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| What you're about to read is a collection of pointers to some of the music I've discovered on the iTunes Music Store, music I like enough that I want to share it. If you're an iPod owner and an iTunes fan (and if you aren't, what are you doing here?), maybe you'll find something new. Click on any of the CD covers to bounce over to the store and sample a few tracks. And then maybe stop by my other blog for a few well chosen words (and maybe a random snark or two). | 
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| Have some music to recommend? I can always use a few pointers. Use the comments link at the bottom of the page. | ||||||
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Fri, 14 Sep 2007 |
| The New Bossa Nova / Luciana Souza | |
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Victoria Hart's new album asks the musical question, Whatever Happened to Romance?. My reply would be that it traded in your overproduced version for the silky Brazilian sounds of Luciana Souza. And that's just fine with me. |
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Mon, 03 Sep 2007 |
| Easy / Grant Green | |
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If you're in America, I hope you're enjoying Labor Day by not working
too hard. (If you're anywhere else, I guess it's just another
manic
Monday.) I mention this because I didn't expect to work this hard
to find something to write about. Turns out there's not much to
inspire out of this past week's iTunes offerings. I guess the late
summer blahs attack the music business along with everything else.
Which makes Easy a seasonal poster child of sorts. It's so
safe and unimaginative that even my parents would like it, assuming of
course they were still listening to (It occurs to me that if I were awake enough, I could have written this review in one word. And that word, in case you haven't already guessed, would be blah. I mean, it's not like I'm being paid by the word here. Or at all for that matter.) |
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Mon, 23 Jul 2007 |
| String Theory / The Catrin Finch Band | |
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I make it a rule not to review the same artist twice on this here
blog, but if I can't violate my own rules, what's the point of having
them? Besides, I last mentioned Catrin Finch
two and a half years
ago; surely there's a statute of limitations at work here. And as
my final defense, that was Catrin as solo artist. Here she's part of
a fourteen piece band. That should let me off the hook.
So much for the defense. (Defensive, am I?) Now to the album at hand. String Theory is jazz, which usually doesn't involve any harps. It's a dancing bear kind of album, the impressive thing about a dancing bear not being that it dances well, but that it dances at all. Adding a harp, even one as good as hers, to Puttin' On The Ritz can't make me forget what Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle did to it. Fly Me (AKA Come Fly With Me) isn't really any different with a few more strings, although I grant that Misty isn't half bad. (Clearly, Jessica Walter terrorizing Clint Eastwood didn't scar me the way Mel Brooks did.) But Hang 'Em High? That's just creepy, with or without the harp. Then again, that was the point. |
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Fri, 29 Jun 2007 |
| Happening / Brenda Earle | |
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I may have mentioned my enthusiasm for musical theatre a time or two
before. Happening doesn't belong to that genre, although my
first reaction was that it well could. There's something theatrical
about these songs, both in their composition and their arrangement;
they tell a story or set a mood in exactly the way some of my Broadway
favorites do. Most of the songs here are original, which makes me
wonder if their specialness comes more from their creation or their
performance, or if the two are inseparable.
One not-original track is a memorable version of Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic. And if she can't quite equal Shawn Colvin's breathtaking cover, well, second place isn't too shabby either. |
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Wed, 13 Jun 2007 |
| Inner Shape / Roman Ott | |
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This post is about an album called Inner Shape. But
Inner Shape isn't just the name of the album; it's the name
of the band. Roman Ott isn't the name of the band; that's just the
name of one of the band members. Clear?
Sorry; I was just channeling Arlo Guthrie. But back to the band. Inner Shape is a quartet of young German jazz musicians. Who do a credible job of sounding both more mature and not particularly Teutonic. Although they do leave me wondering just what's so funny about Leo. |
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Fri, 08 Jun 2007 |
| Hiromi's Sonic Bloom: Time Control / Hiromi Uehara | |
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Time Control is a little bit New Age, a little bit jazz. Or maybe it's a lot of both; I can't quite decide. But however you categorize her, Hiromi's keyboard technique has to be heard to be believed. A definite Wow. Maybe even two. |
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Mon, 28 May 2007 |
| WOW It's...The Lounge-O-Leers / The Lounge-O-Leers | |
| You'll forgive me, I hope, if I indulge my baser musical instincts every now and then. This is one of those times, as I admit that there's something so wonderfully silly about a group that will mash Britney Spears and Henry Mancini, or throw Fastball's The Way into a blender with Bésame Mucho and hope for the best. This is low art at best, and most enjoyable in small doses. But it's still art. It is, isn't it? |
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| [ Category: Jazz | 1 comment | Link ] | |
Mon, 16 Apr 2007 |
| He Had a Hat / Jeff Lorber | |
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There's this joke, you see. About a camper who falls out of a boat
and is drowning. And the counselor jumps in and rescues him. Takes
the kid up to his parents, expecting a reward or at least a "thanks for
saving my child from death". And the mother says, "He had a hat".
