Deborah J. Carter - New CD "Daytripper"

Deborah J. Carter releases her new jazz tribute to the Beatles with Daytripper (Timeless Records). For this project, Deborah and pianist Coen Molenaar wrote completely new arrangements for eleven standards by the Beatles. They recorded these pieces with drummer Enrique Firpi, bassist/producer/engineer Mark Zandveld, and guest musicians Ed Verhoeff (guitar), Joris Roelofs (clarinet) and Daniel Patriasz (percussion). The enthusiasm for her concert performances in Europe already has proven that this repertoire is extremely well received by a wide audience of not just jazz fans, but music lovers in general.



Here is an excerpt from the liner notes by Frits Lagerwerff (VPRO Radio & TV): “By her interpretation of Lennon-McCartney compositions, Deborah demonstrates eminently the distinction between jazz and pop. Her feeling for phrasing, improvisation and variation brings excitement in these songs which she considers part of the soundtrack of her life. With a fascinating penchant for free-spiritedness she creates-- in personal versions--a sparkling cocktail of contrasts.”

Daytripper (Timeless Records CD JSP 473)
Just released! A CD with Deborah's original and surprising versions of Beatles-repertoire.


listen:
Can't Buy Me Love
Yesterday
Oh! Darling
Ticket To Ride


Read: CD buyer feedback press reviews

Jazzkaar Festival - Tallinn

Jazzkaar Festival - Tallinn

From April 15-30 the Tallinn International Jazzkaar Festival will open its doors for the 17th time featuring Dianne Reeves, Vinicius Cantuaria and The Bad Plus. This year's festival includes 50 concerts in thirteen Estonian cities - Tallinn, Tartu, Prnu, Jhvi, Viljandi, Narva, Tri, Haapsalu, Valga, Rakvere, Plva, Elva and Keila. The concerts in Tallinn will take place in 15 different halls altogether.

The festival will feature musicians from 24 different countries, including Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Georgia, Indonesia, India, Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Chilie, Israel and the USA.

The opening concert of the festival will be by a rising Estonian artist Liisi Koikson, who will be presenting her debut album. The young woman was awarded the title of the best jazz singer and best female singer at the last Estonian Music Awards ceremony.

The main performers of the festival will be jazz diva Dianne Reeves, a four time Grammy award winner, the power piano trio The Bad Plus from the USA, and Vinicius Cantuaria quintet from Brazil, continuing with the best traditions of Antonio Carlos Jobim's music.

The European jazz elite is also impressively represented at Jazzkaar - the best French saxophone and clarinet players Michel Portal and Louis Sclavis, Spanish saxophone and flute players Jorge Pardo and Jose Louis Gutierrez, etc.

Youth is one of the keywords for this year's festival. The youngest star will be a 16-year-old Italian saxophone player Francesco Cafiso, who has gained substantial international recognition, despite his young age.

23-year-old wonder-voice Eivor Palsdottir, who was voted the best female vocalist in Iceland, will be performing with Villu Veski's world music group. A special kind of energy will be brought to the festival by the saxophone player and rap artist Soweto Kinch, who has been awarded several prestigious British awards. Norway will be represented by Solveig Slettahjell with her Slow Motion Quintet. Young Estonian singers Uku Suviste and Kadri Voorand will have their Jazzkaar debut this year, while Sofia Rubina and Chalice are both already well-known artists for the festival audience.

World music and jazz will be wonderfully combined by groups Boi Akih (Indonesia - India-the Netherlands), The Shin (Georgia), PercaDu (Israel), Sanju Sahai and Fida Hussain Khan (India), Anna- Mari Khr orhcestra (Finland) etc.

Estonian musicians will be giving 20 concerts and the audience will have a chance to see the brand new shows of Meelis Vind, Bonzo Dream Orchestra, Tnu Naissoo, Hedvig Hanson, Riho Sibul, Raivo Tafenau, etc.

Ella Fitzgerald festival hits the big time

BY SAM MCDONALD

April 4, 2006
The Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival, now in its ninth year, is looking all grown up. How so?

First off, it's a third bigger.

This year's event at Christopher Newport University has swelled to include a fourth night of world-class music. A beefed-up Wednesday concert will feature the critically acclaimed singer Kurt Elling.

Secondly, there's the marquee strength of this year's headliner, Branford Marsalis. The saxophonist, who performs at the Saturday night finale, is part of the nation's first family of jazz music. His father Ellis and brother Wynton are among the most popular and respected jazz players in the country.

Big names are nothing new to the festival. It has featured Chick Corea, Joshua Redman, Sonny Rollins and Diana Krall in years past. But an appearance by Marsalis - who has recorded and performed with rock standouts including Sting and Bruce Hornsby - gives the festival more popular punch. At least it should.

