Jo Ann Kelly Band - Just Restless

The rock era saw a few white female singers, like Janis Joplin, show they could sing the blues. But one who could outshine them all -- Jo Ann Kelly -- seemed to slip through the cracks, mostly because she favored the acoustic, Delta style rather than rocking out with a heavy band behind her. But with a huge voice, and a strong guitar style influenced by Memphis Minnie and Charley Patton, she was the queen. Born January 5, 1944, Kelly and her older brother Dave were both taken by the blues, and born at the right time to take advantage of a young British blues scene in the early '60s. By 1964 she was playing in clubs, including the Star in Croydon, and had made her first limited-edition record with future Groundhogs guitarist Tony McPhee. She expanded to play folk and blues clubs all over Britain, generally solo, but occasionally with other artists, bringing together artists like Bessie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe into her own music. After the first National Blues Federation Convention in 1968 her career seemed ready to take flight. She began playing the more lucrative college circuit, followed by her well-received debut album in 1969. At the second National Blues Convention, she jammed with Canned Heat, who invited her to join them on a permanent basis. She declined, not wanting to be a part of a band -- and made the same decision when Johnny Winter offered to help her. Throughout the '70s, Kelly continued to work and record solo, while also gigging for fun in bands run by friends, outfits like Tramp and Chilli Willi -- essentially pub rock, as the scene was called, and in 1979 she helped found the Blues Band, along with brother Dave, and original Fleetwood Mac bassist Bob Brunning. The band backed her on an ambitious show she staged during the early '80s, Ladies and the Blues, in which she paid tribute to her female heros. In 1988, Kelly began to suffer pain. A brain tumor was diagnosed and removed, and she seemed to have recovered, even touring again in 1990 with her brother before collapsing and dying on October 21. Posthumously, she's become a revered blues figure, one who helped clear the path for artists like Bonnie Raitt and Rory Block. But more than a figurehead, her recorded material -- and unreleased sides have appeared often since her death -- show that Kelly truly was a remarkable blueswoman. ~

Chris Nickson, All Music Guide

Julie Fowlis - Uam ( From Me )

The title of this album "Uam" means "from me" in English. The idea of passing a song, a tune or a story from one person to another is a common one throughout Gaelic Scotland, and I often feel being given a song is like being given a gift. One you can use and enjoy yourself, but one which ultimately must be passed on to someone else. The song is always more important than the singer and must be passed on to survive.

This album represents much of my own background, upbringing and musical experiences over the last few years. It also repreents the sound that people have come to expect from our concerts over recent times - the backbone duo of myself and my husband, Eamon Doorley, with lyrical highland fiddler Duncan Chisholm, driving guitarist Tony Byrne from Dublin plus the rhythmic beats of Martin O'Neill's bodhran playing. I am very pleased to welcome some long term friends and extraordinary musicians to the album too - Phil Cunningham, Mary Smith, Eddi Reader, Allan MacDonald, Jerry Douglas, Sharon Shannon and Ewen Vernal, plus of course our own family members Tom Doorley and Michelle Fowlis.

So here we are !
Julie

Since being presented with her award as BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year 2008 by KT Tunstall, the Daily Telegraph's prediction that "Fowlis could be the first Scottish Gaelic crossover star in the making" has seemed increasingly prescient.

Indeed Julie Fowlis is no stranger to awards and distinctions, winning Gaelic Singer Of The Year & Album Of The Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2007 and nominated for the third year in a row as BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year (the first ever Scottish Gaelic singer to win this prestigious award when given the title in 2008). Her single 'Blackbird' was also playlisted on BBC Radio 2, the first Scottish Gaelic artist to be playlisted in such a manner. She was also the first Scottish Gaelic artist to appear on the legendary show 'Later…with Jools Holland” in 2007.

She is perhaps most proud of her award as Scotland's Gaelic Ambassador - "Tosgaire na Gàidhlig", bestowed by the Scottish Parliament in 2008, the first person to ever receive this honour.

Since the release of her award-winning album 'cuilidh' in 2007 Julie has spent much time developing her own sound with a top-class touring band including husband Éamon Doorley, Dublin's Tony Byrne, Highlander Duncan Chisholm and bodhrán champion Martin O'Neill. This formidable line-up has become synonymous with emotive, expressive and high energy live shows.

Still finding time for collaborations with other musicians, Julie has recently worked with artists as diverse as Bill Whelan, John McCusker, Eddi Reader, Jayme Stone, and Salsa Celtica. She recently worked with Bill Whelan (Riverdance, Timedance) to produce a new piece of music, the World Premiere of which was on St Patrick's Day in Belfast 2009. As part of the internationally acclaimed Transatlantic Sessions 4 series, she has also been honoured to sing with James Taylor, Martha Wainwright, Stuart Duncan, Ronan Browne, Allan MacDonald, Liam O' Maonlai (Hothouse Flowers), Maireád Ní Mhaónaigh (Altan), Mike McGoldrick, Phil Cunningham, Tim O'Brien and Karen Matheson (Capercaillie).

In addition to having one of the busiest music touring schedules in Scotland, Julie has now delved into the world of broadcasting, presenting her very own show 'Fowlis and Folk' on BBC Radio Scotland for the second year running and also presenting regularly for television on Scotland's new Gaelic digital channel, BBC ALBA.

In the last year Julie has also worked on two other acclaimed recordings – the 'dual' project – an exploration of musical connections between Gaelic Scotland and Ireland with her husband Éamon Doorley, Irish songstress Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and Lochaber's Ross Martin, and 'Under One Sky', John McCusker's ambitious crossover project featuring the likes of John Tams, Iain MacDonald, Graham Coxon (Blur) and Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub).

Julie is currently also studying for a Masters degree through Scotland's only Gaelic College 'Sabhal Mòr Ostaig' in 'Material Culture and the Environment', exploring in depth the culture and social history of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, in it's European context.

For Julie is a passionate torchbearer for the culture of her native Western Isles. And, coupled with her extraordinary talent, it is this quiet determination to celebrate the music of the Outer Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland on its own terms that ensures that Scots Gaelic music is reaching a wider audience than ever before.

Kantango - Ida Y Vuelta ( Mircocosmo Edizioni )

kantango invite you to a journey, under the guise of a tango, a journey of "ida y vuelta" – a “round trip” to those who do not speak spanish – as well as the title of their new album, a journey to and from the tango, and from the thousand nations of the world from which come the many artists who have helped to release this new project, a trip to and from the testing (linked to tango, but also disconnected from it).

and here's the places that are the secret map of this new album, the places and people that bring them in and who have put their own in this project alongside kantango same: the france of richard galliano and the peru of susana baca (which for the first time they play togheter to a reworked version of “canzone ‘e sotto ‘o carcere”, of the straight napolitan raffaele viviani), the cape verde of lura of that in "canta um tango” weaves with his voice exotic and valuable canvasses, the tunisia of marzouk mejri that turns "k4dark" in a colorful suk, or the u.s. of rupa which lends her voice to the persuasive and beautiful hybrid "orphaline". but amada also, who in "dejame" invites us, through a milonga, to a sunny and superb summer.

to seal all, a large string orchestra accompanies kantango through original songs or great masterpieces like "la chanson des vieux amants" by jacques brel.

discovered and produced by joe barbieri, the kantango - here, you see - invite you to leave. take a suitcase that is big and generous.
the journey begins...

Tingvall Trio - Vattensaga

The TINGVALL TRIO was founded in 2003 by the Swedish pianist and composer Martin Tingvall. The pieces composed by him are characterized by catchy melodies which sweep along not only jazz lovers quickly and tend to stay with you long afterwards. Not only the technical ability of the musicians carries away. The three Hamburgers play Scandinavian jazz with Cuban reminiscences and an easy rock'n'roll attitude. In the expressive ballads also Nordic melancholy and liveliness resonate, however. Listening closely one can recognize traditional Swedish folk songs as one of the elements of the compositions. Despite the wide variety in their backgrounds, a level very much their own emerged from their creative alliance. Among the mentors who taught Swedish pianist Martin Tingvall his craft was Bobo Stenson. Jürgen Spiegel from Bremen, Germany gigged mostly as a veritable rock drummer, but audiences were "boffoed" above all by his enormously multifaceted playing and the vividness of this percussion work. Bass player Omar Rodriguez Calvo from Cuba was already a sideman of Ramon Valle and Roy Hargrove among others. Regards the new cd we can tell that follows "Skagerrak" and "Norr" and with it the trio finalizes their trilogy of nordic stories. Recorded at the famous ArteSuono studio in Italy, bestknown for a series of great ECM recordings, "Vattensaga" stands for an even improved group sound and the outstanding songwriting qualities of Martin Tingvall. Thirteen new musical pearls, leaving space for sound paintings of drummer Jürgen Spiegel , the mediterranean lightness of double bass player Omar Rodruguez Calvo and the bright piano playing of Martin Tingvall , experiencing a Fazioli grand piano fort he first time. A definite highlight of the trios band history so far.

