Music Revie:Bluegrass-jazz odd couple of Corea and Fleck cast an…
The News Review:
- Music Revie:Bluegrass-jazz odd couple of Corea and Fleck cast an…
- Beautiful mornings on ABS-CBN
- Rising star jazz singer returns to Seattle roots
- Acting his Age Works for Nick Lowe
- Christina Aguilera Is Reading Scripts
- A View To a Thrill
Music Revie:Bluegrass-jazz odd couple of Corea and Fleck cast an…
San Francisco Chronicle – Jun 25, 2007
tmpl –>(06-25) 08:25 PDT (AP) — Chick Corea & Bela Fleck “The Enchantment” (Concord)Chick Corea’s discography includes memorable duet recordings with vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Herbie Hancock with whom he shares a common jazz heritage. But the pianist breaks new ground on “The Enchantment” by teaming with progressive bluegrass banjo master Bela Fleck. Fleck and Corea have appeared on each other’s albums before but this is their first full-length duet recording. It’s not the odd couple-pairing it might appear to be because both musicians are open-minded and like to break down stylistic barriers. Fleck has drawn on the rich tradition of improvisation within bluegrass and included jazz players in his eclectic Flecktones band while Corea has long been a chameleon-like musician able to adapt classical Spanish flamenco rock and other genres into his sound.
Beautiful mornings on ABS-CBN
Manila Standard Today – Jun 25, 2007
Must-have CD With Filipinos going crazy over bossa nova I wonder if they really understand what it’s all about. In any case bossa nova is a kind of dance music in Brazil that became popular in the ’50s and later adopted by Latin jazz artists to enrich an evolving Latin jazz that pushed the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim and sultry vocal stylist Astrud Gilberto to international stardom. I got hold of this CD titled Rhythms Del Mundo featuring Buena Vista Social Club’s Ibrahim Ferrer and mara Portuondo with 15 solid tracks of Latin-flavored pop. Ibrahim and mara recorded some of the popular western pops and featured the artists that originally performed the song like Coldplay in “Clocks” and Maroon 5 in “She Will Be Loved. It’s an interesting CD as it gives us a new way to listen to pop music. ther featured groups include my favorite alternative band Franz Ferdinand Sting and Kaiser Chiefs among others.
Rising star jazz singer returns to Seattle roots
Seattle Post Intelligencer – Jun 25, 2007
Stepping away from the jazz-standards approach of her first CD Gazarek embraces pop songs by Leonard Cohen Joni Mitchell Paul McCartney Gillian Welch and Harry Connick Jr. as well as four remarkable originals written by pianist Josh Nelson. “Return to You” is the follow-up to her first studio album “Yours” recorded in 2005 with her Los Angeles-based band featuring Nelson bassist Erik Kertes and drummer Matt Slocum. The CD was produced by mentor John Clayton the Grammy-nominated bass player and jazz educator who produced “Yours. “n the first record we wanted to make a serious statement that said ‘We’re respectable we really want to be here for a while we’re serious about this and we want to make something that you’re going to pay attention to and respect’ ” said the 25-year-old singer who was born and raised in Seattle and is now a Los Angeles resident… “I think that a lot of students don’t get that especially with vocal jazz ensembles. Because it’s usually about the quote-unquote performance where you have the sequined dress and you don’t really know who wrote the song and you’re just kind of singing harmonies and it’s kind of fun. In 2003 while she was at USC Gazarek was awarded the Downbeat Student Music Award as best collegiate vocalist leading to her appearance at the Concord Jazz Festival Tour with Diane Schuur leta Adams and Karrin Allyson as well as representation by the prestigious William Morris talent agency. “I had never anticipated having a career at this age” Gazarek said. “I just always knew I wanted to do it. But I also knew that I didn’t want to get big and disappear. Clayton’s mentoring helped keep her sudden success in perspective: “John said ‘Sara everybody has their own path.
Acting his Age Works for Nick Lowe
Washington Post – Jun 25, 2007
“So I knew my career was going to come to an end because I was not someone like Elton John or Cher. “By the mid-1980s with a string of non-hits a music royalty marriage to Johnny Cash stepdaughter Carlene Carter that “had not so much collapsed as disappeared” and his own near-alcoholism the bell was tolling. But he wasn’t ready to give up on music. He noticed that age is no impediment to classical or jazz musicians and wondered why it couldn’t be the same for pop musicians. It made sense particularly since the first vanguard of an influential generation was Lowe’s age. “I was sure that I could find a way to use this to my advantage” he said. “Luckily all of my influences all of the things I liked musically were all rather old for my age.
Christina Aguilera Is Reading Scripts
Washington Post – Jun 25, 2007
Aguilera found fame alongside boy bands and Britney Spears but caused a stir with the release of her second album 2002′s “Stripped” with its accompanying sexual imagery and overall bad-girl attitude. The album received mixed critical reviews but racked up strong sales. Her latest record the double album “Back to Basics” and its accompanying tour were inspired by the blues jazz and early soul music of the 1920s ’30s and ’40s along with the sexy grown-up look of Hollywood vamps such as Marilyn Monroe Jean Harlow and Veronica Lake. “I wanted to revert back to a time and place in music that truly inspired me the most” Aguilera said. Her sexy act apparently didn’t faze China’s cultural officials who told the Rolling Stones not to sing some of their racier hits and canceled a performance by Jay-Z after deeming the rapper’s lyrics “vulgar. “Yet Aguilera said she was already moving on gathering inspiration for the next album which she promised would be “completely different from this one. “Aguilera offered no hints what that new style would be but did make one promise: It will be a single album.
A View To a Thrill
New York Sun – Jun 25, 2007
Bang as the other half of the front line along with the bassist Hilliard Greene (who most of us know as longtime musical director for Little Jimmy Scott) drummer Zen Matsuura and the vibraphonist Bryan Carrott in the role of the piano or chordal instrument. Campbell to be one of the freest of free jazz trumpeters as fine a representative of the form as is playing today but this new work receiving its world premiere at Vision was anything but free. A largely pre-composed piece depicting Mr. Campbell’s vision of Africa both ancient and modern it was warm and inviting not to mention exotic and melodic in the most pleasurable way. The overall sound was like a Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note album circa 1965 combining elements of outside music with free-flowing late-bop against a Pan-African polyrhythm… Ganelin banged out rhythmic patterns in his left hand while playing the drums with his right; the effect of surrounding the soprano with two drummers produced some intriguing sounds. When he added electronic and synthesizer effects to the mix it heightened the interest but unfortunately the sheernoise quotient as well. At its most extreme Mr. Ganelin’s music sounded like a 60-foot golem stomping on a shtetl. Trumpeter Eddie Gale’s six-piece band only occasionally reached the outer fringes and on the whole it employed a lot more contrast and musical variety; this was a logical outgrowth of the original free jazz that Mr. Gale helped pioneer in the ’60s with Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor. The sound is also similar to the music he recorded here two years ago for the recently released “Eddie Gale Now Band Live at Vision X featuring William Parker” (Voidleaper Productions) though the two saxophonists Mr.