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Interview: Caity Gyorgy on Featuring
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Chances are you're unfamiliar with Caity Gyorgy (pronounced George). But if you do know her work, you're probably already convinced she's on her way to becoming a household name. Caity is a wise and savvy 24-year-old who sings in a style years beyond her age. In fact, when I first heard her a couple of months ago, I thought she had been singing jazz since the 1950s or was the great-granddaughter of Annie Ross. Then I was bowled over to ...
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Interview: Diana Panton on 'Blue'
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Vocalist Diana Panton has been recording since 2005, when she released ... Yesterday Perhaps. What I love about her voice is its transparency. Through her vocals, I can hear exactly what she is feeling. She takes the lyrics she sings seriously, largely because she chooses songs carefully, using her emotions and artistic taste as a guide. Her new and 10th album is Blue, and she's joined by a masterful group: pianist-arranger Don Thompson, guitarist Reg Schwager and bassist Jim Vivian ...
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Interview: Stefi Schmitt of the Django All-Stars
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
If you're in New York next week, you have a rare opportunity to see a jazz first. Producer Pat Philips is presenting the Django Festival All-Stars at Birdland from November 1st to the 6th, which she has done for more than 20 years. What makes next week special is that vocalist Stefi Schmitt, the 17-year-old daughter of lead guitarist Samson Schmitt, will be accompanying the swinging French-Roma quintet for the first time at the club along with her 9-year-old sister ...
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Interview/Preview: Marcos Valle at Birdland
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Next week, if you are in New York, you will have a rare opportunity to see and hear a genuine bossa nova legend from Rio de Janeiro. After a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Marcos Valle is performing again at Birdland, from September 13 to 17. Marcos is the composer of So Nice (Summer Samba), The Face I Love, Crickets Sing For Anamaria, If You Went Away, The Answer, Chup Chup I Got Away, She Told Me She Told ...
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Interview: Brian Charette on 'Jackpot'
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Brian Charette knows his way around an organ. He began playing a Hammond M3 in high school but didn't graduate to the B3 until he moved to New York at age 20. While gigging in the city, he was schooled by Brother Jack McDuff in Harlem at Showman's Jazz Club. Brian also knows how to write soul-jazz. His new album, Jackpot, is terrific. It features Brian on organ backed by Cory Weeds on tenor saxophone, Ed Cherry on guitar and ...
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Interview: Deb Rasmussen on 'Unspoken'
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Deb Rasmussen is a singer from Calgary, Alberta, whose day job is in agricultural economics. But her occupation is hardly the stuff of milking cows and feeding chickens. This is big-league stuff. When I reached out to her initially, Deb was on her way to Mongolia to help the country maximize the potential of its land for food and clothing. So how does someone with this background switch gears and turn to jazz singing. As you'll soon learn, these two ...
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Interview: Mike Stern
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
The arrival of rock guitarists on TV shows, at concerts and on the radio in the mid-1960s and the emergence of the artist-controlled rock album in the late ‘60s led to a seismic change in jazz. Many young budding jazz musicians found themselves admirers of pop-rock and rock—or at least the larger incomes those forms generated and the increased attention by young audiences and the media. The result of these dual allegiances—to jazz and rock—produced a hybrid that became known ...
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Interview: Al Di Meola on 'Saturday Night in SF'
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
As legendary jazz albums go, Friday Night in San Francisco is a cult classic. Recorded live at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre on December 5, 1980, the album was released in 1981 and featured three superb guitarists—Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía. All three played acoustic models. In some respects, the album's popularity at the time demonstrated that jazz fusion had run its course and that fans had aged and were ready for a change. The album also ...
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