Maria Muldaur & Her Garden Of Joy

One hesitates to call this her best album yet, because the diversity of her art renders such statements inherently unfair—unfair, that is, if so many of the others weren’t of the same high caliber. Let’s leave it at another unqualified triumph of conception and execution, with a surplus of greasy, funky soul to recommend it. This music lives.
The Bluegrass Special

If anyone can claim to have been true to his or her roots, to have never lost the faith, and has the track record to prove it, it’s Maria Grazia Rosa Domenico D’Amato, better known to the music world as Maria Muldaur, having been performing and recording under her married name even after her marriage to Geoff Muldaur ended in 1972. By any name, this product of the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City has compiled an enviable and admirable resume as a roots music acolyte, and as she proves on her wonderful, whimsically titled new jug band album, Maria Muldaur & Her Garden of Joy, she’s just getting started. Truly better each time out, Muldaur has put a lot of distance between the sexy chanteuse who made 1973 so memorable by purring David Nichtern’s “Midnight At the Oasis” into classic status and the sexy earth mama of the past couple of decades when he exploration of the musical styles that inflamed her passions as a young girl has yielded an impressive catalogue of themed projects that have brought well deserved revitalization to some forgotten music and artists. After ending her major label career on Warner/Reprise in 1979 following five albums that were remarkably true to the spirit of her musical aesthetic even if they were mainstream slick (she, and the label, were trying for hits, after all), she made a huge personal statement in 1980 by emerging on the Takoma label with a powerhouse gospel outing with the Chambers Brothers, Gospel Nights. Since then, apart from the three years’ interregnum between 1987’s Live in London and 1990’s On the Sunny Side, she’s released an album every year or every other year, and what a ride it’s been: she’s explored jazz repeatedly, most notably on 1994’s Jazzabelle; paid tribute to Peggy Lee on A Woman Alone With the Blues (Remembering Peggy Lee) and her buddy from back in the day, Bob Dylan, on Heart of Mine: Love Songs of Bob Dylan; retooled kids’ songs in swing fashion on three albums for the Music For Little People label (highly recommended: 2002’s Animal Crackers In My Soup: The Songs of Shirley Temple); done some deep archeological digs into the blues, especially that made by the female artists she’s always admired, including her idol Memphis Minnie, whose spirit—in the form of Muldaur’s saucy, no-nonsense but tender-hearted attitude—informs much of her work these days but is heard most profoundly on 2001’s celebrated Richland Woman Blues, an album that yielded two acclaimed sequels devoted primarily to the music of female blues artists of yore, 2005’s Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul and 2007’s smoky, swinging and aptly titled Naughty, Bawdy and Blue; assembled a powerhouse team of her favorite female artists—including Odetta, Joan Baez, Holly Near, Bonnie Raitt, and Phoebe Snow, among others—to raise their voices in protest against war on last year’s Yes We Can!; tipped her hat in righteously fervent passion to New Orleans on 1992’s Louisiana Love Call, with key assists from two of the Crescent City’s foremost musical practitioners, Allen Toussaint and Dr John; and even continued to evolve the folk/rock/blues sound of her Warner Brothers’ recordings on efforts such as her 1998 Southland Of the Heart, which brought her back together with the Chambers Brothers but also included covers of songs by Greg Brown and Bruce Cockburn (the title track).

Which brings us to Maria Muldaur & Her Garden of Joy. The Robert Crumb-influenced cover art by Neil Osborne evokes both the whimsy and the sensuality of the artist and the music, and not least of all the elevated spirits of all engaged in this endeavor—even the few downbeat numbers can’t help being a bit cheery in the end. Muldaur sings it like she swings it, with authority, smoldering passion and a true believer’s conviction. Typical of her approach, the project reunites her with old friends and introduces some new, younger ones cut from the same cloth. In this case, the familiar names joining the fray loom large in her history: David Grisman and John Sebastian, who, before they became bluegrass and rock ‘n’ roll legends, respectively, were the young Maria’s compadres in the Even Dozen Jug Band back in the Village; Taj Mahal, a pronounced presence on both Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul and Richland Woman Blues, is back on banjo and guitar; and Dan Hicks, Muldaur’s neighbor in Mill Valley, CA, but more important a long-time collaborator (who had a song on Muldaur’s debut album, and from whose song “Sweetheart” came the title of he second album, Waitress In a Donut Shop) contributes two original songs, including the album opening, “The Diplomat,” which features some wonderful, idiomatic (idiomatic of the ‘30s, that is) lyrical wordplay, and the suggestive laid-back blues of “Let It Simmer,” but also engages Muldaur in some of the most suggestive (and apparently extemporaneous) repartee this side of Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep on the by-turns warm and seductive/frantic and heated medley of “Life’s Too Short/When Elephants Roost In Bamboo Trees.” On this cut, in fact, it’s evident Muldaur still possesses that perky, innocent “Midnight At the Oasis” voice, but she’s now a vital, 66-year-old who projects, vocally and physically, a mature, worldly sexiness that says “Only Real Men Need Apply.” Not that she doesn’t have an eye for the younger generation—or an ear. Meet one Kit Stovepipe, of the Seattle-area Crow Quill Night Owls jug band (the introduction to which opened Muldaur’s eyes to a burgeoning, international jug band revival). Stovepipe, a marvelous ragtime guitar player, also sits in on jug and washboard, and beyond that introduced Muldaur to a raft of new old music through his collection of vintage 78s. You can imagine that with players such as these on board the album boasts a down-home sound, and so it does, with other players such as fiddler Suzy Thompson (who saws away so evocatively on a swaggering treatment of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “He Calls That Religion”) and horn players Bob Schwartz (trumpet) and Kevin Porter (trombone), making their mark as well. Among the other highlights: a faithful, horn-rich rendition of “The Ghost of The St. Louis Blues,” originally cut in the mid-‘20s by the blackface Minstrel Man from Georgia, Emmett Miller, otherwise known for recording the original version of “Lovesick Blues” and being cited by Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Bob Wills’s great lead singer, Tommy Duncan, as their principal vocal influence (Duncan was hired on the spot when he told Wills, a major Miller fan himself, of his high regard for Miller’s singing style); a raggedy, stomping blues powered by shambling acoustic guitar and Suzy Thompson’s energetic fiddling, “Shout You Cats,” from the pen of Hezekiah Jones in 1931; and closing the album, a pair of songs unnervingly suited to the temper of the times in blues woman Martha Copeland’s dark, brooding--and self-explanatory--“Bank Failure Blues,” written at least a year ahead of the Crash of ’29, and, signing off, another Hezekiah Jones song, 1931’s “The Panic Is On,” which could hardly be more appropriate to the current day with lyrics such as “what this country’s comin’ to/I sure would like to know/if they don’t do somethin’ by and by/the rich will live and the poor will die/doggone, I mean the panic is on…” In the final verse Muldaur updates the lyrics to, “Them greedy politicians ruined everything/but now I’m here to sing/Obama’s in the White House saying ‘Yes, we can’/I know he gonna come up with a real good plan/then doggone, hard times will be gone…,” going out on a high note of good feeling appropriate to an album chock full of same, fueled by the delightful give-and-take instrumental dialogue between John Sebastian’s baritone guitar and Kit Stovepipe’s National. One hesitates to call this her best album yet, because the diversity of her art renders such statements inherently unfair—unfair, that is, if so many of the others weren’t of the same high caliber. Let’s leave it at another unqualified triumph of conception and execution, with a surplus of greasy, funky soul to recommend it. This music lives.

John Proulx - Baker's Dozen ( Remembering Chet Baker )

“You can tell immediately that John’s approach to jazz is both new and refreshing; showing great respect for both the melody and the lyric — a rare thing among jazz vocalists. I’ll bet that Chet Baker is looking down on John saying, ‘Yeah, John, go for it’.”

-- William Claxton (Jazz photographer)

“This introduction to young, talented John Proulx does a great job of showing us what he is about: Strong musicianship, great intonation, mellow swing and a soothing, almost vibrato- less Chet Baker like tone quality. Bravo, John!”

-- John Clayton (3-time grammy nominated bassist, composer, and conductor)

"It's takes a lot of imagination as well as natural talent to make jazz standards sound fresh and vital. John sings and plays so beautifully and is an outstanding songwriter as well. He's simply a joy to hear"

-- Michael Feinstein

John's latest CD on MAXJAZZ, "Baker’s Dozen-Remembering Chet
Baker” is a tribute to the late trumpet player and vocalist. It features
legendary musicians Chuck Berghofer, Joe LaBarbera, and special
guest, Dominick Farinacci on trumpet. John’s 2006 debut CD, “Moon
and Sand”, has garnered national and international acclaim, and his
fan base is quickly growing. In addition to his own trio, John has
performed with the likes of Anita O'Day, Natalie Cole, and Marian
McPartland.

John is also a Grammy-winning composer. Jazz legend, Nancy Wilson,
recorded "These Golden Years", a song that John co-wrote with lyricist
D. Channsin Berry, for her 2006 Grammy-winning CD, Turned to Blue.
Jazz singer, Mary Stallings, also recorded "Stuck in a Dream", a tune
John co-wrote with lyricist K. Lawrence Dunham, on her 2005 release,
Remember Love.

