Jazz Articles about Tianna Hall

About Tianna Hall

Album Review

Tianna Hall: Hit Me with a Hot Note

Read "Hit Me with a Hot Note" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 17, 2015

With Texas Troubadour Jacqui Sutton splitting her time between Texas and parts West and taking on roll of Houston Jazz Mafia consigliere and Aussie reeds-mistress capo regime Alisha Pattillo staking out the Gulf, vocalist Tianna Hall remains as the undisputed Godmother of this Houston Jazz family. Hall has decided, in the hellish climes of the Texas summer, to release her finest recording to date, Hit Me With a High Note. A collection of standards that any lesser artist should take ...

Bailey's Bundles

Christmas III: Jazz Vocals - Tianna Hall/Chris Cortez, Nnenna Freelon, New York Voices and Albrecht Mayer/The King’s Singers

by C. Michael Bailey
November 26, 2013

The vocal holiday offerings are all over the map stylistically. Latin, big band, small ensemble singing and whatever the Albrecht Mayer/King's Singer's collaboration is, this a hopping creative season. For a seasonal subgenre of any musical subgenre usually reserved for money-making more than art, this year's releases are exceptional. “May your days be merry and bright" indeed. Tianna Hall & Chris Cortez Noel Blue Bamboo Music 2013

Album Review

Tianna Hall and the Mexico City Jazz Trio: Two for the Road

Read "Two for the Road" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
April 23, 2013

It would be a mistake to dismiss vocalist Tianna Hall's fifth album Two For The Road as another collection of reinterpreted familiar workhorses. While it's true that the record consists exclusively of standards Hall's nuanced approach to them, and the inclusion of a couple of lesser-known songs, makes for a unique listening experience.The two highlights on this otherwise almost uniformly superior album are the sparse reading of Radiohead's “Creep" and Cole Porter's “So In Love" transformed into a ...

Catching Up With

Tianna Hall: Sid, Barney, Duke & Billy

by C. Michael Bailey
November 27, 2012

Jazz vocalist Tianna Hall calls Houston, TX home. At first blush, one might consider Houston a hub for the oil industry, barbecue, and country music, but not one for jazz. However, Houston has a long history with the music dating to the age of the territory bands and the “Chitlin' Circuit" existing between the late '20s and early '50s, a period ruled by the infamous impresario Don Robey. The modern Houston jazz scene is dominated by a ...

Album Review

Tianna Hall and the Mexico City Jazz Trio: Two for the Road

Read "Two for the Road" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 28, 2012

Tianna Hall's fifth recording, Two For The Road, and her first since Never Let Me Go (Blue Bamboo, 2011), continues to document the singer's evolution within the mainstream of jazz vocals. Thoroughly trained in the vocal arts at the University of Houston, Hall has progressively refined her smart and sexy delivery with each recording. Hall has achieved a vocal facility that is the equivalent of Lauren Bacall telling Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in the 1944 film To Have and ...

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Album Review

Tianna Hall: Never Let Me Go

Read "Never Let Me Go" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 20, 2011

Never Let Me Go is Houston-native vocalist Tianna Hall's third release, and first for Blue Bamboo Music, following her self-produced Lost in the Stars (2007) and Ballads and Bossas (2010). Hall has preferred the intimacy of smaller accompaniment on her first two recordings, a preference she carries to Never Let Me Go. The singer is support by guitarists Mike Wheeler and Mike Nase, cellist Lisa Vasdoganes and percussionist James Metcalfe in a style that is equal parts Hot Club, Carnegie ...