Finally, the Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival moves into a grander physical space for 2006. Last year's edition took place at the 440-seat theater inside the Ferguson Center for the Arts. This year, the only show happening in that theater is Wednesday's kickoff. The other three performances are inside the Ferguson Center's much larger 1,700-seat concert hall.

It's a big step up from the festival's beginnings in the tiny and unpretentious Gaines Theatre at CNU.

Here's a closer look at the festival's four headlining concerts.

Kurt Elling with the CNU Jazz Ensembles, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Music & Theatre Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20.

Chicago native Kurt Elling's brand of scat singing was surely influenced by Ella Fitzgerald, so he's a natural choice for the festival. Having developed his own style in the clubs of the Windy City - including the legendary Green Mill - Elling emerged as a creative and unpredictable presence in vocal jazz. For example, he began his 2001 album "Flirting with Twilight" by singing a Charlie Haden bass solo.

Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II with Tiempo Libre, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Concert Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40.

A seven-time Grammy Award winner, Palmieri is described as one of the greatest Latin piano players on the road today. He went professional in 1955 and formed his influential band La Perfecta in 1961. Palmieri's is noted for bringing the piano styles of McCoy Tyner, Thelonious Monk and others into a Latin music context. Tiempo Libre is a Miami-based group that plays high-energy blend of Latin jazz and Cuban timba music,

Patti Austin and the Count Basie Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Concert Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40.

Austin is best known as pop and R&B singer, but she's always loved jazz. As a child performer, she was a protégé of Dinah Washington and Sammy Davis Jr. As a studio pro, she's sung countless jingles as well as for sessions by Quincy Jones, George Benson and Paul Simon. Her duet with James Ingram "Baby, Come to Me," was a No. 1 pop hit in 1982. More recently, Austin's been indulging her jazz side. In 2002, she released "For Ella," a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

Branford Marsalis, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Concert Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40.

The oldest of Ellis Marsalis' jazz playing sons, Marsalis learned from Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis before striking out on his own. Jazz purists howled when he joined Sting's post-Police band. But Marsalis continued to chart his own course. For a few years, he served as musical director for Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." In 1994, his Buckshot LeFonque project mixed jazz, hip-hop, blues and rock with contributions from Albert Collins, Victor Wooten, Nils Lofgren and poet Maya Angelou. Branford Marsalis' most recent disc, "Eternal," was released in 2004.

Ella and Dean!

9th Annual Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Festival

Ferguson Center for the Arts April 5-8; 7:30 p.m. This year’s festival includes Kurt Elling with the CNU Jazz Ensembles; Eddie Palmieri & Tiempo Libre; Patti Austin with the Count Basie Orchestra and An Evening with Branford Marsalis. The festival includes educational programs including performances, workshops and master classes. $20-$40. One University Place. (NN) 594‑8752, www.cnu.edu/fergusoncenter

Tribute Does Justice to Ella Fitzgerald

by Mike Joyce

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

You can't go wrong by kicking off Jazz Appreciation Month with a salute to Ella Fitzgerald -- unless, of course, you miscast the principal role. The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra avoided that pitfall by recruiting vocalist Delores King Williams for its performance at the National Museum of American History's Carmichael Auditorium on Sunday night.



Williams may have a gift for mimicry, but she clearly had no intention of imitating Fitzgerald's nonpareil artistry. Not that there weren't occasional reminders of Fitzgerald's trademark effervescence and flawless scat, especially when Williams thoroughly refreshed "Swing It, Mr. Paganini." But, from the outset, Williams imbued her performances with her own personality and interpretative finesse. Most of the tunes were drawn from Fitzgerald's classic songbook collections, neatly arranged by Chris Madsen for a seven-piece ensemble. And thanks to some lesser-known ballads -- "A Ship Without a Sail," for example -- the concert offered listeners more than just usual hit parade of standards.

Under the direction of Loren Schoenberg, the ensemble compensated for the absence of a full horn section by showcasing the group in a variety of settings. At one point, the spontaneous pairing of bassist James King and drummer Ken Kimery produced an evocative 12-bar blues tribute to Keter Betts, Fitzgerald's late bassist and friend. Another delightful duet found Williams and trombonist-vocalist Eric Felten conjuring Fitzgerald's chummy collaborations with Louis Armstrong via "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Other performances were enlivened or soulfully shaded by Schoenberg, on alto sax, trumpeter Tom Williams, baritone saxophonist Scott Silbert and pianist Robert Redd.