John began his formal musical education at the age of 3 in Grand
Rapids, MI on Suzuki violin, but quickly switched to classical piano
lessons. His grandfather, Clyde Proulx, was a jazz guitarist who
introduced him to the world of jazz. Hooked on the freedom of
improvisation, his education took him to Chicago to study at Roosevelt
University’s Chicago School of Performing Arts. In 2001, John moved
to Los Angeles to further his musical pursuits. He has emerged as a
young talent on the Los Angeles jazz scene and loves the wide-range
of opportunities the city has to offer.

Guy Clark - Somedays The Song Writes You

When Guy Clark discusses the art and craft of songwriting, people listen. He has, after all, been writing songs of uncommon quality for nearly four decades, songs like “L.A. Freeway,” “Desperados Waiting For a Train,” “The Randall Knife,” and “Texas, 1947.” Some of them have been snatched up and recorded by other distinctive artists, many of whom are no slouches in the songwriting department themselves (“She’s Crazy For Leaving” by Rodney Crowell, “New Cut Road” by Bobby Bare, “Let Him Roll” by Johnny Cash and “Heartbroke” by Ricky Skaggs, to name just a few), while others have filled out the ten studio albums bearing Clark’s name, beginning with his 1975 debut, Old No. 1. He’s just added an eleventh entry to his enduring body of work, Some Days the Song Writes You.


Songwriting legend Guy Clark doesn't merely compose songs; he projects images and characters with the kind of hands-on care and respect of a literary master. Clark works slowly and with strict attention to detail, and has produced an impressive collection of timeless gems, leaving very little waste behind. The emotional level of his work, as well as the admiration and esteem of his peers, consistently transcends sales figures and musical genres. Using everyday language to construct extraordinary songs for more than 35 years, Clark continues to be the type of songwriter whom young artists study and seasoned writers, as well discriminating listeners, revere.

Born in Monahans, Texas, on November 6, 1941, Clark grew up in a home where the gift of a pocketknife was a rite of passage and poetry was read aloud. At age 16 he moved to Rockport, on the Texas Gulf Coast. Instructed by his father's law partner, he learned to play on a $12 Mexican guitar and the first songs he learned were mostly in Spanish.

Moving to Houston, Clark began his career during the "folk scare" of the 1960s. Fascinated by Texas blues legends like Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin' Hopkins and steeped in the cultural sauce piquante of his border state, he played traditional folk tunes on the same Austin-Houston club circuit as Townes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker. "It was pretty 'Bob Dylan' in the beginning," Clark said. "Nobody was really writing." Eventually, Clark would draw on these roots to firebrand his own fiddle-friendly and bluesy folk music, see it embraced as country and emerge as a songwriting icon for connoisseurs of the art.

Moving to San Francisco in the late 1960s, as social unrest was erupting through racial and generational fissures, Clark worked briefly in a guitar shop, returned to Houston for a short time, and then moved to the Los Angeles area, where he found work building guitars in the Dopyera Brothers' Dobro factory and signed a publishing agreement with RCA's Sunbury Music before pulling up stakes and relocating to Nashville in 1971.

The following year, country-folk singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, then newly ensconced in Austin, released an eponymous album featuring the Clark composition "L.A. Freeway," which became an FM radio hit. In 1973, Walker released Viva! Terlingua, recorded live in a Texas dance hall and including Clark's ballad "Desperados Waiting for a Train." As much as any others, these two Clark songs may arguably be said to have set the tone for a musical revolution that was first known as progressive country. By 1975, many of the revolutionaries would be defined as the Outlaws. Like the Bakersfield sound of the 1960s, the new sounds were a reaction to the formulaic rigidity and paternalism of Nashville's record producers and label executives.

In this alternative musical world of the late 1960s, inspired by the storytelling poems of Robert Frost and Stephen Vincent Benet, Clark began to write what he knew "with a pencil and a big eraser." "L. A. Freeway," for example, blueprints his fish-out-of-water experience in Los Angeles. "Desperados Waiting for a Train" is based on his memory of an oilfield worker who was a resident of his grandmother's hotel. Like almost all his songs, then and now, these two early masterpieces are expressions of personal memory and experience, further characterized by words that have a melody all their own.

Clark's move to Music City, one of three cities where Sunbury had offices and where his pal Mickey Newbury would make him welcome, proved fortuitous. Clark and his wife, Susanna, would become the axis for a groundbreaking fraternity of singer-songwriters for whom Nashville felt like "Paris in the '20s." Among them were Newbury, Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Billy Joe Shaver, Steve Earle, Dave Loggins and David Allen Coe. Bonded by their egalitarianism, the troupe's favored sidewalk cafe was the Clark's dining room table, where they gathered frequently for "guitar pulls" and show-and-tell song swapping sessions, and where they celebrated their successes and facetiously threatened to kill whoever had presented the best new song. Susanna Clark, a talented painter, tossed her brushes aside for awhile, joined the invasion and began writing hit songs herself.

In 1975, after using his big eraser on his first try at cutting an album, Clark made his recording debut on RCA Records with Old No. l, ten critically applauded originals built to last, including "L. A. Freeway," "Desperados Waiting for a Train," "Texas, l947," "Instant Coffee Blues," "Rita Ballou," "She Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Let Him Roll," "A Nickel for the Fiddler," "That Old Time Feeling" and "Like a Coat From the Cold." On the cover, the songwriter is pictured with his wife's painting of his chambray "work shirt," customary attire emblematic of his values. During the next 20 years, Clark would continue to record albums that worked like a stun gun on other artists in search of new songs. The weaponry included Texas Cookin' (1976), Guy Clark (1978), The South Coast of Texas (1981), Better Days (1983), Old Friends (1989), Boats to Build (1992), Dublin Blues (1995), Keepers - a Live Recording (1997), Cold Dog Soup (1999) and The Dark (2002). The recordings include numerous collaborations with old and new friends such as Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Albert Lee and Rosanne Cash.

Nashville legend Johnny Cash, who then had been topping the charts for 20 years, was among the first Nashville recording artists to embrace Guy Clark's music. His interpretation of "Texas, 1947" was a 1975 chart hit, followed in 1977 by Clark's "The Last Gunfighter Ballad." In 1987, Cash would also cover Clark's "Let Him Roll." In 1982, famed songsmith Bobby Bare made it to the country Top Twenty with Clark's "New Cut Road." That same year, bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs escalated his mainstream trajectory with Clark's "Heartbroke," a #1 song that permanently established Clark's reputation as an ingenious songwriter. Among the many others who have gilded their careers with Guy Clark songs are Vince Gill, who took "Oklahoma Borderline" to the Top Ten in 1985; the Highwaymen, who introduced "Desperados Waiting for a Train" to a new generation that same year; and John Conlee, whose interpretation of "The Carpenter" rode into the Top Ten in 1987. Steve Wariner reached the Top Five with the Clark cover "Baby I'm Yours" in 1988, and the same year Asleep at the Wheel charted with his "Blowin' Like a Bandit." Crowell was Clark's co-writer on "She's Crazy for Leavin'," which in 1989 became the third of five straight #1 hits for Crowell. More recently Brad Paisley covered Clark's "Out in the Parking Lot" on his Time Well Wasted CD, and parrotheads are listening to Jimmy Buffett's interpretation of Clark's "Boats to Build."

Masterful and charismatic in live performance, Clark has built a devout U.S. and international following through years of touring prestigious clubs and concert halls. In 1990, Guy Clark was the catalyst for a series of Marlboro Music festival performances introducing the "guitar pull" to wider audiences. In various combinations of four singer-songwriters including Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely, John Prine and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Clark and his colleagues mesmerized SRO audiences with their humor, spontaneity, storytelling and songs. As a result, guitar pulls became a new tradition in clubs like New York's Bottom Line, and popular understanding of the depth and breadth of the music made in Music City has deepened. Clark, Ely, Hiatt and Lovett continue to perform as the Songwriter Tour, taking "guitar-pulls" to prestigious venues across the country.

