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Veronica Swift: This Bitter Earth
by Angelo Leonardi
Ad appena 26 anni Veronica Swift firma il suo album più avvincente e maturo, imponendosi come la vocalist stilisticamente più completa emersa nel nuovo millennio. Dotata di un talento prodigioso, s'è imposta nell'affollato panorama odierno delle cantanti per inventiva e virtuosismo, rinnovando l'eredità di grandi interpreti degli anni cinquanta come Anita O'Day e Dinah Washington. Veronica Swift s'esprime con esuberante entusiasmo e profondità interpretativa, sorretta da una naturale capacità di “comunicare" col pubblico, ben oltre il semplice ...
Continue ReadingVeronica Swift: This Bitter Earth
by Mike Jurkovic
Borrowing music from Broadway (Oliver!, South Pacific, Bye Bye Birdie), alt-rock (The Dresden Dolls' “Sing!"), the great American Songbook, ("Getting To Know You"), R&B, and beyond, it takes an artist of sure and rising stature to curate one hell of a coherent protest album. Veronica Swift is that artist and, most declaratively, This Bitter Earth is that album. Since there is not a standard of any bearing that Swift doesn't defy and stamp as her very own, it ...
Continue ReadingVeronica Swift: This Bitter Earth
by C. Michael Bailey
It seems jazz vocalist Veronica Swift has been in the music business all of her life, and for good reason: There is the well documented fact that she is the daughter of jazz pianist Hod O'Brien and singer Stephanie Nakasian, and she debuted on record at nine years old with Veronica's House of Jazz (SNOB, 2004). Since that time, Swift has recorded in a variety of settings, including on the uniformly excellent The Birdland Big Band Live (CD Baby, 2018), ...
Continue ReadingEmmet Cohen: Future Stride
by Mike Jurkovic
As proven onstage as well as on such percolating, locomotive recordings as 2018's self released Dirty In Detroit, Masters Legacy Series Vol 1 with Jimmy Cobb (Cellar Live, 2016), 2018's Masters Legacy Series Vol 2 with Ron Carter (Cellar Live), and his regular Monday Night Quarantine Jams on Facebook, pianist Emmet Cohen makes his music with an unabashed, heart-on-you-sleeve exuberance and love for the future as past and vice versa. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that ...
Continue ReadingEmmet Cohen: Masters Legacy Series Volume 4: Emmet Cohen Featuring George Coleman
by Mike Jurkovic
So here we are, nearly knocking on the door to February 2020, and we're listening to the second of Emmet Cohen's two entrancing, late 2019 releases: Masters Legacy Series Vol. 4 Emmet Cohen featuring George Coleman--a good harbinger for the new year. And heaven knows we could use a boatload of good harbingers these exhausting days. Pianist/prodigy Emmet Cohen loves history. Jazz history especially. Sax legend George Coleman's ever reliable and responsive affinity to the soul of things ...
Continue ReadingEmmet Cohen: Master Legacy Series Volume 3 Featuring Benny Golson & Albert "Tootie" Heath
by Mike Jurkovic
Set aside for the moment that the combined age of the elders here is 174 years. Emmet Cohen's Masters Legacy Series Volume 3 Featuring Benny Golson & Albert “Tootie" Heath is not only a mouthful of a title, but also irascibly and irrepressibly old school. It's as if Cohen, in his youthful (29) zeal and zest to translate what the masters can still impart, not only wanted to capture a generational performance but the very air these two statesmen inhabit. ...
Continue ReadingTroy Roberts: Days Like These
by Dan Bilawsky
Days like these, when you have the opportunity to hear Troy Roberts fronting an all-star organ group, are pretty nice. Roberts--one of the most underappreciated tenor saxophonists on the scene, a mainstay in organ kingpin Joey DeFrancesco's band and an erstwhile sideman for drummer Jeff “Tain" Watts--shows a particular affinity for this format. A complete artist with a muscular yet fluid sound, soulful bearing and unerringly sensitive ears, it's like he was made for this music. Bringing ...
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