Name: High

Media: Audio CD

Release Date: 30 August 2004

Label: Sanctuary

Tracks

1 Days Of Our Lives

2 I Would Never

3 Broken Loves Read the rest of this entry »

Name: The Moment

Artist: Lisa Stansfield

Media: Audio CD

Release Date: 27 September 2004

Label: Ztt

Tracks

1 Easier

2 Treat Me Like A Woman Read the rest of this entry »

All young, developing musicians go through the period of uncertainty, caught between believing in a dream and facing the practicalities of making music for a living. Saxophonist Kirk Whalum was caught in that dilemma years ago when he was attending Texas Southern University. He was a music major, but was balancing his involvement with a cover band called Politics with the notion of getting a “real” job. He sees clear divine guidance in the harrowing accident that led to his epiphany that he needed to pursue music fulltime Read the rest of this entry »

Now that you’ve been sold on jazz, it’s time to go out and buy some music. The good news is that you will not have to fork out 15 or 17 dollars for a CD. The average jazz CD costs about 10 to 14 dollars, a relative bargain. The bad news is that there are so many CD’s out there. Sometimes, It can be hard to find good CD’s to start a collection. Here are some tips to start your collection. Read the rest of this entry »

What Is This $#@% You Want Me to Listen To?

 Jazz, in it’s most vague definition, is music that is syncopated and contains improvisation. Syncopation means that that notes that should be played evenly are not. If you’ve ever heard bands like the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies or the Brian Setzer Orchestra, you’ve heard syncopation. Improvisation, or soloing, means making up and playing a new melody on the spur of the moment. The person improvising is called the soloist. Improvisation is the core of jazz, and it has produced some of the most beautiful music ever heard. Almost e Read the rest of this entry »

1. It’s the music of your grandparents. Throw a Benny Goodman Big Band CD on the sound system when Grandpa is around and watch his face brighten up. He may show energy that you didn’t know he had anymore. In fact, don’t be surprised if you walk in on him cutting the rug (aka dancing) with Grandma. Benny Goodman’s group and the rest of the big bands was the *NSYNC’s, Eminem’s, and Limp Bizkit’s of your grandpa’s day, so to speak. Read the rest of this entry »

The beauty of this album develops like a blossoming flower. We know rather few about this young musician, who hasn’t spread his personal facts over the net. So let us take a journey into unknown musical soundscapes. May be we get an image of his personality by his music.

Well, Kevin is obviously a gifted pianist as he shows up in the opening track All Of Thee Above. His fingers are gliding smoothly and easy over ivory and ebony. Supported by a rich background of strings Kevin paints a grandious picture of his skillfullness. Kevin doesn’t limit his music to a plain radiolike style, but takes advantage of the rich well-known Jazz history, in which he is grown up. In the liner notes he thanks The Yellowjackets, Chick Corea, George Duke, Joe Sample, David Sanborn and Bob James and I believe, he would thank a lot more artists, if he had more place in his booklet. Read the rest of this entry »

Etta Jones (1928-2001) and prolific singer very active, had the virtue of nuance in her singing, the art of Billie Holiday, the bluesy influence of Dinah Washington, and the voice of Thelma Carpenter, which gave his voice record Small, friendly, gentle roughness. At sixteen he began his career with the orchestra of rhythm and blues pianist Buddy Johnson and Leonard Feather. The latter, also a jazz critic, called him a number of blues recorded for the label “Black & White” with a group led by the clarinetist Barney Bigard. Like happened with other famous singers (Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, etc.) won the singing contest at the Barney BigardTheater in Harlem in 1945. In the next two years he worked at the club “Onyx” 52nd Street in New York, with excellent training led by the pianist, Luther Henderson. Between 1949 and 1952, she sang with the sextet of pianist Earl Hines and in 1960, disappeared after some years of studies, recorded with “Prestige”, the magnificent album entitled “Do not Go To Strangers” with a quintet in The protruding, Frank Wes and Roy Haynes. With “Prestige” is from 1963, passes through this seal lets the glory, his collaborations with Oliver Nelson. In 1965, signs contract with the label, “Roulette” and opens with a mediocre album with guitarist. The stage for this label does not stop big plays, and in 1976 he joined the label “Muse” where in all his albums the musical director is his friend, the saxophonist, Houston Person. Notably, the tribute to Billie Holiday on their 1987 album entitled “Fine and Mellow” and the album dedicated to the compositions of Buddy Johnson in 1998 for the label “Hignote” and entitled “My Buddy: Songs of Buddy Johnson . Etta Jones, died on 16 October 2001, with seventy-three, and left an indelible void in African-American vocal music.

The youngest brother, Jones, Elvin Ray Jones (Pontiac, 1927) began his career with his brothers, the magnificent trumpeter Thad Jones and the extraordinary pianist, Hank Jones, before starting his solo career in the fifties hand from the bebop musicians such as Charles Mingus and Bud Powell.

And her skill on the drums began to attract the attention in the program of the best musicians of the era and thus worked with virtually every great jazz from the forties and fifties: Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis at meetings of the Village Vanguard in 1955, with the group’s extraordinary trombonist Jay Jay Johnson from 1956 to 1957, with the extraordinary trumpeter Donald Byrd in 1958, and the final step in his career and which will go down in jazz history, their extraordinary work with saxophonist, John Coltrane, in their different groups between 1960 and 1965. Read the rest of this entry »

Al Jolson (1886-1950) will always be remembered as the hero of the first film in the history of film sound completely. It was in 1927, and the title: “The Jazz Singer”. Born in Lithuania, his family emigrated to the United States in 1893. His musical beginnings were in 1898 in New York and then spent the 1910s performing in vaudeville theaters and shows. His debut was on Broadway in the musical: “La Belle Paree” in 1911 at the Winter Garden Theater.  Read the rest of this entry »