Which may or may not have anything to do with the title of this album. But that's what got me to listen to it, so I thought I might as well share. |
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Mon, 26 Feb 2007 |
| All Night Wrong / Allan Holdsworth | |
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Round about
250 posts ago I
mentioned how a friend and I used to
attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, back when you had to be
in the industry to get in. (I wasn't, and neither was he. But he
used to be, which was good enough.) Anyway, one of the benefits of
CES back then was that the CD was brand new, and something that was
mostly appreciated by audiophiles. A few small music labels would
exhibit at the show, or to be more precise, they'd set up shops to
sell their discs at much more popular prices than you'd find in record
stores, both then and now. Needless to say, we'd buy most anything we
could lay our hands on, which is how I got the bulk of my early
orchestral and jazz collection. It didn't much matter what the music
was, you see, as long as we felt we were getting a deal.
Listening to a little of All Night Wrong I was taken back to that time, and to my accidental and not quite yet appreciated exposure to the world of jazz. Eventually I'd learn to appreciate it, even to seek it out on occasion. Not for a while, though. Although I do think I'd have enjoyed this one even before my taste developed. Besides, I never could resist a play on words. |
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Wed, 17 Jan 2007 |
| Songs to Remember / Smoma | |
| I'm confused. Not an unusual feeling, I grant. But still. You see, a search for this album on Amazon came up empty. But not completely; a second search on Smoma found two CDs, both called Casual Lounge. The first is a two year old European import. The second is a six month old domestic release. Both have the same track list, as does this album. Which I assumed means they're all the same, or at least mostly the same, aside from their packaging and their price. And then I discovered that Smoma have a second album on the iTunes Store. Called -- wait for it -- Casual Lounge - Songs to Remember. With those same 14 tracks, albeit in a slightly different order. Confusing, that's what it is. |
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Fri, 29 Dec 2006 |
| MJQ / Modern Jazz Quartet | |
| You know what we don't hear enough of? Vibraphone, that's what we don't hear enough of. And what better way to get your Minimum Daily Requirement of vibraphone than with the exquisite playing of Milt Jackson and the very early Modern Jazz Quartet. This recording from the early 50s includes two incarnations of MJQ: both the more famous quartet and a five piece ensemble Jackson put together from three original MJQ members and a couple of new performers. All eight tracks are chock full of vibraphony goodness. |
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Wed, 06 Dec 2006 |
| Fight or Flight? / Kellylee Evans | |
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Our story begins with a blonde chanteuse named
Marilyn
Scott, whose music was for me
a happy accident, and
which I have been enjoying ever since. My previous mention of
Ms. Scott got the attention of her PR firm, which offered me her
latest CD, entitled
Innocent
of Nothing. I accepted; I mean, free music is free music.
And good free music is even better.
Anyway I listened to Innocent and found it delicious. As, sadly, did my brand new car's brand new CD player, which chose to digest the shiny disc. Embarrassed, and with a new in-car player which I have yet to feed a CD, I explained the situation to those nice PR people, who offered to send me a replacement. And so they did, along with one by the not remotely blonde but equally entrancing Ms. Evans. This time I was smart enough to rip the CDs to iTunes before risking them in my car. Although I'm not sure either one is the best car listening. Because like Marilyn Scott, Kellylee Evans demands your attention. And unfortunately, so do all the cell phone equipped doofuses (doofi?) racing madly down California's freeways. So maybe I'll save these two for times when I can give them my full attention. |
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Fri, 18 Aug 2006 |
| Six or Seven Times / Blue Roseland Orchestra | |
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Alas, this is another case where my ignorance is as complete after Googling as it was before I began. Blue Roseland Orchestra is German, or at least that's the impression I get both from their sound and their record label. This album is a decade old, although the tracks themselves might be older. I don't think they are; I think they're modern performances of classic jazz band music. Of course, I could be wrong. Not that it really matters. A few minutes with Blue Roseland and I'm transported to a world I've only experienced in the movies, with (at least in my imagination) sophisticated people in sophisticated clothes making sophisticated smalltalk while they sip sophisticated cocktails. Makes my life seem sort of drab by comparison. |
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Wed, 17 May 2006 |
| Treemonisha / Ophelia Ragtime Orchestra & Seim Songkor | |
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Here's an interesting album, in all sorts of ways.
Treemonisha was written by Scott Joplin, his attempt to
dramatize the plight of black people in the form of opera. To call
his efforts unappreciated is an understatement; the financing of his
work almost bankrupted him, and he died without ever seeing it
performed. That performance finally came a half century later,
garnering Joplin a Pulitzer Prize. Of course, it might have been nice
if he'd been around to enjoy it.
