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Lauren Kinhan: A Sleepin' Bee
by Dan Bilawsky
Leaning on touchstones as a creative resource can be tricky business. If an artist puts too much stock in the original, they end up with a second-rate likeness of the archetype. But if they move too far away from the model, the tether breaks and the connection is completely lost in the wind. It takes a shrewd conceptualist to find the right balance between bowing and breaking free, and vocalist Lauren Kinhan most definitely fits the bill. ...
Continue ReadingNew York Voices: Let It Snow
by Edward Blanco
New York Voices is unquestionably one of the finest singing ensembles ever assembled and with Let It Snow, lend their quality vocals to the wintery season of cheer delivering a powerful performance of familiar Christmas songs sure to be regarded as a future holiday classic. Kim Nazarian, Lauren Kinhan, Peter Eldridge and founding member and tenor vocalist Darmon Meader, have been planning this project for some time after adding Christmas tunes to their December concerts many years ago. The music ...
Continue ReadingNew York Voices: Keeping the Vocal Jazz Flame Burning
by R.J. DeLuke
Kim Nazarian went to college in upstate New York for acting, with dreams of the Broadway stage. Some 25 years later, she's enjoying a career that has taken her to stages around the globe--but as a singer. Not just a singer, but one of four that makes up New York Voices, a group that has won Grammy Awards and performed with many jazz luminaries during its illustrious run.It's not something Nazarian would have imagined at Ithaca College, but ...
Continue ReadingNew York Voices: New York Voices Live with The WDR Big Band Cologne
by Edward Blanco
The Grammy Award-winning vocal group New York Voices celebrates its 25th anniversary presenting their first full live album with New York Voices Live offering a collection of past favorites and brand new arrangements from the principal arranger-conductor renowned pianist/arranger Michael Abene. A live recording from a May 2008 concert at the Kolner Philharmonie in Cologne, Germany with the world famous WDR Big Band Cologne, this long-awaited release opens the group's 2013 celebratory year with a bang. New to their repertoire ...
Continue ReadingNew York Voices: Live with the WDR Big Band Cologne
by C. Michael Bailey
New York Voices celebrates its Silver Anniversary with the release of the jazz vocal quartet's first completely live recording, Live with the WDR Big Band Cologne, recorded at the Kölner Philharmonie in May, 2008. Sharing a jazz ensemble field with Manhattan Transfer and the Uptown Vocal Jazz Quartet has in no way dampened the group's efforts to carve out its place. In fact, New York Voices has done a very effective job, doing so with authority; the group displays a ...
Continue ReadingNew York Voices: A Day Like This
by Woodrow Wilkins
At first listen, the New York Voices may bring to mind another two-man, two-woman quartet: The Manhattan Transfer. Both groups harmonize beautifully, and their members take turns as lead vocalist. However, the Transfer is known mostly for vocalization--adding lyrics to previously recorded instrumental songs. New York Voices also do that, but the group covers more songs that originally had lyrics, and its members write more original music. Their first solo release since 1997, A Day Like This earned a Grammy ...
Continue ReadingNew York Voices: Sing! Sing! Sing!
by Jim Santella
A big band made up of working New York musicians accompanies this vocal quartet in its retro look at the swing era. Buoyant lyrics and scat singing color the album with characteristic charm. It's the kind of patriotic, fun-loving feeling that followed The Andrews Sisters during World War II. Darmon Meader's vocal arrangements place the four voices close together. No one sings low; no one sings extremely high. Like Lambert, Hendricks and Ross alongside Count Basie and his orchestra, New ...
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