A hopeful outlook for jazz
The News Review:
- A hopeful outlook for jazz
- Bob Brozman’s New Ruf Records CD
- Tony Bennett | Music Artist | Videos News Photos & Ringtones |…
- Ex-policeman teacher devotes his time to music
A hopeful outlook for jazz
Seattle Times – Jan 15, 2008
Recently signed to the Telarc label with a new album due in May Spalding performs at 7 p. Friday on Jazz in January at Experience Music Project. (Find full schedule information on page D2. )Spalding — whose first name significantly means “hope” — grew up in Portland. She’s a feisty original who does indeed offer hope for the future of jazz. Street-smart cheeky fast-talking and funny — her patter is peppered with phrases like “you dig?” and “it’s not that killin’ ” without ever sounding the least bit put on — Spalding was hired at 21 to teach at the Berklee College in Boston after she graduated from the music school.
Bob Brozman’s New Ruf Records CD
Jazz-Quad – Jan 15, 2008
Bob Brozman was born in New York and has been playing guitar since age 6. Profoundly struck by Delta blues as a child his burning curiosity led him to a lifelong study of ethnomusicology and guitar music from the world’s frontiers of colonialism. He recorded his first albums in the 1980s including several American releases of vintage blues and jazz music. Throughout the 1990s and the current decade Brozman has been intensely prolific releasing several internationally acclaimed CDs with artists from many other cultures around the world. During a period of just four years ending in 2004 five of these collaborations placed in the Top Ten of the European World Music Charts – an unprecedented feat for any international artist. Brozman is a passionate and tireless performer with an almost super-human tour schedule that takes him to every corner of the globe. A respected educator and author he has directed music for film radio television and the stage; and he has produced albums for a number of artists including the Asylum Street Spankers and Ledward Kaapana.
Tony Bennett | Music Artist | Videos News Photos & Ringtones |…
MTV.com – Jan 15, 2008
In the early ’60s he mounted a comeback as more of an adult-album seller. And from the mid-’80s on he achieved renewed popularity with generations of listeners who hadn’t been born when he first appeared. This however defines Bennett more in terms of marketing than music. He himself probably would say that in each phase of his career he has remained largely constant to his goals of singing the best available songs the best way he knows how. Popular taste may have caused his level of recognition to increase or decrease but he continued to sing popular standards in a warm husky tenor varying his timing and phrasing with a jazz fan’s sense of spontaneity to bring out the melodies and lyrics of the songs effectively. By the start of the 21st century Bennett seemed like the last of a breed but he remained as popular as ever. Bennett grew up in the Astoria section of the borough of Queens in New York City under the name Anthony Dominick Benedetto… He acquiesced on albums such as Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! but his sales did not improve. In 1972 he left Columbia for the Verve division of MGM Records but by the mid-’70s he was without a label affiliation and he decided to found his own record company Improv to record the way he wanted to. He made several albums for Improv including one with jazz pianist Bill Evans (following a disc they made for Fantasy Records) but the label eventually foundered. (Concord Records released the box set The Complete Improv Recordings in 2004. )By the late ’70s however Bennett did not need hit records to sustain his career and he worked regularly in concert halls around the world. By the mid-’80s there was a growing appreciation of traditional pop music as performers such as Linda Ronstadt recorded albums of standards. In 1986 Bennett re-signed to Columbia and released The Art of Excellence his first album to reach the pop charts in 14 years.
Ex-policeman teacher devotes his time to music
St. Petersburg Times – Jan 15, 2008
Tickets go on sale the first week monthly. For information call the Lake House at 666-4746. Do you have any special hobbies? I enjoy playing tennis and making music. I'm a singer in the jazz society and I have my own group called the Company Swing Band for which I'm the lead singer. We play all over Pasco Hernando and Citrus counties. To book our band call me at 683-7254. What are your favorite things to do in Hernando County? Socializing with my friends in the Wellington and putting on shows that showcase the music of the big band era.