Archive > September 2009

Brenda Boykin

Chocolate & Chili

Chocolate & Chili

Multi-awarded Californian Jazz singer Brenda Boykin presents her 18th album “Chocolate & Chili”. The album was recorded in Europe, where she has had huge success as the singer with Club des Belugas. Brenda presents 14 tracks, which she created and wrote with top musicians from the German and European NuJazz, Lounge & Electro scene. The composers and producers are: Gecko Turner, Club des Belugas, Moca, Jojo Effect, Bahama Soul Club, Detlef Hoeller and Bebo Best....

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Abbey Lincoln

Abbey Sings Abbey

Abbey Sings Abbey

The repertoire here is drawn from songs the singer has written and recorded previously, but these reinterpretations burn with a fierce intensity all their own. Part of the power comes from the arrangements, which favor accordion, bass, drums, and electric guitar rather than more conventional instrumentation. But it’s Lincoln’s beautiful songs and even more beautiful performances that make ABBEY SINGS ABBEY a must-hear....

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Claire Martin

Perfect Alibi
Perfect Alibi

One of the best of a strong crop of young British jazz singers, Claire Martin has been on the scene for over ten years. Actually it’s not clear she is a jazz singer, but that’s another discussion. One thing that makes sense is her repertoire. She used to sing show tunes from the ’30s and ’40s and probably still does occasionally, but lately she’s been recording the better pop songs of the last forty years (the Beatles and after). She believes in these songs and gets inside them. She is not swing oriented, but her time is superb....

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Fredrika Stahl

Tributaries

Tributaries

Sophomore album for French and Swedish jazz artist. At 22, Swedish singer-songwriter Fredrika Stahl already shows amazing maturity. She does not want to restrict herself to one genre or another and expresses her very personal style, somewhere between pop and jazz. Her vocal qualities make for a refined, natural and unaffected performance....

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Johnny Cash & June Carter

Johnny and June

Johnny and June cd2

Back in their commercial heyday as a duet team, June Carter Cash always managed to bring out a lighter, more playful side of her often somber and serious husband, the famed “Man in Black.” Among these 13 tracks (11 of them originally released on the 1967 album plus 2 bonus tracks) are familiar titles like the naughty, cat-scratch-fever hit “Jackson” and their soulfully twangy version of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” But Cash and Carter also breathe understated fire and shared sensuality into more unlikely material, like their loping, folky reading of Richard Fariña’s “Pack Up Your Sorrows,” a pair of Ray Charles R&B standards–”I Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say”–and memorable original compositions like the class-conscious “Shantytown” and a nostalgic love lament called “Oh, What a Good Thing We Had.”...

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Johnny Cash & June Carter

Johnny and June

Johnny and June cd1

Back in their commercial heyday as a duet team, June Carter Cash always managed to bring out a lighter, more playful side of her often somber and serious husband, the famed “Man in Black.” Among these 13 tracks (11 of them originally released on the 1967 album plus 2 bonus tracks) are familiar titles like the naughty, cat-scratch-fever hit “Jackson” and their soulfully twangy version of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” But Cash and Carter also breathe understated fire and shared sensuality into more unlikely material, like their loping, folky reading of Richard Fariña’s “Pack Up Your Sorrows,” a pair of Ray Charles R&B standards–”I Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say”–and memorable original compositions like the class-conscious “Shantytown” and a nostalgic love lament called “Oh, What a Good Thing We Had.”...

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Lisa Ono

The Music of Antonio Carlos Jobim Ipanema

The Music of Antonio Carlos Jobim “Ipanema”

Lisa Ono teams up here with both Paulo and Daniel Jobim, in a lovely tribute to the music of their father — and a setting that takes Ono back to the simple bossa-based charms of her earliest years! The album’s got a gentle groove that would have made Antonio Carlos proud — arrangements that are spare, but never sleepy — with a beautiful balance of warmth and sadness, and possibly a bit more sophistication than usual for a Lisa Ono record. Titles include “Samba Do Aviao”, “Brigas Nuncas Mais”, “Sabia”, “Bonita Demais”, “Fotografia”, “A Felicidade”, “Aguas De Marco”, “Olha Pro Ceu”, and “A Correnteza” ...

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