Guy Clark remains a national treasure and folk icon, crafting masterful, poignant melodies and insightful lyrics. Tough, bare-boned and dryly sentimental, his beautiful songs reflect the man himself and display an old-fashioned masculinity that emphasizes honesty, integrity and carefully chosen words. His craggy, wistful story-songs, and plain-spoken delivery are also indicative of his persona. Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Foundation's Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004, Clark was honored with the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2005. The following year, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum named Guy Clark as its prestigious 2006 Artist-In-Residence. Workbench Songs (2006), released to universal critical acclaim and the delight of his worshipful fans, was nominated for the 2007 Grammy award as Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

Ben Sidran - Dylan Different

"I met Bob Dylan once, a long time ago. He was an electrified wolf pressed up against the back of a booth at the Marigold Ballroom in Minneapolis. I saw him from the stage and told my Albert Grossman joke : "Here's a man whose last name should have been hyphenated."
After the set I went over to the booth and said "Bob you influenced me a lot."
Bob saiad "Oh, yeah ?"
Speaks were coming off of him. I passed Bob Dylan on a stairway once, fifteen years ago. He was coming down and I was going up. His security guy was walking in front of him, like he was clearing the road of lepers, and he said to me, "Get Back!".
Bob was looking down at his feet. He never looked up.
Under his hood, he looked just like a ghost. I dreamed about Bob Dylan once. It was just last year. I was standing in this long line. And everybody in the line had a stack of cards with writing on 'em and we were all just waiting to go into this big room and justify our lives by putting the cards in order.
And I had a plan.
I was gonna turn all my cards over so they looked like they were blank and I was gonna hand them in that way. And there was a long line of people coming out of that big room too and one of them was Bob Dylan. And he said, "Ben, what are you gonna do ?" And I showed him my cards and he handed me a pencil and said, " Man, you better get busy !"
I wrote a song for Bob Dylan, just hte other day. The chorus goes like this :
"We are the tears of a man in Thailand that wash up on a distant shore
We are the wings of a butterfly in China that started the oceans' roar
We are the straw that broke the camel's back, the bull in the china store
We are here but for a minute and gone for a whole lot more"
I never played it and maybe I never will.
But I know one thing.
If I ever meet Bob Dylan again, I'm not gonna bring it up. "

Ben Sidran



Ben Sidran has been a major force in the modern day history of jazz and rock & roll having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison.
It's been a long and varied journey for Ben Sidran—from playing boogie woogie piano as a six year old in Racine, Wisconsin, leaning into his jazz records, listening to a Blue Mitchell solo "literally like an Eskimo huddled around a fire", to growing up to play boogie woogie piano around the world and, eventually, recording with Blue Mitchell on his first solo album. Despite the reality that Sidran is better known in Europe and Japan than in America—a fact of life for most jazz musicians—Ben Sidran is an American success story.



Track List

Everything Is Broken
Highway 61 Revisited
Tangled Up In Blue
Gotta Serve Somebody
Rainy Day Woman
Ballad of a Thin Man
Maggie's Farm
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Subterranean Homesick Blues
On The Road Again
All I Really Want To Do
Blowin' in the Wind

Ben Sidran — Vocals, Piano, Wulitizer, Hammond B3, Fender Rhodes

Alberto Malo — Drums and Percussion

Marcello Giuliani — Acoustic and Electric Bass

Rodolph Burger — Guitar, Vocal on "Blowin' in the Wind"

Bob Malach — Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Bass Clarinet

Michael Leonhart — Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Amy Helm — Background Vocals

Georgie Fame — Vocal and Organ on "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35"

Jorge Drexler — Vocal on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Leonor Watling & Luca — Backgroiund Vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Ralph Towner - Paolo Fresu : Chiaroscuro ( Ecm 2085 )

Chiaroscuro” introduces a new duo and a rare instrumental combination – trumpet and acoustic guitar. The repertoire: a programme of old and new Ralph Towner compositions and duo improvisations, plus an old Miles Davis favourite, its presence a key to the musical priorities at work here.

The album was recorded last autumn in Udine, but the story of the Towner/Fresu alliance really begins further South, at a festival in Sardinia, 15 years ago. Towner had been commissioned to write music for a local ensemble. Fresu was its trumpeter. “I didn’t know him at all then,” Ralph recalls, “but from the very first phrase that he played, I thought: ‘This guy really understands melodies!’ And I thought there and then that we should do some more work together.”

The composition played that night, “Punta Giara”, resurfaces here in rearranged form, along with pieces shaped especially for this album, including the title track, a study in strong contrasts. The atmospheric “Sacred Place”, heard in two versions, and “Doubled Up” bring Towner’s new baritone guitar to the fore. Tuned a fifth below his classical concert guitar it allows him new flexibility in the low range, and the freedom to be, effectively, his own bassist on the clever “Doubled Up”, the most overtly jazz-like of the new tunes. .“’Doubled up’ has many meanings, of course, including doubled up with laughter. Here the theme is sequenced, so to speak, the events happen twice, each theme ‘doubled’ by the two players.”

Two pieces from Ralph’s ECM back-catalogue are revisited: “Wistful Thinking (originally heard as a solo piece on “Open Letter”, in 1992), and “Zephyr” (first scored for the band Oregon on 1987’s “Ecotopia”).

Of the subtle account of “Blue In Green”, Towner says., “I’d always wanted to do that song with a trumpet.” Paolo Fresu’s clear, vibratoless sound acknowledges its debt to Miles. Fresu has always been forthright about his formative influences (his bold remaking of “Porgy and Bess” in 2001 being a case in point). For Towner, as for so many musicians, “Kind of Blue” was a pivotal recording: “The whole ensemble was amazing, but especially Miles and the great Bill Evans working together - my favourite musicians of all time, in the improvising sphere.”

The album concludes with “Two Miniatures” and “Postlude”, improvisations that put the spotlight on the 12.string guitar, extending an approach that had worked well on Ralph’s solo albums “Anthem” and “Time Line”. “I like to do these free things – well ‘free’ is really a misnomer. The same compositional process is at work, but you only get one shot at it.”

Barbara Casini - Formidable ! ( Philology )

Non finisce piu' di stupire questa cantante-chitarrista fiorentina innamorata fin da ragazzina del Brasile ormai divenuta la sua seconda patria musicale. Tuttavia la scoperta della bossa nova, di Jobim, João Gilberto & co., non è stato un punto di arrivo in cui si sono fermati i suoi interessi musicali ma l'inizio di un lungo viaggio che le ha consentito di incontrare da un punto di vista interpretativo dai Beatles agli standards jazz passando per quello che per alcuni versi può essere considerato un cd fondamentale per la sua crescita artistica. Stiamo parlando naturalmente di “Vento” registrato con Enrico Rava per l’etichetta francese Label Bleu, con Stefano Bollani al pianoforte, Giovanni Tommaso al contrabbasso, Roberto Gatto alla batteria, e con l’accompagnamento dell’Accademia Filarmonica della Scala diretta da Paolo Silvestri, autore degli arrangiamenti.Ora abbiamo il piacere di rincontrarla impegnata nella canzone d’autore francese. In “Formidable!”, nuova produzione Philology, Barbara interpreta 12 classici di Charles Trenet. Grazie alla sua bella ed espressiva voce, all’impeccabile accompagnamento di Fabrizio Bosso, tromba, Pietro Lussu, pianoforte, e Ares Tavolazzi, contrabbasso abbiamo il piacere per il nostro udito e per il nostro cuore di ascoltare in una veste totalmente nuova brani immortali come “La Mer”, “J’ai Connus De Vous”, “Boum!”, “Le Soleil Et La Lune” sino ad arrivare alla toccante “Que Reste-T-Il De Nos Amours”, che chiude l’album.

Ecco come la stessa Barbara descrive questo suo ultimo lavoro " Un viaggio in auto da sola, la voce di Trenet alla radio in uno dei suoi brani piu' famosi.... e io, colpita al cuore da quel canto, all'improvviso voglio sapere tutto di quello che chiamano il "cantante pazzo".... la sua musica è teatro e poesia, e io voglio indossare le sue canzoni, voglio diventare un po' francese e un po' pazza anch'io : cosi' nasce questo progetto e questo nuovo dico, come sempre per un nuovo incanto e il desiderio di portarlo con me e trasmetterlo agli altri "

A noi non resta che augurare a tutti buon viaggio e buon ascolto !

- Barbara Casini – Formidable! Feat. Fabrizio Bosso, tromba, Pietro Lussu, pianoforte, e Ares Tavolazzi, contrabbasso.

Angelo Valori - Dove Volano Gli Angeli

Il Cd “Dove volano gli angeli” è composto da 12 brani intensi ed emozionanti, che esprimono l’intento dell’autore di raggiungere una libertà espressiva che è difficilmente inquadrabile in un genere musicale predefinito.
Potrebbe quindi essere definito come una produzione di jazz mediterraneo, dove le influenze della musica classica, contemporanea, etnica, potranno essere facilmente colte dall’ascoltatore.
Le musiche sono state eseguite dal M.Edit Ensemble, ed impreziosite dalle performances di ospiti di straordinaria rilevanza nazionale ed internazionale.


Angelo Valori ha iniziato giovanissimo a scrivere composizioni eseguite in importanti rassegne di musica sperimentale e d’avanguardia. Per oltre 15 anni ha smesso l’attività compositiva per poi dedicarsi ad un linguaggio più aperto alle influenze del jazz e della musica mediterranea. Si é diplomato in composizione e direzione d’orchestra presso i conservatori di Pescara, L'Aquila e la Scuola Superiore di musica di Pescara, seguendo i corsi di Aldo Clementi, Mario Gusella e Donato Renzetti.
Le sue composizioni sono state eseguite presso festival e rassegne europee (Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro stabile di Torino, Teatro lirico di Parma, Autunno musicale a Como, Teatro stabile di Parma, Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese, Società dei Concerti de L’Aquila, Auditorium della Rai a Roma, Spoltore Ensemble, Società del Teatro e della Musica e “Jazz in fall” di Pescara, oltre che a prestigiose rassegne ad Amburgo, Francoforte, Parigi, Berlino, Milano, Trieste, Bologna, Madrid, Ravenna, Bari, Rovigo, Bolzano, Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna, La Spezia, etc.), trasmesse dalla RAI, da Radio France, Osterreicher Runfunk, Radio 2 de Radio Nacional Espana, Sveriges Riksradio e pubblicate da Rai Trade, Edipan, BMG - Ricordi.
Ha composto le musiche per lo spettacolo di danza “Cleopatra, il potere dell’amore”, con le coreografie di Patrizia Cerroni, rappresentato al Teatro Nazionale nell’ambito della stagione 2008 del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. Ha scritto le musiche per spettacoli di teatro musicale con David Riondino (Nuove Milonghe 1996; Satire e Milonghe, 2007), Pamela Villoresi (Le Isole dell’Anima, 2001), Claudio Di Scanno (Uragani, Concert/azione). Ha composto la colonna sonora originale del film “La figlia di Iorio” (2004), regia di Mario Di Iorio.
Le sue composizioni sono, tra l’altro, registrate sui CD “Gli anni del buio”, “The Lodger” (EcamLab), “Uragani, Concert-azione” (Il Manifesto), “Dove volano gli Angeli” (Wide-sound). Ha diretto musiche di Rota, Piazzolla, Part in un CD dell’Adriatico Ensemble (etichetta Sculture d’aria). Dal 1993 ad oggi direttore artistico dell’ECAMLAB per la quale ha prodotto 40 compact disc tesi alla valorizzazione della creatività contemporanea e dei nuovi linguaggi musicali.

