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Gino Paoli: 'Senza Fine,' 1961
Italian pop between the late 1950s and early '60s was unbeatable. Aimed at romantic single adults, many of the new love songs were composed with passion, sung with vulnerability and backed by large orchestration. One can only assume that Chet Baker's voice played a role in inspiring a wave of pale, aching voices and lyrical music. ...
Meredith d'Ambrosio on Horace Silver
Meredith d’Ambrosio is one of the finest and most distinctive jazz singer-songwriters around today. And she’s a terrific pianist and a superb traditionalist painter. Her artwork is on the covers of all but one of her 17 albums. Most of all, Meredith’s playing and singing style are all her own and deeply intimate. She never mirrored ...
Franco Ambrosetti: Sweet Caress
Back in 2022, I reviewed Nora, a beautiful album by Swiss flugelhornist Franco Ambrosetti backed by strings lushly arranged by Alan Broadbent (go here). Now, Franco and Alan have released a second album, Sweet Caress (Enja), recorded at the end of 2023. It features that same sterling group of musicians: Franco Ambrosetti (flhrn), Alan Broadbent (p,arr,cond), ...
Backgrounder: Bill Watrous - In Love Again, 1967
There are trombone albums—and then there are trombone albums. This is the latter, a positively beautiful recording by Bill Watrous, who had a beautiful ballad tone, rivaled only by Urbie Green and a few others. Recorded in New York in 1968 and backed by the Richard Behrke Strings, Bill Watrous's In Love Again: William Russell Watrous ...
Perfection: Horace Parlan - Up & Down
In June 1961, pianist Harlan Parlan recorded the album Up & Down for Blue Note. On the session were Parlan (p), Booker Ervin (ts), Grant Green (g), George Tucker (b) and Al Harewood (d). The title track was composed by Parlan, who on this LP plays superbly. As Leonard Feather wrote in his liner note... “Up ...
10 Tracks by Pianist Ross Tompkins
Yesterday I posted on Solo, a 1963 album by trombonist Kai Winding for Verve. Accompanying Winding on the three days of recording was pianist Ross Tompkins. Who was he? Tompkins was probably best known as the pianist on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from 1971 to 1992, when the show folded. Born in Detroit in ...
Kai Winding: Solo, 1963
Trombonist Kai Winding is probably best known to jazz fans for his numerous 1950s albums with trombonist J.J. Johnson. In many regards, Johnson was the memorable player on those LPs with a more singular and inventive style. But Winding also had a spectacular tone and an attack that was crisp, persistent and swinging. His piercing blare ...
Adderley's 'Presenting Cannonball,' 1955
In the mid-1950s, drummer Kenny Clarke was the house drummer for Savoy Records. Aware that Clarke was plugged in to networks of musicians, Ozzie Cadena, the label's A&R chief, paid him extra to assemble interesting combinations of talent for recording sessions. As a reader pointed out a few days ago, the Kenny Burrell and Pepper Adams ...
Backgrounder: Kenny Burrell - Jazzmen Detroit
Jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell turned 93 on July 31 and is a national treasure. Kenny always plays with an elegant soul and a understated and lovely swing style. Best of all, he combines firm thumb picking with hushed, lush chords to fill space. One of his lesser-known albums is Kenny Burrell: Jazzmen—-Detroit. Recorded over two sessions ...
Perfection: Horace Silve's The Back Beat
Like Bill Evans, Horace Silver was unlike any other jazz pianist. The forefather of funk, Silver was brilliant at chord voicings, rhythm, original melodies and, most of all, harmony. He also was one of the originators of hard bop in 1952. Discovered in Hartford, Ct., by Stan Getz in 1950, Silver led a quintet for much ...
