Ce disque est plein de charme. La rencontre de ces deux artistes met en évidence leur richesse personnelle… Sans être absolu, ce CD est très agréable à écouter, pour celui qui aime la musique. Pour exemple, je choisirai la deuxième partie de "Blues sur seine"; de l'accordéon et de la contrabasse au sommet.
Un plaisir…

The album that made Butler a star. The sweeping ballads, catchy uptempo, dance-oriented hits, and multi-tracked overdubs and background vocalists helped make his music a staple on late '80s Urban Contemporary radio. There is little jazz influence and even less jazz content on this release, but Butler does display a strong, effective singing voice.

This largely successful Savoy reissue CD brings back an obscure session led by Charles Moffett who here mostly plays vibes and a bit of trumpet in addition to drums. He is teamed up with the underrated (and largely forgotten) tenor-saxophonist Paul Jeffrey, bassist Wilbur Ware and drummers Dennis O'Toole and seven-year old Codaryl Moffett. On some selections both O'Toole and Codaryl play drums and the latter proves to be able to hold his own even at such a young age; in fact Codaryl contributed two of the five originals. The songtitle "Avant Garde Got Soul Too" pretty well sums up this adventurous but often surprisingly melodic set.

Pianist Ketil Bjornstad's music is typically in the Scandinavian division of ECM tradition - cool, seamless, flowing, emotionally consistent. This series of eleven selections titled by Roman numerals progresses through a life cycle that reaches a nebulous pinnacle. With no bass player, tenor saxophonist Tore Brunborg and the always inventive drummer Jon Christensen - all veterans of Euro-classical-textured jazz - weave through various aspects of contemporary jazz while mindful of natural and spiritual elements. In Bjornstad's playing, you circular notions of former ECM stablemate, pianist Mike Nock, peace-based hymnal and traditional themes, a waltz, a short stack of mystery, and just a smattering of the blues…

This is the extraordinary recording debut of jazz phenomenon Anaïs Reno, who made it in 2020 at the age of 16. Reno has already won accolades for her dedication to the Great American Songbook. She recently received the Julie Wilson Award, and in 2019 won the Mabel Mercer Foundation competition for high school students. For this album she has chosen 12 tunes by two master writers: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and Billy Strayhorn 1915-67), creators of some of the most challenging and sophisticated material in the Great American Songbook. Reno combines beloved hits such as Mood Indigo, Take the A Train, Lush Life and Caravan with lesser-known but equally memorable tunes like A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing and Its Kind of Lonesome Out Tonight, all backed by a stellar group of jazz musicians led by pianist Emmet Cohen, who also did the arrangements with Reno. I have a very personal relationship with these songs, says Reno. Somehow I believe that the music of Ellington & Strayhorn understands me. This is why I want to honor it.

This is the one Willie "the Lion" Smith CD to get. The bulk of the release features Smith on 14 piano solos from January 10, 1939, performing six standards and eight of his finest compositions. Although Smith (with his derby hat and cigar) could look quite tough, he was actually a sensitive player whose chord structures were very original and impressionistic. On such numbers as "Echoes of Spring" (his most famous work), "Passionette," "Rippling Waters," and "Morning Air," Smith was at his most expressive. In addition, this CD has a couple of collaborations with fellow pianists Joe Bushkin and Jess Stacy and a four-song 1940 swing/Dixieland 1940 session with an octet featuring trumpeter Sidney DeParis. Because of the classic piano solos, this memorable set is quite essential.

Italian pianist Marcotulli's duets with British saxophonist Sheppard have been discreet gems which, in recent years, have occasionally been seen glittering around the jazz scene, and this set is a more faithful representation of that intimacy than the pair's more eclectic album, Koine, released four years ago. Marcotulli has lived in Scandinavia, and the ghostly, wistful long-note jazz of Jan Garbarek, Arve Henriksen and others has had an impact here. Sheppard's tone control and ability to do more with less has been an eloquent feature of his mid-life music, but a startling edginess often bursts out of it, in fierce split-notes or rumbling, upward-spiralling runs against slowly swaying piano figures. Waves and Wind appoints the piano (in Marcotulli's Jarrett-like incarnation) and the saxophone to play each role respectively, and Sound of Stone is an abstract wriggle through soprano figures and skittering percussion.