Enrico Pieranunzi - Wandering ( Cam Jazz )

Not only is Enrico Pieranunzi considered the best jazz composer and pianist in Europe, he is also regarded as an amazingly prolific artist. The ideas and the music never stop. Perhaps that creative restlessness is why he named his third release of 2009, Wandering. The recording is his 14th for the acclaimed Italian jazz label, CAM Jazz, which will release the new music in the United States on October 13, 2009 in digital form only.
Pieranunzi’s release of three recordings this year presents a unique opportunity to understand his diverse influences and distinctive voice in light of these very different discs. With Enrico Pieranunzi Plays Domenico Scarlatti , the fearless Roman took on an unprecedented challenge: improvising on the sonatas of the famous classical composer Domenico Scarlatti. He followed that with the ephemeral Dream Dance, the seventh album he’s recorded with his long-time American partners, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron.
Now with Wandering, he returns to solo form such as on Scarlatti, but returns to his own evocative compositions and mastery of his own personal process. As always, Pieranunzi plays elegantly and with such astute technical ability that it heightens the tension for the listener. He also captures the emotional undercurrents of the music expertly, stoking our imaginations.

Writes Paul Benkimoun in the liner notes,
“Harmonic and melodic progressions appear as events in the course of the stories told in Wandering… ‘Fermati A Guardare Il Giorno’ has this evocative power. Who knows why ‘Wandering 2,’ as ‘Dark,’ engender black and white images…With its repeated bass vamp, ‘Improstinato 2’ too recalls a dark menace…A master in creating atmospheres, Enrico Pieranunzi allows us to hear all of the tenderness which he is capable of in the tune ‘Rosa Del Mare’; … ‘For My True Love’ finds its intensity in the delicacy with which Pieranunzi exposes in different ways the same thing: words of love…Through the multiple facets which make up each of its pieces, Wandering yields a portrait of Enrico Pieranunzi. Thanks to a magnificent pianistic mastery, to an extended dynamic and to the amplitude of his sound palette, the artist manages not to be repetitive albeit remaining himself in every instant.”

John Gorka - So Dark You See

"this is the real deal" - All Music Guide

"Nobody turns a phrase like John Gorka...engaging melodies...captivating lyrics." - CMT.com

"I think of this record as a little folk festival with many voices and more than one style of music." - John Gorka


The album looks back to his roots in traditional folk music with a contemporary feel. As one of the premier songwriters in music, this album shines light on timeless stories of love and war with catchy melodies and soulful vocals.

Godfrey Daniels is one of the oldest and most venerable music institutions in eastern Pennsylvania. A small neighborhood coffeehouse and listening room, it has long been a hangout for music lovers and aspiring musicians, and, in the late 1970s, one of these was a young Moravian College student named John Gorka. Though his academic course work lay in Philosophy and History, music began to offer paramount enticements. Soon he found himself living in the club’s basement and acting as resident M.C. and soundman, encountering legendary folk troubadours like Canadian singer/songwriter Stan Rogers, Eric Andersen, Tom Paxton and Claudia Schmidt. Their brand of folk-inspired acoustic music inspired him, and before long he was performing his own songs - mostly as an opener for visiting acts. Soon he started traveling to New York City, where Jack Hardy’s legendary Fast Folk circle (a breeding ground for many a major singer/songwriter) became a powerful source of education and encouragement. Folk meccas like Texas’ Kerrville Folk Festival (where he won the New Folk Award in 1984) and Boston followed, and his stunningly soulful baritone voice and emerging songwriting began turning heads. Those who had at one time inspired him - Suzanne Vega, Bill Morrissey, Nanci Griffith, Christine Lavin, Shawn Colvin - had become his peers.

In 1987, the young Minnesota-based Red House Records caught wind of John’s talents and released his first album, I Know, to popular and critical acclaim. With unusual drive and focus, John hit the ground running and, when an offer came from Windham Hill’s Will Ackerman in 1989, he signed with that label’s imprint, High Street Records. He proceeded to record five albums with High Street over the next seven years: Land of the Bottom Line, Jack’s Crows, Temporary Road, Out of the Valley and Between Five and Seven. His albums and his touring (over 150 nights a year at times) brought new accolades for his craft. Rolling Stone called him “the preeminent male singer/songwriter of the new folk movement.” His rich multi-faceted songs full of depth, beauty and emotion gained increasing attention from critics and audiences across the country, as well as in Europe where his tours led him through Italy, Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland and Germany.

Many well known artists have recorded and/or performed John Gorka songs, including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Mary Black and Maura O’Connell. He also started sharing tours with many notable friends—Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter among them. All this has brought his music to an ever-widening audience. His video for the single “When She Kisses Me” found a long-term rotation on VH-1’s “Current Country,” as well as on CMT and the Nashville Network. John also graced the stage of Austin City Limits, appeared on CNN, and has been the subject of other national programming.

In 1998, after five successful recordings and seven years at Windham Hill/High Street, John felt the need for a change and decided to return to his musical roots at Red House Records. The choice was driven, in part, by the artistic integrity that the label represents in an industry where the business of music too often takes precedence. His 1998 release After Yesterday marked a decidedly different attitude towards making music for John, and his next release The Company You Keep held fast to John’s tradition of fine songwriting, yet moved forward down new avenues. Its fourteen songs displayed John’s creative use of lyrics and attention to detail. Andy Stochansky played drums and shared production credits with John and Rob Genadek. Ani DiFranco, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucy Kaplansky and Patty Larkin contributed stellar guitar work and vocals to this fan favorite. Old Futures Gone was informed by his life as husband and father of two young children and also contained the colorful experience of many hard years on the road. Writing in the Margins followed and was an engaging collection of sweet and serious songs that spanned many musical genres—folk, pop, country and soul— and featured guest vocalists Nanci Griffith, Lucy Kaplansky and Alice Peacock.

Now with this, his 11th studio album, he returns to his roots with So Dark You See, his most compelling and traditional album to date. In addition to his 11 critically acclaimed albums, John released a collector’s edition box featuring a hi-definition DVD and companion CD called The Gypsy Life. Windham Hill has also recently released a collection of John’s greatest hits from the label called Pure John Gorka. Many well known artists have recorded and/or performed John Gorka songs, including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Mary Black and Maura O’Connell. John has graced the stage of Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage, etown and has appeared on CNN. His new song “Where No Monument Stands” is featured in the upcoming documentary Every War Has Two Losers, about activist Oregon Poet Laureate William Stafford (1914-1993).

The Jazz Tribe - Everlasting ( Red Records )

The Jazz Tribe are :
Ray Mantilla
Bobby Watson
Jack Walrath
Xavier Davis
Curtis Lundy
Victor Lewis

The Jazz Tribe is a group created by producer and manager Alberto Alberti in the early 90s, specifically as an original production for the La Spezia Jazz Festival. Alberti joined skilfully, with love and talent as he was used to do, some of his preferred musicians: Bobby Watson, alto saxophone player that pushed on an higher level the jazz language with his undoubtedly unique and innovative style; Ray Mantilla, top percussionist from the Latin Jazz group, one of the greatest percussion player from the modern jazz scene ever (played with Art Blakey, Herbie Mann. Stan Getz, Max Roach); Jack Walrath, trumpet player and arranger with a very peculiar and innovative style (worked for many years with Charles Mingus besides his own groups as a leader); Walter Bishop Jr., today no more with us, but one of the top piano player from the Be- Bop Era, mainly by the side of Charlie Parker; Joe Chambers, one of the most important drummer from the modern jazz scene; Steve Grossman, guest member of the Jazz Tribe, great tenor sax player from the post-Coltrane Age by the side of J. Bergonzi, M. Brecker, B. Berg, D. Liebman; on the bass, Charles Fambrough, nowadays almost forgotten musician, he played for many glorious years with Art Blackey's Jazz Messengers in the top line-up including Wynton Marsalis and Bobby Watson himself (Cd recordings can easily testify his superb musical qualities).
The concert given by all those musicians has been recorded and released by Red Records, ad memoriam futura, titling "The Jazz Tribe" and placing itself as a milestones between the crossroads of the top contemporary mainstream jazz expressions: it finds its roots from the latin and afro-cuban experience that enriched the great jazz tradition from Jelly Roll Morton, Mario Bauza, Dizzy Gillespie, Parker, Blakey, Silver, Dorham, Getz … that still nowadays brings towards new enthusiastic musical experiences such as the Jazz Tribe, probably one of the most important and meaningful of all the times.