Flash forward another thirty years, to Ophelia's decision to perform, and later record, Joplin's musical tale of post-Civil War black life and women's liberation. Norway's premier ragtime orchestra (you have to love the oxymoronic way that sounds) is joined by the Seim Songkor choir. The result is kind of amazing, and certainly the best ragtime rendition of post-emancipation Southern life ever to be performed by an all-Scandinavian ensemble. Not that there's a lot of competition on that score. |
| [ Category: Jazz | 1 comment | Link ] | |
Wed, 22 Mar 2006 |
| Wild For You / Karrin Allyson | |
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I first listened to Wild For You when this blog was new.
And, as much as I admired Ms. Allyson's voice, I wasn't wildly
enthusiastic about the album. Applying a jazz sensibility to 70s pop
songs sounds more interesting than it... er... sounds, if you
know what I mean. I'm oversimplifying, but some of the jazzifying
technique involves taking a song that follows the beat precisely and
loosening it up, slowing down and speeding up the vocals at odd
moments. I could hear myself saying "C'mon already!" with all the
impatience of which I'm capable. (I bore easily.)
I still have that issue, giving it another listen a year or so later. Some tracks continue to annoy me, especially an almost glacially slow Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word. ("What have I got to do to make you love me?" "You could start by picking up the pace!") But I'm warming to the rest of the album, especially her versions of Joni Mitchell's All I Want and Roberta Flack's Feel Like Makin' Love. Maybe I'm able to focus more on style and warmth this time around, both of which are on display here. Or maybe I'm just slowing down myself. |
| [ Category: Jazz | Add a comment | Link ] | |
Fri, 03 Mar 2006 |
| The Hidden Land / Béla Fleck & The Flecktones | |
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I discovered Béla Fleck by accident, thanks to a cover of Bob Dylan's classic Tangled Up In Blue he performed with Bruce Hornsby. Hornsby provided the vocals, Fleck accompanied on the banjo. You don't hear a lot of banjo in popular music, or at least I don't. Bluegrass, sure. Folk, okay. But Fleck and his band aren't so easily categorized. Jazzy some times, New Agey others, even classical on occasion. I'd call them easy listening, if that weren't such a dirty word. Okay, a dirty pair of words. |
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Fri, 24 Feb 2006 |
| Don't Take Your Time / Erin Bode | |
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Erin Bode is a young jazz vocalist. I can't wait to hear what she'll
sound like in a few years, when she (and we) can look back on this
album and think about how far she's come.
The problem isn't with Erin's voice, which is sweet and pure and fine. No, the problem's her delivery. Which isn't bad; it's just kind of... uninspired. Take her cover of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time. I'm convinced that she based it on Eva Cassidy's version. But Ms. Cassidy took the song to places Ms. Bode can't imagine; she made it her own. And I feel the same way about Here, There and Everywhere. I have an import CD on which Sissel Kyrkjebo reinvents it. Ms. Bode just sings. It's not that Don't Take Your Time is bad or unpleasant. It just could have been so much more. And maybe one day it will be. |
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| [ Category: Jazz | 1 comment | Link ] | |
Fri, 10 Feb 2006 |
| Eddie Fisher & The Next One Hundred Years / Eddie Fisher | |
| Talk about your happy accidents. When I first saw this album mentioned on the Just Added list in iTunes, I assumed it was a whole other Eddie Fisher. You know, Liz Taylor's ex. Debbie Reynolds' ex. Carrie's pop. That Eddie Fisher. And judging by the album notes at the iTMS, I'm not the only confused one. But let's be clear: this Eddie Fisher was a jazz guitarist, not a singer. And a damn fine one, as I've now discovered. Even if he never covered anything from Fiddler or married Liz or Debbie. |
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| [ Category: Jazz | 57 comments | Link ] | |
Fri, 20 Jan 2006 |
| Sweet Emma and her Preservation Hall Jazz Band | |
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I think I first heard Dixieland Jazz when I was not quite seventeen and making my first pilgrimage to Disneyland. It's a natural kind of music for the House of Mouse: full of energy and good cheer. And loud; did I forget to mention loud? But of course, the Disneyfied version of anything is a pale shadow compared to the original. This is an original, recorded in 1964 when the titular Sweet Emma was 52 and had been performing for forty years. And like most things in New Orleans, it's better than you'll find anywhere else. |
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Mon, 16 Jan 2006 |
| One Night With Frank / Erin Boheme | |
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One Night With Frank is a novelty number. But unlike most
novelty songs, it has a lot more than that going for it.
Erin Boheme is a nineteen year old chauteuse with a Sinatra fixation. One Night includes the titles to nineteen of his songs in its lyrics. Which wouldn't be particularly noteworthy if Ms. Boheme didn't also have the perfect voice for a Sinatra tribute: warm, playful and sexy. One Night is supposed to appear on her upcoming debut album, a collection of Frank's tunes. I for one can't wait. |
| [ Category: Jazz | 1 comment | Link ] | |
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