Commissioned by the Molde International Jazz Festival and recorded live at the Norwegian festival in 2010, “La notte” is a salute to Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, whom Ketil Bjørnstad counts amongst his formative influences. “At the same time that I discovered what jazz could be, after listening to Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, I also saw the films by Godard, Bresson and Antonioni. Perhaps it was the slow, rhythmic authority in the films by Michelangelo Antonioni that made me think of music… As long as visual art creates music in our minds, and music creates pictures and visual expressions with the same intensity, the two are deeply and profoundly interdependent”. This album, then, can be considered “the soundtrack to an inner film”, in which Antonioni’s images and atmospheres are translated and transformed through personal moods and memories.

All four members of the collective calling itself Palatino have often carved out niches that place them just outside popular currents, and this one is no exception. There is a gentle though propulsive quality to the pianoless quartet that relies on the unusual instrumentation of trombone, trumpet, bass, and drums. All the tunes are originals by each of these seasoned bandmembers, except Tadd Dameron's "On a Misty Night." This is the sort of fare that grows on you, the kind that requires close attention to appreciate its nuances. The short lengths of the tunes prevent any meandering, though there is a sameness to some of the pieces as a result of the limited instrumentation. The two horns, trombonist Glenn Ferris and trumpeter Paolo Fresu, are stylistically similar, each offering understated and clearly articulated improvisations – clean, sparse, and economical.

It should surprise no one who has ever followed the music of Nigerian drummer Tony Allen and/or South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela that this session exists. Though the great trumpeter passed away in 2018, his seven-decade-long career was filled with musical adventure across genres. For Allen, a co-creator of Afrobeat and a true progenitor of 21st century Afro-funk, innovation, experimentation, change, and disruption have been part of the game since he began playing. They were introduced to one another by Fela Kuti in the '70s and remained friends. The pair had talked for decades about making an album, and in 2010 they found time in between touring schedules to begin this project. Producer Nick Gold, acclaimed for numerous world music productions including The Buena Vista Social Club, recorded the meeting.

Para você querido Caé is the first album released by the Italian singer Patrizia Laquidara. It was published in 2001 by Velut Luna/Audio Records. It is dedicated to the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso andincludes 15 songs of Brazilian music.

Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of albums from the Jazz pianist on one CD: Animation (1978) and Soundscapes (1980). These albums feature a stellar line up including Miles Davis longtime drummer Al Foster, and future solo artists Bob Berg and Steve Turre alongside Freddie Hubbard and other great session players. Animation includes the subtle Jazz Funk of 'Jacob's Ladder' a memorable track with a really nice feel that really gets you hooked. 'Charmed Circle' shows Cedar's deeper Jazz roots. Soundscapes includes the fabulous 'Latin America' which is widely recognized as a Latin Jazz-Funk classic. 'Warm To The Touch' is an overlooked serene laid back track featuring the exquisite vocals of Leon Thomas. 'Early Generation' features some good solo's from Bob Berg and Freddie Hubbard.

Although it predates his classic soul-jazz dates for Blue Note by a few years, Lonnie Smith's debut LP, Finger-Lickin' Good, boasts a deeply funky groove quite unusual for the mid-'60s, a period when few jazz musicians acknowledged the influence of more commercial musical pursuits, let alone introduced such elements into their own work. Aided and abetted by an all-star lineup including guitarist George Benson, saxophonist King Curtis, and trumpeter Blue Mitchell, Smith keeps the performances brisk and bold, galvanized by stiletto-sharp bursts of organ. Cuts like "Hola Muneca" and "Can't You Just Feel It" possess a raw vitality quite uncommon for the moment in question, and while it's disingenuous to call Finger-Lickin' Good groundbreaking, it's definitely a record ahead of its time.

John Patitucci, a brilliant bassist best known for his fusion playing with Chick Corea's Elektric Band, leans strongly in the direction of Brazilian pop music on this CD. Most of the selections have vocals, and although Patitucci takes a lot of excellent acoustic bass solos (and there are occasional solo spots for keyboardist John Beasley and saxophonist Steve Tavaglione), this CD is more in the world music than fusion vein. The vocalists include Joao Bosco, Dori Caymmi, Kleber Jorge, Ivan Lins, Cathy Brandolino and Kevyn Lettau.