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Natalie Cressman & Ian Faquini: Guinga
by Dan Bilawsky
Brazilian guitarist-composer Guinga is something of a legendary figure. A polyglot performer associated with música popular brasileira's all-encompassing ethos, he's made his name fusing the contemporary and folkloric strains of his homeland with classical, jazz, rock and pop stylings. His influence looms large in that particular niche of the music world--and, honestly, beyond--and he receives his flowers on this warm tribute from trombonist Natalie Cressman and guitarist Ian Faquini. This unique duo, which made an instantly positive ...
read moreTaj Mahal: Savoy
by Steve Yip
Folk/blues practitioner Taj Mahal's Savoy is to be savored. As one of the custodians of the blues, Mahal has long been a legend in his own time. This collection traverses a cultural-musical continuum in an indispensable residency in the annals of Black American music. The namesake of this album--the Savoy on Lenox Avenue in Harlem--was known as The World's Finest Ballroom and Home Of Happy Feet. In the pre-Civil Rights era, the North claimed formal equality, but segregation ...
read moreTaj Mahal: Savoy
by Dave Linn
Savoy, from Taj Mahal, is the latest entrant in the crowded field of pop music artists trying their hand at the fertile songbook of old big-band, swing-era standards. Unlike most, Mahal's roots show he's well suited to the task. He was born in Harlem in 1942. He grew up in a musical family, and his parents were both involved in the arts. His father was a jazz pianist and arranger, working with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Fletcher Henderson among ...
read moreRay Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2
by Richard J Salvucci
Sometimes it is difficult to banish the words of Ecclesiastes from your mind when listening to a recording: There is no new thing under the Sun." While that may be true of music in particular--one builds on the past, just as in other fields--it is no good reason for not listening or for simple indifference. Gerald Wilson's Viva Tirado" has been around since the 1970s, and Wilson himself has been quoted as being once surprised by hearing the El Chicano ...
read moreFemale Vocals 2017 I – Cynthia Hilts, Judith Nijland, Andrea Claburn, Sandy Cressman, Lisa Biales
by C. Michael Bailey
Take a day off and the recordings pile up and bury you. Female jazz vocals continue to dominate recordings with no indication on letting up. Most these recordings are very good and deserve recognition. So here is my picayune effort to address a few of them. Cynthia Hilts Lyric Fury Blonde Coyote 2016 Twenty years ago, Brooklyn-based pianist/composer Cynthia Hilts was seeking to form a band 'that sounds like ...
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