At the beginning of the new millennium, Ray Mantilla & Bobby Watson, leaders of this cooperative group, asked Red Records to produce a new recording, "The Next Step" (quite meaningful title, isn't it?), bringing ad hoc original compositions and a upgraded line-up: the great pianist Ronnie Mathews (even he recently missed), that took Walter Bishop Jr.'s place; Victor Lewis, one of the greatest drummer and musician of the last 30 years that strictly worked by the side of B. Watson, and Curtis Lundy, Watson's collaborator since the Miami University times, singer Carmen Lundy's brother, bass player that worked with many musicians such as Betty Carter, and leader of several groups released by Sunnyside recordings.
The Next Step isn't a simple group's evolution: it points out the liveliness of the latin and afro-cuban tradition grafted on the great jazz history (we have to listen carefully to certain maeican and argentinian influences on Walrath music).
The tradition evolving or, better, innovation without revolution adapting themes, harmonies and sounds toward a more contemporary sensibility.
The Next Step has been considered a masterpiece of its genre thanks to the excellent soloists, their solid backgrounds, innovative rhythmic sections, involving grooves and imaginative melodies.
One of the characteristic aspect of the Jazz Tribe's music appears to be its easiness in enjoying the audience and, at the same time, its extremely complex execution. Innovation stands in rhythmic and harmonic aspects and both in the sensibility of understanding the more than ever cultural importance, specifically in the American melting pot society, of the latin influences: it faces already existing cultures generating new synthesis and original languages.
After the successful 2007 tour that brought The Jazz Tribe playing in many European countries in front of enthusiastic audiences, our musicians went on April 2008 back again in recording studio to play the tunes of the tour, and finally here to listen to in this current CD.
In this recording Ronnie Mathews, seriously ill, has been substituted by the talented pianist Xavier Davis, a young musical revelation discovered by Bobby Watson, as he always paid attention to contemporary rising stars.
The recording has been accurately mixed by Bobby Watson himself in a Kansas City studio: very high listening quality, clean and brilliant sounds but, most of all, this CD shines for the music in itself for its capability in reporting the present times with deep and sincere intentions.

Angela Hagenbach - The Way They Make Me Feel

For Angela Hagenbach's debut album on Resonance Records, The Way They Make Me Feel, producer George Klabin devised a unique approach: most contemporary jazz vocal albums are a hodge podge of various songs by different writers, while others are songbooks devoted to a single composer or lyricist. The Way They Make Me Feel, contrastingly, combines the best songs of three venerated musical giants whose work collectively defines a key era of American music: Michel Legrand, Henry Mancini, and Johnny Mandel. Hagenbach reports that Klabin thought of the album title - a play on the Legrand classic "The Way He Makes Me Feel" (from Yentl) even before the two of them had finished selecting the songs. Pre-selecting the title was a new approach for the Kansas City-based singer who served as producer and AR director on each of her five previous albums for her own label, Amazon Records® "My methods are quite different," she says, "yet each of my projects has its own uniqueness. I'm certainly pleased with the results of this debut." The works of these three melodic masters are perfect for the widely-acclaimed jazz singer, who sings in a dark sultry voice, by turns seductive and swinging - sometimes even both at once. From the funky backbeats of "Cinnamon and Clove" to the rich, European atmosphere of "Charade," to the epic grandeur of "Summer Me, Winter Me" and the intimacy of "His Eyes, Her Eyes," Hagenbach and her musical arrangers, Tamir Hendelman and Kuno Schmid, cover a wide range of feelings, grooves, and emotional moods. Hagenbach tells us, "I've been a huge fan of these three composers for a long time and have performed many of their songs over the years. She notes that, "in addition to being masters of their art, their music has crossed over many genres - from show tunes to film scores or TV show themes. These songs are entirely adaptable to the jazz idiom because they are so well written. They've not only become landmark works in the American songbook but
also traditional jazz standards."

Apart from a shared history in Hollywood - all three composers have won Academy Awards - Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel, and the late Henry Mancini each have a knack for telling stories that speak to Hagenbach. "I'm a vocalist with the heart of a poet," she says, "I love a good story and I like to remain free to whatever the story, the melody, and the arrangement suggests to me." She adds that her own experience as a songwriter has helped her sharpen her abilities to interpret lyrics and music written by others. "I have a wealth of stories of my own to tell and am still perfecting the knack of speaking my mind and heart with ever so few words, lyrically speaking. Musically, I'm very big on melody. If you've got a great melody, the changes will follow. Mandel, Mancini, and Legrand are masters of this style of composing and the lyricists for each of the compositions are exquisite and they beautifully enhance the message with few cleverly chosen lyrics." George initially came up with a list of 18 great songs by these three iconic composers. Of these, Angela selected ten and suggested 'Cinnamon and Clove.' "I have a passion for Brazilian rhythms and could not resist this chart. I was unfamiliar with it and only stumbled upon it while researching the Mandel Songbook." Tamir Hendelman and Kuno Schmid both share the duty as pianist and musical director on this record. Hendelman, who recently played on Barbra Streisand's 2009 CD, Love Is The Answer, played piano on and arranged five selections for Hagenbach. Schmid played piano and arranged the five-string section tracks heard on roughly half the album, and on the straight-ahead "Sure As You're Born." Hagenbach describes her two musical directors here, as "fantastic pianists and arrangers." Prior to the sessions, she conferred with the two of them by long distance, principally telephone and email.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Hagenbach was able to hear MIDI blueprints of the charts (which were then recorded with actual acoustic musicians for the album itself) in advance and gave Tamir and Kuno her feedback. Among other things, she liked Klabin's idea to utilize an accordion to provide proper atmosphere for the French melodies of M. Legrand, which led to Tamir and George putting a call in to "the wonderful Frank Marocco." But, she adds, "I can't single Frank out without mentioning the others. All the musicians were fantastic! So musical and witty and just a delight to be creating music with." The set gets underway with a comparatively rare song by Johnny Mandel, "Cinnamon and Clove," most famously recorded, up to now, as an instrumental by tenor great Zoot Sims. Angela notes that in addition to having a Brazilian beat, Mandel's melody is deceptive: the second A section is an octave lower than the first and has a built in tag. Then the bridge comes in so quickly that a singer less sure-footed than Hagenbach would surely be thrown - instead she cut the whole thing in one take that satisfied George and Kuno so thoroughly, that they didn't even feel the need for another try. Says Angela, "what a great composition! And the imagery the Bergmans conjured up lyrically was more than I could pass up. I just had to include this one. I was surprised by Tamir's intro - I was expecting a samba, and he delivered a New Orleans parade beat! But in the end, I got my samba, and it all worked out superbly. Tamir is wonderful and Steve Wilkerson's burning sax solo seals the deal."

Angela describes Michel Legrand's "The Way He Makes Me Feel" - also with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman - as "An epic ballad if there ever was one. This melody is both worldly and timid all at once, and I love what Kuno did with it." A rare jazz treatment of one of the songs from the majestic Legrand-Bergman score to Yentl, Hagenbach and Schmid took considerable liberties with the song - for instance, they decided to concentrate on just one central part of the piece, rather than the whole, longish thing as heard in the film. Angela notes that, "The gorgeous swelling of the arrangement beautifully captures the heart of the piece, and although Kuno's tinkling piano solo is only eight bars long, it still has that grand yet intimate scope." Johnny Mandel's "Sure as You're Born" is the only quartet number on the album and the only one to employ electronic keyboard and bass. She's rightfully proud of it in that "for the most part it's a head arrangement with the exception of the intro into the head (or tempo) and the ending. Kuno did another fine job here, and it's a complete departure from his string arrangements. What a fun romp."
Likewise, of the Mandel-Paul Williams standard "Close Enough for Love," Hagenbach reports, "I love the pensive intro - Steve Wilkerson on clarinet - and the way Tamir's arrangement enhances the emotional give and take of the story by flowing in and out of different time signatures and feels: a straight four to a bolero to a waltz and back again. I love the way Frank Marocco punctuates my delivery with his accordion." Angela Hagenbach has been based in Kansas City for most of her career. She was twice chosen to represent the United States as a Jazz Ambassador to the world under the auspices of the United States Information Agency and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has worked and recorded with Clark Terry, Jimmy Heath, Russell Malone, Frank Foster and others. Two of her original compositions will be featured in Last Will, a 2010 film release, starring Tom Berenger and Tatum O'Neal. Angela is widely known as a masterful interpreter of great songs written by everyone from Duke Ellington to Antonio Carlos Jobim, as well as an acclaimed writer of original songs herself. This is her sixth album.

New York based tenor saxophonist/composer Seamus Blake is recognized as one of the finest and most creative young players in jazz.

