Recording News

CD Review: Peter Gabriel, "Scratch My Back"

Source: Pop Dose
February 2, 2010

I have developed a reputation as someone who hedges his bets when it comes to criticism, and Peter Gabriel's first full album in a very long while (since 2002s Up, in fact) is no different. In fact, it will read like the script from the latest miracle drug commercial: Do not listen to Scratch My Back while driving, as side effects include sleepiness. Do not take if you have been diagnosed with, or are prone to, feelings of depression. If ...

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Jamie Cullum Releases "The Pursuit" & Upcoming US Tour Dates

Source: Michael Ricci
February 1, 2010

JAMIE CULLUM LAUNCHES “ONE MAN BRITISH INVASION" OF AMERICA

GOLDEN GLOBE & GRAMMY NOMINEE ANNOUNCES MARCH TOUR DATES AND RELEASE OF NEW ALBUM THE PURSUIT ON MARCH 2, 2010

English singer/songwriter/pianist/multi-instrumentalist Jamie Cullum, who has been dubbed “a one man British invasion" (Hollywood Reporter), has announced a series of US tour dates to coincide with the U.S. release of The Pursuit on March 2, 2010. The album is Cullum's third for Verve Records and his first in four years. It ...

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Mushroom: 'Naked, Stoned & Stabbed' Available April 27

Source: Calabro Music
February 1, 2010

MUSHROOM: Naked, Stoned, & Stabbed Available April 27 from 4 Zero/Royal Potato Family

“Mushroom have long been knights traversing the plains and mountains of psychedelic rock." (The Wire)

Mushroom, a musicians' collective based in the San Francisco Bay area, return with their first album in three years, Naked, Stoned, & Stabbed, to be released April 27 through 4 Zero Records/Royal Potato Family. A new phase for Mushroom, the project was conceived as a cross-continental Cinema Verite travelogue of ...

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Tito Gonzalez and Cuban 'Son'

Source: Michael Ricci
February 1, 2010

Tito Gonzalez, Al Doblar la Esquina

Introducing Tito Gonzalez, his tres, and a long, strange trip.

There aren't many people who can claim to have cut their musical teeth while traveling worldwide as a fisherman, been blasted onto national television as part of a taxi-driver's collective of musicians, and had a government agency land them a gig playing for one of the top Cuban son bands of their era. Tito Gonzales spent his young life walkabout, picking up guitar licks ...

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Introducing Jordyn Jackson's Debut Jazz Vocal Album "September in the Garden"

Source: Michael Ricci
February 1, 2010

While this is Jackson's fifth album, it is her first project focusing on Jazz vocals. September in the Garden showcases Jordyn Jackson's vocals and the incredible range of talents of the young Louisiana musicians who arranged, produced and performed on the album. Led by Beau St. Pierre and Jake Smith, who created the new instrumentations, tempos and overall arrangements of the album, Jackson re-envisions ten musical standards. Over the course of several weeks at Fudge Recording Studio in the Garden ...

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Free Downloads of Miles Davis' "Lost Quintet" Now Online Via the Heat Warps

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
February 1, 2010

Music-sharing blog The Heat Warps has re-posted free downloads of two performances by Miles Davis' “Lost Quintet," the late-1960s configuration that bridged the span between his classic mid-1960s acoustic ensemble and his later electric groups of the 1970s. The “Lost Quintet" featured Davis on trumpet along with Dave Holland (bass), Wayne Shorter (tenor and soprano sax), Jack Dejohnette (drums), and Chick Corea (keyboards).The Heat Warps post includes two sets from November 3, 1969 at the Salle ...

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Pianist Franck Amsallem Releases "Amsallem Sings"

Source: Michael Ricci
February 1, 2010

"I've always nurtured a special fondness for musician singers... with their capacity to meet the terrain of the melody head on, these instrumentalists do not sing like simple singers, but uncover in the hidden spaces of their projects unsuspected little side corners. Not an ounce of posing, all here is real, authentic... Amsallem has learned from the greats he mingled with during his twenty years of American exile the lesson of imperfection, the mastery that knows at each instant to ...

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Brad Mehldau Rides Again

Source: Inverted Garden by Eric Benson
January 31, 2010

When Brad Mehldau released Largo in 2002, I remember thinking it was high-time the era's greatest jazz pianist ventured beyond his comfy acoustic trio. Since signing a deal with the now-defunct Warner Jazz at the tender age of 24, Mehldau had released six piano trio records with the same personnel (Larry Grenadier on bass, Jorge Rossy on drums) and one rambling and occasionally brilliant solo date, Elegaic Cycles. Largo didn't sound like anything Mehldau had done before—it was poppy, heavily ...

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