seed puts together an intriguing mix of strings, melding classical and folk with dashes of jazz sensibilities on this collection of penetrating originals. Together with Glenn Asch/v-vio, Helen Reich/vio, Dan Armstrong/b and Scott Tisdel/cel, they create material that…