Recording News

Delmark New Jazz and Blues Releases for 2009

Source: Michael Ricci
December 30, 2008

Shirley Johnson Blues Attack (Delmark DE 798) “Raised in the church but evidently born to sing the blues, Shirley Johnson belts like a spiritual daughter of Koko Taylor, flexing her husky voice on ballads and up-tempo love songs, hitting gravel when she reaches for a higher note or pushes her volume." -Ted Drozdowski, PULSE! from a review of Shirley's first Delmark CD Killer Diller (Delmark 757). Shirley is back with that same blend of traditional good-rockin' Chicago blues, ...

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Trioisms Reviewed by minor7th.com Jan/Feb 2009

Source: All About Jazz
December 30, 2008

Dan Arcamone, “Trioisms," 2008 There have been some exceptional trios fronted by jazz guitarists which have eluded the radar of even diehard jazz fans -- Bill Connors' fusion trio on Pathfinder Records in the 1980s, Pat Metheny's trio of 1999/2000 and more recently, Tim Miller (see Minor 7th's review of Tim Miller's “Trio"). The trio format may be rare because it requires a truly inventive and virtuosic guitarist to successfully transform the energy of just three individuals into something much ...

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eMusic Advance Exclusive: Peter Bernstein Trio's Monk

Source: All About Jazz
December 29, 2008

The Peter Bernstein Trio's Monk Available Exclusively on eMusic Two Weeks Early

New York, NY December 29, 2008 The Orchard, a global leader in music and video entertainment, announced today the exclusive pre-release of Monk (Xanadu), by the Peter Bernstein Trio, on eMusic, the world's largest retailer of independent music. The much anticipated jazz title, which is the first new release on Xanadu in several years, will be available starting December 30 along with five newly-remastered Xanadu catalog albums. The ...

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Ran Blake Releases "Driftwoods" January 27th

Source: All About Jazz
December 29, 2008

Ran Blake is an iconoclast. Since his 1961 collaboration with Jeanne Lee on RCA, Ran Blake has released 35 albums on such labels as ESP, Soul Note, Arista and hatOLOGY. His 2006 album on the Tompkins Square label, All That Is Tied, received 4 stars in Downbeat and earned top honors in the 2007 Penguin Guide to Jazz. Penguin's editor Brian Morton and Wire Magazine hailed the record as a “masterpiece."

For his new solo piano outing, Driftwoods, Ran salutes ...

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New Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks

Source: JamBase
December 29, 2008

TANGLED TALES ARRIVES IN MARCH

Dan Hicks Dan Hicks, the man that introduced ragtime and tin pan alley to long hairs in the early '70s, returns with his Hot Licks on a brand-new collection, Tangled Tales, arriving March 24, 2009 on Surfdog Records. Featuring the same swinging music and insightful charm that has endeared him to audiences and fellow artists alike, Tangled Tales features a world-class collection of musical talent, including instrumental virtuosos David Grisman, Charlie Musselwhite and slide-guitarist Roy ...

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Rio En Medio:Frontier

Source: JamBase
December 29, 2008

By: Dennis Cook

This feels like a weather system blown in from another dimension, full of elemental charge and primordial jitter, an anxious haze settling upon one like fog. There's also the snap 'n' crackle of unrestricted modernity to Rio en Medio's sophomore release, Frontier (Manimal Vinyl). If her debut (here) felt out of time, this follow-up seems slightly ahead of the curve. While there are shivery echoes of Cocteau Twins, Bjork, Byrne/Eno and other quality strangers in her DNA, ...

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Hard Day's Night for Beatles Reissues

Source: Michael Ricci
December 27, 2008

If you still believe in Santa Claus, you might also have expected to wake up on Christmas morning and find an iPod stocked with the long-promised reissues of all the Beatles albums. But if you know the shocking truth about Santa, you probably know that the vaunted Beatles reissues don’t exist either, outside the vaults of EMI, the group’s record label, and Apple, the company the band set up in 1967 to oversee its interests. Other long-anticipated Apple projects, like ...

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Jammin' Reviews

Source: All About Jazz
December 26, 2008

Trombonist Jay T. Vonada from Aaronsburg, Pennsylvania makes an elegant entrance into the world of recorded music with an audacious debut release of Jammin, just the kind of stuff that one needs to get noticed.

Without a star-studded cast of players Vonada crafts a very fine first effort using local talent producing a nice result. His quartet includes Adam Kurland on keyboards, Jacob Hibel on bass and John Sullivan manning the drums.

The album features eight boppish originals ranging from ...

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