Blue Isle Smooth Jazz

With Listen Here, vocalist Jackie Ryan offers a diverse and delectable array of Great American Songbook and jazz classics, well-known but not regularly-recorded older hits, and superb original selections. Supported by Grammy Award-winning bassist m: John Clayton and most able friends (including Clayton’s son, pianist Gerald , a three-time Grammy nominee), the overall effort soars. It’s a tour de force of talent and taste…

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Jackie Ryan with John Clayton and Friends: Listen Here

NEA Jazz Master and harmonica playing legend Toots Thielemans turned 90 in April 2012, and the milestone has been marked by an exhibition, a street-naming in his honor and a couple of releases. The double-CD Yesterdays and Todays (Dreyfus, 2012) contained 37 previously unreleased recordings spanning a remarkable 65 years, from 1946 to 2011. Then in September, the Lincoln Center paid tribute to Thielemans in a concert where the maestro was joined by pianists m: Herbie Hancock and m: Kenny Werner , bassist m: Marc Johnson , pianist/vocalist m: Eliane Elias , guitarist/vocalist m: Dori Caymmi and guitarist m: Oscar Castro-Neves

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Toots Thielemans European Quartet: 90 Years

Smoother than cognac and just as refined, No Beginning No End drips with an unabashed sensuality both subtly delivered and painfully personal. With his Blue Note debut, Jose James employs the terrifying capacity of his voice to penetrate the heart of deeper, more hidden spaces and lay bare the emotional contours of urban existence…

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Jose James: No Begining No End

The beauty of vocalist Madeline Eastman is that she is an undaunted improviser who remains conservative in her improvising. In this context, the word conservative harbors no negative connotations. Eastman has an abiding respect for the melody that is reflected in her thoughtful interpretations of the fourteen ballads making up A Quiet Thing

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Madeline Eastman + Randy Porter: A Quiet Thing: A Collection of Ballads

In a 40-year career that has encompassed jazz, rock, fusion and the establishment of the electric bass guitar in flamenco music, Barcelona musician Carles Benavent has constantly evolved his approach to his chosen instrument. His most notable collaborations, with guitarist m: Paco De Lucia and pianist m: Chick Corea , are part of a musical story which also includes a series of albums as leader. Un, Dos, Tres… is the seventh of this impressive series and finds Benavent in top form as a player and composer…

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Carles Benavent: Un, Dos, Tres…

Mostly Other Peopele Do the Killing is back! And with it the rightly slandered genre of smooth jazz. This quintet’s fifth studio album was penned by MOPDtK bassist m: Moppa Elliot after a lengthy immersion in the smooth jazz recordings of the late 1970s and ’80s. Elliott extracted certain idiomatic phrases, harmonies and embellishments from this superficial and commercial style, incorporated into his own compositions and used all the quartet members’ encyclopedic knowledge to shed new light on this often maligned sub-genre…

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Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Slippery Rock

Norway’s place on the international jazz map has been assured for decades: first with saxophonist m: Jan Garbarek , guitarist m: Terje Rypdal and bassist m: Arild Andersen ; then, a second wave including trumpeters m: Arve Henriksen and Nils Petter MolvA|r , and pianists m: Bugge Wesseltoft and Christian WallumrA d ; and, more recently, in another wave featuring m: In the Country and m: Splashgirl . Still, its scene has often seemed distanced from the American tradition that nevertheless resides at the core of many of these players. Enter saxophonist Hanna Paulsberg and Waltz for Lilli, which suggests that it’s possible to revere that tradition and, at the same time, forge your own culture-rich identity…

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Hanna Paulsberg Concept: Waltz for Lilli