Jazz Articles

Madeline Eastman + Randy Porter: A Quiet Thing

by Nicholas F. Mondello
March 9, 2013

Recently one of the sports channels delivered a segment about a deep sea diver who plummets into and ascends from ocean depths unaided by air tanks. He does it all on his own breath. In that documentary, the diver speaks about the peak life experience he encounters with each daredevil dive. The metaphors of adventure, heightened experience and certainly depth and breath, of course--are quite apropos applied to Madeline Eastman as A Quiet Thing is a terrific recording and an ...

Madeline Eastman + Randy Porter: A Quiet Thing

by Dan Bilawsky
February 3, 2013

When Bay Area vocalist Madeline Eastman released Bare: A Collection Of Ballads (Mad-Kat, 2001), it was a bit of a departure from her previous recorded work. By that point, she was a decade into a critically acclaimed recording career and she had established herself as an adventurous, risk-taking, creative artist with albums like Point Of Departure (Madkat, 1990), featuring trumpeter Tom Harrell, and Mad About Madeline! (Madkat, 1991), with pianist Cedar Walton, saxophonist Phil Woods and guest vocalist Mark Murphy. ...

Madeline Eastman + Randy Porter: A Quiet Thing: A Collection of Ballads

by C. Michael Bailey
January 23, 2013

The beauty of vocalist Madeline Eastman is that she is an undaunted improviser who remains conservative in her improvising. In this context, the word conservative harbors no negative connotations. Eastman has an abiding respect for the melody that is reflected in her thoughtful interpretations of the fourteen ballads making up A Quiet Thing. The piano-voice format also reflects this careful conservative approach to the material. The repertoire for this recording is what is truly provocative. Reading the ...

Kitty Margolis: Heart and Soul: Live in San Francisco

by Andrew Rowan
June 18, 2005

Kitty Margolis has a solid reputation and an enthusiastic fan base, and this recording shows why. A rock-solid singer with great chops, Margolis ranges through the Great American Songbook, throwing in a couple of curves on this live session. In her notes, Margolis states that improvisation is at the core of her art. The air of spontaneity comes across in this setting and it is invigorating. The scat chorus on “Summertime lifts it above many of the ...

Kitty Margolis: Heart and Soul: Live in San Francisco

by Rich Friedman
February 11, 2004

Wow, this woman can sing. Recorded live on her home turf, Kitty Margolis’ fifth disc, Heart and Soul: Live in San Francisco , skillfully whips her audience into an appreciative frenzy, and most of the excitement carries over to those listening to the disc. Live recordings tend to be either very good or bad—make a mistake on stage, and it’s impossible to patch over it in the recording studio. This disc is good—very good. Margolis writes in the ...

Madeline Eastman: The Speed of Life

by Michael P. Gladstone
December 22, 2003

My suggestion for the cover of jazz vocalist Madeline Eastman's next album is a shot of her poised to dive into an uncharted body of water. This is one lady who is not afraid to take chances with existing material and even from note to note. The San Francisco singer has recorded five albums for her own Mad-Kat label—and although I haven't heard all of them, I would venture an opinion that she hasn't lost a step since 1990.

Madeline Eastman: The Speed of Life

by Dan McClenaghan
November 23, 2003

Have you ever been in a club, or sat listening to a live recording, when a tenor saxophonist blows a solo in the middle of a standard, and it stays pretty much faithful to the theme for a bit, then stretches out into some unexpected – beautifully so – variations of theme, while still hanging onto it? A small, gorgeous musical surprise that makes someone in the audience moan: “Oh!" And a beat latter he sighs: “yeah..." ...

Kitty Margolis: Evolution

by William Grim
July 14, 2002

This is an amazing album. There are few jazz singers with the range of expression of Kitty Margolis, a singer equally at home in bop, blues and ballads. Possessed of unerring pitch and flawless enunciation, Margolis can also scat with the best of them. Indeed, her versatility brings to mind Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae. In this album we hear Kitty Margolis in almost every style imaginable.

Margolis begins bop anthem “Anthropology” unaccompanied and at a breakneck speed ...

Kitty Margolis: Left Coast Life

by Jim Santella
December 1, 2001

Jazz has a long history in San Francisco. Kitty Margolis, who grew up hangin' at the Keystone Korner, sings about the people who make the Golden Gate city unique. Settled by the Spanish centuries ago and shaken unequivocally by the Gold Rush of 1849, the city has harbored all kinds of people. The last 50 years have seen radical changes that affected its music dramatically. The singer's program allows her to demonstrate the wide variety that exists in San Francisco ...

Kitty Margolis: Left Coast Life

by Dave Nathan
November 1, 2001

If the major purposes - - or at least some of them - - of a jazz singer are to inject a fresh breath into standards and to make sense of newer material, then San Francisco singer Kitty Margolis sits at the top of the class for achieving these noble goals. The West Coast vocalist is well known for her insightful interpretations of standard and pop material, a reputation she solidly established with her previous three releases for her Mad-Kat ...