One of the jazz albums that has been in my rotation over the last week or so is Promises to Burn from the Janice Borla Group. Yes another jazz vocalist but Ms Borla is really a special vocalist Neil Tesser of the Chicago Reader sums up Janice’s vocalizations well….
Most times I don’t like jazz vocalists.I am fine with just the music! So when I went to MOG to check out Darden Purcell’s 2009 release Easy Living, I was already to listen for a couple of seconds and then move on. The reason that I was exploring the album at all was that yesterday was Ms Purcell’s birthday! So the negative minded me found the album and hit play. The album started with Darden doing a little scatting accompanied by some nifty drumming from Stockton Helbing, then I heard her great voice backed by a fine piano, finally a dynamite piano solo from Chip Stephens took off and I was hooked. The song was “What A Little Moonlight Can Do” and I knew after the song that what Darden Purcell can so is sing!! From CDBaby…..
On this date in 1938 jazz vibraphonist Dave Pike was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is best known for his association with Herbie Mann in the early 1960s. I discovered his music within the last few years and several of his albums are included in my music library. I always wondered why I never really heard of this guy. The reason is that most of his American recordings were made in the 1960s and 70s and he went to Europe in the late 1960′ Here’s what I read at All About Jazz……
On this date in 1938 jazz vibraphonist Dave Pike was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is best known for his association with Herbie Mann in the early 1960s. I discovered his music within the last few years and several of his albums are included in my music library. I always wondered why I never really heard of this guy. The reason is that most of his American recordings were made in the 1960s and 70s and he went to Europe in the late 1960′ Here’s what I read at All About Jazz……
So this morning at Me, Myself , Music and Mysteries I posted three songs that put me in a good mood, and tonight I am listening to an album that puts me in a mellow mood. I want to get home turn the lights out and drift to this wonderful album. Yes, drift to the fine piano of Cava Menzies and the “Chet Baker-esque trumpet of Nick Phillips on their album Moment to Moment. As a matter of fact, I was going to write to you readers if you want an album to settle back with put your feet up and just drift grab this one!!
So the other morning, after I woke up from the crash that was a result of having had virtually no sleep the night before, as we waited for the birth of grandson,Oliver, I was looking at the jazz birthdays. Now if you remember, the night before I had posted about saxophonist Jeff Hackworth, and how his sax sounds like Stanley Turrentine and how like Stanley, Jeff often plays in an organ trio setting and how I thought that was neat because Stanley had played so often with Jimmy Smith. Well what the un-jazz educated Edward didn’t know was that in the 1960s Stanley Turrentine was married to and recorded a series of albums with jazz-organist Shirley Scott! (They divorced in 1969) From AllMusic:
So this morning’s soundtrack was Soul To Go!, the latest release from New York City tenor saxophonist, Jeff Hackworth. Currently, the album is #35 and climbing on the JazzWeek Jazz Chart. Hackworth began his musical journey playing countless gigs in the smokey clubs in his hometown of Buffalo,New York. While he played in many blues and R&B bands it was the organ trio scene that he always gravitated towards.
Today March 8th Austria’s only and top female jazz trumpet player Michaela Rabitsch celebrates her ?????? birthday, Michaela is a singer, composer and is called a modern-day female Chet Baker by the US magazine Jazzscene!! She calls Weyer, Oberosterreich, Austria her hometown and currently Vienna is home. She has started her musical journey at 7 studying classical violin, at 14 she moved to Vienna to continue her studies. She switched to trumpet and studies for jazz- and popular music at the Bruckner conservatory Linz (now Anton Bruckner private University) with Ingrid Jensen, Peter Tuscher and classical trumpet with Fritz Handlbaue. Over the years she has played in a variety of groups and individuals. Most recently she has concentrated on her own compositions played together in quartet or duo with Robert Pawlik. They have released to CDs as a duo Moods and their latest release Voyages. This afternoon I downloaded Voyages and gave it a listen – this is one terrific duo! According to their website:
So a while back I came across the album In a World of Mallets by Jason Marsalis. I listened to the album because the lead instrument was a vibraphone and not because of the name Marsalis. In fact I didn’t even make the connection until today, when I was reading about Jason, who is celebrating birthday thirty-seven (37) Soon when I read that Jason was in fact the youngest of the famous Marsalis family led by father Ellis and includes brothers Wynton, Bradford and Delfeayo! I felt a little better when I read at All About Jazz that…..