John Scofield, who hired him for his “Quiet Band,” calls him “extraordinary, a total saxophonist.” In February 2002, he took first place in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in Washington D. C. As the winner, he performed with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock.

Seamus Blake was born in England and raised in Vancouver, Canada. At age 21, while still a student at Boston's prestigious Berklee College, he was asked to record with legendary drummer Victor Lewis. After graduation, he moved to New York, where he rapidly established himself on the New York jazz scene.

Seamus has released five albums on Criss Cross Records, from his 1993 debut “The Call” to the 1995 premiere of the “Bloomdaddies,” a “funky, alternative grunge jazz band”, to “Way Out Willy,” which was released in February 2007. He has also recorded as a leader for the Fresh Sound label. "Stranger Things have Happened" (now available on itunes) features Kurt Rosenwinkel as well as Jorge Rossy and Larry Grenadier from the Brad Mehldau trio.

Blake is a long standing member of the Grammy nominated group, the Mingus Big Band, and is featured on the last six albums. He continues to play and record with the Victor Lewis Quintet, as well as with Bill Stewart and Kevin Hays. He has also performed and/or recorded with Franco Ambrosetti, Dave Douglas, Jane Monheit, Kenny Barron, Sam Yahel, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Pat Metheny, Joe Lovano, Joshua Redman, Brad Meldhau, Larry Grenadier, Wayne Krantz, Jorge Rossy, Jack Dejohnette, Brian Blade, Jeremy Pelt, Eric Reed, David Kikoski, Al Foster and many others.

Ever since he debuted with The Call back in 1994, saxophonist Seamus Blake's star has been on the rise and he continues to be a valued member of the Criss Cross family.

As a follow-up to Way Out Willy, Blake's latest features pianist David Kikoski, guitarist Lage Lund, bassist Matt Clohesy, and drummer Bill Stewart on another electrifying set of originals that sparkle with creativity and the kind of integrity that marks the best of today's current generation of jazz artists.

Among a decidedly upbeat set of tunes, highlights further include some deeply moving statements from the saxophonist and Lund on the introspective The Song That Lives Inside. Rounding out the mix are takes on John Scofield's Dance Me Home and a third stream-inspired reworking of Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor, Opus 10.

Kris Kristofferson - Closer To The Bone

Kris Kristofferson returns to the essentials of his finely honed craft on his New West album Closer to the Bone. Like the master singer-songwriter’s 2006 New West bow This Old Road, the new album is produced by Grammy Award winner Don Was. The previous collection – Kristofferson’s first recording in almost a dozen years – was hailed by critics as “one of the finest albums of his storied career” (Rolling Stone), “a stripped-down stunner” (Esquire), and “a return to his best work” (Q).

Kristofferson says, “I like the intimacy of the new album. It has a general mood of reflecting on where we all are at this end of life.”

Much like its predecessor, Closer to the Bone is a deftly observed, honestly executed work about love, separation, loss, and mortality. The subject matter ranges from the musician’s family (“From Here to Forever,” “The Wonder”) to Kristofferson’s late friend Johnny Cash (“Good Morning John”). Was views the new album as a sort of sequel to its much-acclaimed predecessor: “The recording conditions were a little more controlled, but it’s based around Kris singing and playing guitar, and nothing was to get in the way of that. If anything got in the way of it, we pulled it out. I think the two albums are completely of a piece. I love This Old Road. There’s something really immediate about it, and really profound. I personally think this is a better record, overall. It’s the songs.”

Some of the album’s songs were penned relatively recently, while others Kristofferson had never managed to successfully record. He laughs when he recalls a previous attempt to cut “Good Morning John” with Willie Nelson – like Cash and Kristofferson a member of the country supergroup the Highwaymen -- on harmony vocals: “I got to that line where I say, ‘I love you, John,’ and Willie sang, ‘He loves you, John.’ I said, ‘C’mon, Willie, you can say, ‘I love you, John.’ I guess it embarrassed him. Anyway, we ended up not putting it out then.” While the recording of Closer to the Bone doesn’t entirely replicate the off-the-cuff methodology of This Old Road – which was tracked with surround-sound equipment in a single session in the lounge of a Hollywood studio – the new album, made at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, aimed for the same earthy simplicity.

Most of the tracks were recorded live in the studio. Was says, “We tried to keep it as spontaneous as possible. There is some overdubbing on it, but for most of it we thought we’d try it with everybody playing.”

Was, who played bass on the sessions (as he had on the preceding album), once again drafted the other musicians who supported Kristofferson on This Old Road and a round of tour dates that followed its release: guitarist and backup vocalist Stephen Bruton (who also co-wrote the Closer to the Bone tracks “From Here to Forever” and “Let the Walls Come Down”) and drummer Jim Keltner. Rami Jaffee of the Wallflowers contributed piano and accordion overdubs.

Such searing, contemplative songs as “Closer to the Bone” and “Hall of Angels” gained a melancholy resonance in the days following the completion of sessions for the album. On May 9, 2009, Bruton – one of Kristofferson’s closest friends and musical associates for four decades – died in Los Angeles at the age of 60 after a long battle with throat cancer. The album is dedicated to his memory. “He was there while I was recording, and he was in great spirits at the time,” Kristofferson says of Bruton, who replaced Billy Swan in his band at the age of 20. “Stephen was more like a brother than a guy that worked with me. We went through a lot of years, a lot of laughter, a lot of heartache. I really felt close to Stephen. His spirit’s on the album.”

Was says of Bruton’s unique contributions to Kristofferson’s sound, “He and Kris just had a lock that Kris is never going to be able to get with anybody. It’s what comes from 40 years of playing together. They just had a way of weaving together.”

Kristofferson’s New West albums mark the culmination of a distinguished career that has encompassed the authorship of such classic American songs as “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night”; stardom in such feature films as Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and A Star is Born; honors including three Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award; and years of outspoken political and social activism. This November, he will be feted as a BMI Icon at the performing rights organization’s Country Awards.

In the wake of the rave reviews accorded This Old Road, the now 73-year-old performer has undertaken a vigorous schedule of international solo appearances.
Kristofferson says, “I was overseas doing a film when I got the opportunity to work in Ireland, and I didn’t have time to martial the troops. So I went out by myself, and it worked. I’ve been really surprised at selling out the shows everywhere. People are filling up the houses.

“Something was making a direct communication with the audience,” he adds, “and I guess it must be down to the essence of the songs. Because God knows, there’s better guitar players and singers. But it seems to be working with my material -- just me and the song.”

Tom Ovans - Get On Board

>"a pessimistic prophet whose music is mostly stark, whose lyrics are fragmentary and poetic… the rough-hewn ballads carry a bleak beauty"
Paul Du Noyer The Word

From the industrial side of east Austin, recorded at a primitive analogue studio which shares a warehouse space with a concrete fabrication shop, comes Tom Ovans 12th album Get On Board (FW 036).

‘It's hard to find an edgy studio anymore’ says Ovans, yet the Sweat Box, owned and operated by Mike Vasquez for 16 years, fitted the bill. Walking around work benches, power tools, cement mixers and cables to get to the studio, Tom recorded the album live in 2 days with Larry Chaney (electric guitar) and Vicente Rodriguez (drums) returning from the Party Girl (2007) sessions.

They were joined by newcomer Phil Ajjarapu on bass. Additional sessions were used to record vocals by Lou Ann Bardash, a horn part by DD Dagger and Mike Vasquez, and a piano part by Jesse Hester.

The album closes with ‘Too Late Now’, one of the longest and most ambitious songs that Tom has ever recorded, a story that begins and ends at a fenced-in basketball court down in Greenwich Village on the corner of West 4th and 6th Ave known as ‘The Cage’.

BIOGRAPHY

Itinerant songman Tom Ovans has long been an outsider, a restless traveler on the spin. Born just outside of Boston, Massachusetts in 1953, he’s lived a life on the margins. If music has been his one constant, still he has always faced what had to be faced, done what had to be done – whether that be carpentry, painting or roofing, working in construction, factories or warehouses. Prissy, overwrought singer-songwriters everywhere, today as always, can talk the big talk, but craftsmen think with their hearts and work with their hands.

As a chronicler and troubadour, Ovans has trod a rough and ragged musical path across the States. In the early ’70s in New York City he walked the walk with a junked-out Tim Hardin and knocked-out loaded Phil Ochs. Over the years he has drifted, been homeless, stood proud, lain low, dug deep but always moved on. Following stints on the east coast, west coast, a short spell in New Orleans and 18 long years in Nashville, Tom Ovans landed in Austin, Texas, six years ago with his painter wife Lou Ann Bardash. Together, they continue to live on the edge, away from the spotlight, fame or glare. He only rarely gigs or tours.

A self-taught musician, Ovans released his first album, ‘Industrial Days’, in 1991. Attracting increasingly widespread respect and acclaim, an impressive series of raw and gritty, moving and inspired albums followed. ‘Dead South’ in 1997 was his first masterpiece, 1999’s ‘The Beat Trade’ was even better. ‘Tombstone Boys, Graveyard Girls’ in 2003 probably topped the lot. For Ovans, integrity counts over success. He don’t wave no flags for no-one, doesn’t preach to the choir, and never chooses easy, Sprawled across two CDs, and drawing hard on a long life lived in the shadow of the American Dream, 2005’s ‘Honest Abe and the Assassins’ is a fiercely personal and doggedly independent work. Tough and honest, bruised and bleeding, it reaches in and reaches out, hits hard and lingers long. It is Tom Ovans’ tenth album, and his best to date.

