Recording News

"Spirals" from Ingrid Jensen and Nordic Connect

Source: Michael Ricci
June 21, 2010

The second fan-funded release from Ingrid Jensen and Nordic Connect, “Spirals" is now available as a CD or digital download! To celebrate this release, Ingrid and ArtistShare would like to invite you to preview the project and a song from the album by clicking here. In addition to the CD or digital download, fans will receive access to lead sheets of tunes from the album, performance footage, photo galleries of Nordic Connect's recent tour, and video of a clinic led ...

Continue Reading...

Best Album Art of All Time

Source: All About Jazz
June 21, 2010

Columbia's Microgroove LP Makes Albums Sound GoodColumbia Records introduced the first successful microgroove long-playing phonographs way back in June 1948. But it took decades before album cover artwork came into its own.

To celebrate the LPs birthday, Wired.com's staff compiled the following list of stellar albums featuring mind-bending graphics and kick-ass inserts.

The Beatles: Revolver, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road As with pretty much everything the band did, The Beatles set a trend, this time ...

Continue Reading...

Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden - Jasmine (2010)

Source: Something Else!
June 21, 2010

By PicoI don't think I've gone a year lately without at least two reviews on a Keith Jarrett record, and halfway through this one, that “quota" is already met. But this time, it's not a solo piano record or a trio with Jack deJohnette and Gary Peacock. Rather, it's a reunion of Jarrett with one of the largest looming figures in acoustic bass.So much has happened since Jarrett built up his reputation in the 70s with ...

Continue Reading...

Rico Belled - "The Pursuit of Comfort" - Now Available!

Source: Michael Ricci
June 20, 2010

Rico Belled's debut album The Pursuit Of Comfort is now available. It features many great musicians: Jeff Kashiwa (Rippingtons), Katisse Buckingham (Yellowjackets), Dave Karasony (Rippingtons), Jeff Babko (James Taylor), Jonathan Dresel (Jimmy Kimmel Live) and many more.

Stylistically ranging from Afro-Cuban to Brazilian Jazz, with some Funk and Weather Report thrown in, there are 10 original compositions in all making for perfect summer afternoon listening.

The album is available from CDBaby for $11.99, and for a limited time, as a ...

Continue Reading...

Mark Anthony Master of Crossover Relives 70s Ballads

Source: Michael Ricci
June 20, 2010

Growing up in the Washington housing project in East Harlem in the 1970s, the singer Marc Anthony came to realize early on that every family's identity was based on the music they were blaring out their windows toward the courtyard below.

As he moved about, he recalled this week, he would hear Marvin Gaye coming from one apartment, Ray Barretto from another, the Bee Gees from a third. Marc Anthony at a benefit on Tuesday to raise money for ...

Continue Reading...

New Audiophile-Grade Downloads by Pianist / Composer James Armstrong

Source: Michael Ricci
June 19, 2010

Continue Reading...

Jazzwax List: 5 Beatles Saxes

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
June 18, 2010

Though not a single jazz musician is pictured on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in collusion with producer George Martin, made strong use of the saxophone and British jazz players in their later works. Used mostly for texture or novelty effect, saxes in Beatles' works were typically masked slightly by overdubbed effects or arranged to sound like plastic instruments.

Here are five of my favorite sax passages on Fab ...

Continue Reading...

Dan Block's Vivid Imaginations

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
June 18, 2010

Dan Block is a peerless reed player, arranger, composer, bandleader. A new CD captures his many imaginations whole. The picture (by Dan's daughter Emma) adorns the cover of his Ellington tribute, FROM HIS WORLD TO MINE. Tributes to Ellington, hoever well-intentioned, have often become self-limiting, even formulaic. Some musicians try to duplicate the sound of famous recordings; others rely upon Duke's hit songs; others nod to an Ellington line for a chorus and then go off on their own. Dan ...

Continue Reading...