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Ben Wittman
Laila Biali: Wintersongs
by Pierre Giroux
Laila Biali is an award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and pianist whose recording Wintersongs offers an immersive journey into the delicate beauty and serene power of winter all through the lens of her jazz and classical roots. With two exceptions, all tracks were composed by Biali in a cabin surrounded by snow-capped mountains in the heart of Canada's Rocky Mountains. Many of Biali's usual collaborators participated in this production, including drummer Ben Wittman, renowned flutist and soprano saxophonist Jane Bunnett, accomplished trumpeter ...
Continue ReadingLaila Biali: Your Requests
by Dan Bilawsky
While the jazz pipeline produces plenty of artists who pay no mind to an audience's interests, those types--figures with tunnel vision, in many if not most ways--rarely reach their full potential. Instead, it's the musicians who make it a point to communicate who tend to forge the strongest bonds with those on the receiving end. Laila Biali is one such figure. This JUNO-winning gem of a vocalist, pianist, arranger and songwriter always manages to connect. Biali has a keen awareness ...
Continue ReadingLinda Carone: So Many Beautiful Men, So Little Time
by C. Michael Bailey
Canadian vocalist Linda Carone specializes in what she calls “vintage" jazz and blues. The sound is that of the music originally emerging from New Orleans Dixieland or traditional jazz as it headed upriver to Chicago before catching a train for Prohibition-era New York City. Her debut recording, Black Moonlight (Self Produced, 2017) is a historically-informed collection of speakeasy music, organically rendered and enjoyed. Carone returns three years later with a single release to brighten our time of COVID-19 ...
Continue Reading9 Horses: Perfectest Herald
by Budd Kopman
Perfectest Herald is another release that stretches the label “jazz" or even that of “creative improvised music" as it casts its spell and ultimately becomes completely enveloping. 9 Horses, the trio put together by composer and mandolin virtuoso Joseph Brent, consists of two other extraordinary players: violinist Sara Caswell and bassist Shawn Conley who seem just perfect for Brent's music. What is heard is a wonderful mixing of many styles and genres, including classical, jazz and folk which ...
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Bye Bye Blackbird
From: Your RequestsBy Ben Wittman