Stefano Bollani - Stone In The Water ( Ecm 2080 )

Stefano Bollani piano

Jesper Bodilsen double-bass

Morten Lund drums

The Italian virtuoso, pianist Stefano Bollani, began his collaboration with bassist Jesper Bodilsen and drummer Morten Lund in 2003. The chemistry between the 3 musicians has from the start been exceptional and their albums have been praised by critics and have sold several thousand copies.

The first album MI RITORNI IN MENTE that was released in 2003 was among the 10 best selling records in Italy that year. Following Danish and Italian tours, it became clear that this constellation was destined to be of a more permanent nature. They have been invited to play at clubs and festivals all over the world - their debut in New York was a successful concert at the legendary Birdland Club.

You need not be a musician to understand what bassist Jesper Bodilsen means when he says, “The fascinating thing about playing with Stefano is his brilliant musicality. You never know what’s going to happen; all you know is that it is so very inspiring. His playing combines playfulness and humor with something very deep.”

This is probably in part due to the fact that Bollani has always expressed himself in a wide range of idioms. Although classically trained, he has played jazz and pop since childhood, and even once contemplated a vocalist career. The diversity and unbiased outlook are two traits he shares with bassist Jesper Bodilsen and drummer Morten Lund. After fifthteen years of collaboration on numerous projects, these two musicians are possibly the tightest bass/drum team of their generation on the Danish jazz scene.

The trio’s first album was dominated by Italian tunes and standard type material. On their second album GLEDA the trio finds a melodic and original tone in a music concentrated around Scandinavian songs. This album was nominated for an Australian Bell Award in the category – Best International Jazz Release in 2006.

The carefully picked material enables the music to flow from this trio in a steady current of intelligence, imagination and delight in playing. Bollani finds his phrases in a deep understanding of the harmonic structures, allowing him to display extreme boldness without ever betraying the melody. Bodilsen is a granite foundation, demonstrating a large and flexible tone and an undisputed authority, while Lund spurs them on, constantly varying his sound.

They have succeeded in creating a beautiful, refreshing and modern sound in a wonderfully well-defined recording. Hearing one of Europe’s great pianists interpret these tunes is pure pleasure and together this trio turns the songs into small miracles!

Jesper Bodilsen and Morten Lund both attended Denmark’s Royal Music Academy in Aarhus, and have played together in numerous contexts since then, along the way becoming, as has been frequently noted, the tightest bass/drums team of their generation on the Danish jazz scene. Bodilsen has been playing professionally since 1985 and has performed and/or recorded with Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell, Enrico Rava, Ed Thigpen, John Abercrombie, James Moody, Jeff Tain Watts, Paolo Fresu among others. Lund has performed and recorded with Mike Stern, Curtis Stigers, Cæcilie Norby, Lars Danielsson, Ulf Wakenius, Christian McBride, Avishai Cohen, Chris Minh Doky, Silje Nergaard, Viktoria Tolstoy, Anders Jormin, Bobo Stenson, Lars Jansson, Bob Mintzer, Tom Harrell, Johnny Griffin, Phil Woods, Etta Cameron, NHØP, and many others. Bodilsen and Lund have each appeared on around 100 albums. “Stone in the Water” is their first for ECM.

With “Stone in the Water” the three players move, with immense subtlety, through a fascinating programme that includes new pieces by Bollani and Bodilsen, plus ballads by Caetano Veloso and Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Poulenc’s “Improvisation 13 en mineur”, bringing fresh colours to the piano trio genre.

Tracklist :

Dom de iludir ( Caetano Veloso )
Orvieto ( Jesper Bodilsen )
Edith ( Jesper Bodilsen )
Brigas nunca mais ( A. C. Jobim / V. D. Moraes )
Il cervello del pavone ( Stefano Bollani )
Un sasso nello stagno ( Stefano Bollani )
Improvisation 13 en la mineur ( Francis Poulenc )
Asuda ( Stefano Bollani )
Joker in the Village ( Stefano Bollani )

Vedi anche :

Enrico Rava - New York Days

Richard Galliano - Paris Concert ( Theatre du Châtelet )

"The story of a painter, a musician, a composer, an artist; music has never been as close to a pictorial work of art as the music of Richard Galliano. The maestro now stands in front of the white canvas, at the Foyer du Theatre du Châtelet..."

Theatre du Châtelet. The temple of Parisian music, just a short walk from the bakns of the Seine. There, in front of his audience, Richard Galliano makes his entrance with only the accordion. Double the responsibility yet double the joy to play in front of his own people.

A festive maze of sounds, that touches the form : jazz, tango French song...waills of blues emerge from the folds of his accordion. Travelling with his compositions, the ones that brought him to perform on stage throughout the world, without forgetting those of Astor Piazzolla, who he has always loved and celebrated in his own way. Yes, because Galliano knows how to shape the material to himself : the teaching of the composer from Mar de La Plata are well visible, but as a starting point, not as a landing place.

Moving, never taking for granted the solutions, always at the service of the melody and the rhythm - principle elements of dance - very attentive to the depth and the form; because, like few artists, Galliano joins technical skill and syntactical knowledge of the music from the 1900s with an uncommon emotionality.

Chat Pitre opens the album, one of the most beautiful pieces written by this accordion player from Cannes, and is followed by Gnossienne 1 and Gnossienne 2 by Erik Satie.

But there is a lot of Italy in his latest "Paris Concert", and not only for the italian label, Cam Jazz, that has realeased this work ( for which Galliano had already recorded the beautiful "L'Hymne à l' Amour", inviting vibraphonist Gary Burton ), but also for his tribute to a very popular Italian song, Caruso, which brought worlwide fame to Lucio Dalla.

And then "Round Midnight" by Thelonius Monk, an artist that Galliano is particularly attached and to whom he has rendered homage many times during his career: a version thought out in absolute respect for the Monkian concept.

If, as Virginia Woolfs writes, in solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories and the details around us, then this solo album gifts us with a Galliano in his most profound essence, as artist and as a man".

The Best Is Yet To Come ( The songs of Cy Coleman )

."Cy Coleman was one of the greatest American composers of all time."

-Tony Bennett

The provocative, cutting-edge album The Best Is Yet To Come: The Songs of Cy Coleman features stunning, utterly surprising interpretations of his songs by 12 gifted contemporary female artists: Fiona Apple, Madeleine Peyroux, Missy Higgins, Jill Sobule, Sarabeth Tucek, Nikka Costa, Sara Watkins, Julianna Raye, Sam Phillips, Ambrosia Parsley, Patty Griffin and Perla Batalla. All tracks were fashioned by producer/pianist Dave Palmer.

Cy Coleman was the last major contributor to the Great American Songbook. He s responsible for timeless songs such as The Best Is Yet To Come and The Rules Of The Road made timeless by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Barbara Streisand, Dusty Springfield, Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. Ella Fitzgerald won a Grammy for her performance of The Best Is Yet To Come.



Track List
1. The Best Is Yet To Come - Performed by Patty Griffin
2. I've Got Your Number - Performed by Jill Sobule
3. Why Try To Change Me Now - Performed by Fiona Apple
4. I Live My Love - Performed by Madeleine Peyroux
5. Then Was Then And Now Is Now - Performed by Ambrosia Parsley
6. I’m Gonna Laugh You Right Out Of My Life - Performed by Julianna Raye
7. You Fascinate Me So - Performed by Sam Phillips
8. Hey Look Me Over - Performed by Perla Batalla
9. Too Many Tomorrows - Performed by Sara Watkins
10. I Walk A Little Faster - Performed by Fiona Apple
11. Where Am I Going? - Performed by Sarabeth Tucek
12. The Rules Of The Road - Performed by Nikka Costa
13. (I’m) In Love Again - Performed by Missy Higgins

Things About Comin' My Way - A tributo te the music of The Mississippi Sheiks

Recorded and produced by Juno Award winning producer Steve Dawson, in Seattle, Vancouver, Ottawa and New York, this project fulfills a dream of Steve's to pay tribute to the work of this unique and historic group. Between 1930 and 1935, The Mississippi Sheiks were the top selling group of its time, largely due to their hit “Sitting On Top if the World”, also recorded by Cream, Bill Monroe, Howlin’ Wolf and many more. An All-Star cast of internationally renowned artists have all recorded brand new versions of songs by The Mississippi Sheiks. Each track is specifically for this project and does not appear on any other release.

Ranging from traditional to the avant-garde, this tribute stands above others in quality and scope, and features artists well-known in blues, jazz, pop and rock genres. With exclusive recordings by Bruce Cockburn, Madeleine Peyroux, John Hammond, Kelly Joe Phelps, The North Mississippi Allstars, Oh Susanna with Van Dyke Parks, Bill Frisell, Geoff Muldaur, Robin Holcomb, Jim Byrnes, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, and more.