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Various Artists: From A Mother's Heart
by Michael P. Gladstone
It may not be Mother's Day, but the folks at Sound Visions Media Group have created a tribute to mothers that transcends the one day per year that celebrates them.
From Mother Earth, to a Brazilian tribute, to the Goddess of the Sea (in Portuguese), the organization's artists have contributed their time and creativity to produce an eleven track album. This project is only available as a download on the company's website. SVMG is also donating a percentage ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Cannon Re-Loaded: All-Star Celebration of Cannonball Adderley
by Jim Santella
Alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley was one of the major figures in jazz from the mid '50s to his death in 1975. His songs became soulful anthems that generations of jazz fans loved, making heads nod and shoulders weave in time. Along with his trumpeter brother Nat, Cannonball made sure that his music would reach out and remain a part of one's psyche: from aspiring musicians to older veterans who loved Satchmo, Miles, the Count and the Duke. Cannonball's music is ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Funky Pieces Of Silver: The Horace Silver Songbook
by John Barron
In the first of a series called The Composer Collection, High Note Records pays tribute to pianist and jazz great Horace Silver with a collection of soulful classics called Funky Pieces Of Silver: The Horace Silver Songbook. The disc, a compilation of tracks from various High Note recordings, features swinging interpretations of Silver compositions led by saxophonist Houston Person, organists Joey DeFrancesco, 'Papa' John DeFrancesco and Charles Earland--four of the nine tracks are taken from Earland recordings--, drummer Joe Chambers ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Creative Outlaws. U.S. Underground 1962-70
by Nic Jones
A themed compilation like this is revealing not only of the highs, but also the lows in arguably the most important decade in the history of popular music. As defined here it reveals also that the U.S. underground of that time was as open to cynical opportunists as it was to fervent idealists. Thus for every MC5 there's a Tiny Tim.
There's also a Captain Beefheart and, for all of the degree to which he falls between those two stools, ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: New York Is Our Home
by Chris May
One of four themed, double-CD compilations from the Blue Note vaults released in the same month--the others are African Rhythms (1960s hard bop homages to Africa), The Funk Jazz Brothers (early 1970s funk-jazz) and On The Corner (early 1970s fusion)--New York Is Our Home brings together twenty tracks recorded by Blue Note artists between 1953-58 which helped shape the hard bop template. The compilation includes a handful of acknowledged early classics, but also some primo lesser-known tracks.
Hard ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: African Rhythms: Afro-Centric Homages to a Spiritual Homeland
by Chris May
One of four themed, double-CD compilations from the Blue Note vaults released in the same month--the others are New York Is Our Home (dealing with emergent hard bop), The Funk Jazz Brothers (early 1970s funk-jazz) and On The Corner (early 1970s fusion)--African Rhythms brings together 17 tracks recorded by Blue Note artists between 1957-70 which paid homage to Africa.
The 1960s was a decade in which growing numbers of African-American musicians acknowledged Africa as a spiritual homeland, and ...
Continue ReadingSylvia Bennett, Aniya, Lauren White, Perez: A Quartet of Standards
by C. Michael Bailey
Standards are still the bread and butter of jazz. Whether from Tin Pan Alley's American songbook or specifically composed as jazz and assimilated into the jazz repertoire, the standard offers musicians a proven, tried and true vehicle with which to ply their artistic trade. This is never more the case than in the realm of jazz vocals.
With jazz vocals the listener generally has exposure to what is closest to the original intentions of the composers regarding melody. ...
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