Jazz Articles
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Bobby Sanabria: Vox Humana
by Cary Tenenbaum
The opening track on Vox Humana could easily have been the encore of this live performance recorded at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, part of Jazz At Lincoln Center in New York City. It is a rousing version of the Duke Ellington crowd pleaser “Caravan" and a boisterous Latin tinged big band version it is, with Matthew Gonzalez's barril de bomba and requinto pandereta, bandleader and drummer Sanabria and others on congas, bongos and bells prominently leading the percussionists and portending ...
read moreMarty Elkins: 'Tis Autumn
by C. Michael Bailey
There exists a group of jazz musicians dedicated to pre-bebop jazz who have traditionally populated the catalogs of the Nagel-Heyer and Arbors record labels. These musicians include Herb Pomeroy, Max Kaminsky, Randy Sandke, Harry Allen, and Dave McKenna. Central to this group is vocalist Marty Elkins who, while in college, discovered the recordings of Ella Fitzgerald, Ellis Larkins, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin (Columbia, 1959), falling in love with the period and its repertoire. Elkins moved from ...
read moreMarty Elkins & Mike Richmond: 'Tis Autumn
by Dan Bilawsky
Vocals, bass and Golden Age jazz standards. That's all that's here and it's all that's needed. Working their way through ten classics penned between 1926 and 1947, vocalist Marty Elkins and bassist Mike Richmond get right to the heart of jazz history. Their music has an easy draw to it, but there's absolutely no drama behind that magnetism--no too-clever-by-half rewrites, outside antics or fancying of futurism in interpretation(s). Grounded with a sense of respect for the material, this duo delights ...
read moreDiane Schuur: Running on Faith
by C. Michael Bailey
Pianist and vocalist Diane “Deedles" Schuur and Wessell “Warmdaddy" Anderson may be the last jazz artists to have musically-anointed monikers, from a genre replete with them (Lester “Prez" Young, Billie “Lady Day" Holiday, Johnny “Rabbit" Hodges, Julian “Cannonball" Adderley and “John Birks “Dizzy" Gillespie). Schuur was named “Deedles" as a child by her mother. The name stuck and proved both inspirational and descriptive for the accomplished singer and pianist, blind from birth, who has performed with the luminaries of jazz. ...
read moreRay Blue: Work
by Edward Blanco
New York-based and bred, tenor saxophonist Ray Blue is no novice but a veteran player who has not received the accolades he so deserves. Perhaps after laying down and documenting an incredible volume of music on Work, the spotlight will shine a little brighter on this unheralded player. A composer and educator, as well as one of the most in-demand musicians in New York, Blue is a soulful performer, a full-throated sax man with a fluid and lyrical style which ...
read moreBobby Sanabria: West Side Story Reimagined
by Jack Bowers
William Shakespeare's epic tragedy Romeo and Juliet made a huge splash when it reached Broadway in 1957 in the guise of West Side Story, in which the warring Montagues and Capulets were replaced by New York City street gangs, the Italian-American Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks. The newer version, with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, ran for 732 performances before going on tour and has been performed in theatres across the country ...
read moreAndrea Brachfeld: If Not Now, When?
by Dan Bilawsky
Of all of the necessary tools associated with the creative process, the most overlooked may simply be space to think and grow. While the mile-a-minute, multi-tasking mentality that dominates in modern society makes it difficult to find said breathing room, musicians occasionally need to take a step back to fuel their artistic impulses. Flutist Andrea Brachfeld is well aware of that fact. In 2016, Brachfeld put her writing on the backburner and spent a year focusing on meditation. She came ...
read moreCristina Morrison: Baronesa
by Edward Blanco
After visiting the Galapagos Island to film a docudrama based on the life of Baroness Eloise Von Wagner de Bosquet, Ecuadorian-American mezzo soprano vocalist Cristina Morrison loved the place so much she moved to Ecuador and spent ten years there. Falling in love with the story of the Baroness, her second album Baronesa, presents the songstress voicing lyrics in four languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) singing eight originals and four cover pieces as she crosses genres from jazz and ...
read moreDiane Schuur: I Remember You (With Love to Stan and Frank)
by Victor L. Schermer
Diane Schuur is that rare songbird who is equally competent as a jazz singer and a pops entertainer. While some vocalists go with more lucrative popular music and some take the road of the jazz artist in the pure sense, Schuur is able to straddle the two careers. Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole had a superb grasp of the jazz idiom, but they made the decisive choice to become entertainers. By contrast, Chris Connor, Betty Carter, and Johnny Hartman ...
read moreMark Weinstein: Todo Corazon
by Dan Bilawsky
Mark Weinstein's modus operandi is simple: He follows his interests at any given time. He found success as a groundbreaking salsa trombonist early on, but that didn't stop him from leaving his horn behind and entering the realm of academia. He earned a Ph.D in Philosophy, with a specialization in mathematical logic, and started teaching at the college level, but music's magnetic effect pulled him back into performing. He returned to the scene in the late '70s, born anew as ...
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