2006 Jazz & Blues JUNO Winners

2006 Jazz & Blues JUNO Winners:

Single of the Year, Home, Michael Buble
Album of the Year, It's Time, Michael Buble
Artist of the Year, Michael Buble
Pop Album of the Year, It's Time, Michael Buble
Vocal Jazz Album, Christmas Songs, Diana Krall
Contemporary Jazz Album, Radio Guantanamo, Jane Bunnett
Traditional Jazz Album, Ask Me Later, Don Thompson Quartet
Blues Album, Let It Loose,, Kenny 'Blues Boss' Wayne

Kim Nalley - "Need My Sugar"

1. September In The Rain
2. At Last
3. Say It Isn't So
4. Nature Boy
5. Need My Sugar
6. I Was Telling Him About You
7. Too Close For Comfort
8. Goin' To New York
9. Our Day Will Come

To listen to samples go to THIS PAGE


In 2003 Kim Nalley took the musical reins firmly in hand by producing "Need My Sugar" (CE Jazz & Blues/City Hall Records) which is now available nationally at all major music stores. It features Etta James' pianist David K. Mathews, the world-class bassist Jeff Chambers and Nocturne Band drummer, Kent Bryson. Both Mathews and Chambers playing featured on several Grammy Award nominated albums including two from this past year. Since its release this year, Need My Sugar" has reached #17 on the American Jazz Countdown Main Stream Jazz Chart. Kim Nalley says, "I think that this CD will appeal to both the jazz and blues crowds. There is something on there for everyone.

Everyone loves the Latin groove on "Nature Boy," I have DJs asking to remix it, "At Last" is just so soulful with Dave Mathews' playing and the jazz numbers just plain swing." Here is what the critics say about the CD "Need My Sugar."

Kim Nalley - "She Put A Spell On Me" a tribute to Nina Simone

Known for her ability to turn a chattering cocktail sipping crowd into a rapt audience of lifelong fans in minutes, Kim Nalley combines a devastating stage presence with finely tuned powerful voice. A trip to San Francisco is often said not be complete without hearing Kim Nalley perform. Glamorous, garrulous and dramatic like a diva of the 1950’s, Kim evokes an era when women were classy and brash. And she is a real community leader to boot; she was the receipient of the “Most Influential African-American in the Bay Area” Cityflight Award 2005 Entertainment Category. This CD was recorded live over five sold out runs of Kim Nalley’s Tribute to Nina Simone since Dr. Simone’s death and all the reviews have been exuberant:


“Nina Simone was a singer, a social commentator, and a fighter. Often called the High Priestess of Soul, she was revered for her command of folk, blues, protest songs, and show tunes. So is it any wonder that Kim Nalley's show "She Put a Spell on Me: Kim Sings Nina" has been so popular? Nalley, whose hand in reopening the North Beach hot spot Jazz at Pearl's has made her into something of a hero in her own right, seems the perfect choice to interpret and pay tribute to the late, great Dr. Simone.”

Hiya Swanhuyser-SFWeekly

"Like Nina Simone, Nalley is able to vocally plow a mighty road of jazz and spiritual, classical, folk, blues, pop, African chant and freedom without losing a note, without relinquishing her spell. Blended, simmering, sustained elusiveness, Ms. Nalley’s vocal was inexhaustible melodic poetry. Too many stars to rate." Jean

Bartlett-Pacifica Tribune

"Jazz Diva Kim Nalley has arrived back in San Francisco, after living and touring in Europe. Nalley is fast becoming internationally known for her breathtaking charisma, an assured vocal style wholly her own, and every bit the chanteuse of the 1930's and 40's. She evokes the style and presence of artists like Billy Holliday, Dinah Washington, and Ella Fitzgerald, even the elemental flame of Nina Simone, who passed away less than a year ago. "SHE PUT A SPELL ON ME-- A TRIBUTE TO NINA SIMONE" had people standing on the sidewalk outside Pearl's February 17th, 2004."

Andrei Hedstrom-Driving Socrates

Andrea Wolper - Small Hours

Track Listings
1. Dancing on the Ceiling
2. You and the Night and the Music
3. Gray, Not Blue
4. Night Time Was My Mother
5. Crazy Love
6. Rendezvous in Providence
7. Today
8. Not Sleeping in Your Arms
9. Little Suzie's Humming
10. Moanin'
11. Small Day Tomorrow
12. I Like You, You're Nice


By Dan McClenaghan

The title of The Small Hours suggests an obvious comparison. Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours was one of those early Capitol Records “concept” albums—a mastepiece, one of the finest three or four vocal sets ever produced—that featured a downtempo, melancholy mood wrapped in some of Nelson Riddle's most subtle arrangements (with strings) on record.


Vocalist Andrea Wolper's second record has a similar mood as the similarly-titled classic, with excellent but spare arrangments on a set of moody, late night tunes—like a saloon singer playing for a spare crowd as closing time nears. And what a delivery! Wolper sounds as if she's singing just for you as the set opens with the classic Rogers/Hart gem ”Dancing on the Ceiling,” a song also included in the Sinatra disc, incidentally. Wolper's voice—weary, dripping heartache—embraces the guitar/bass accompaniment and the beautiful essense of the classic melody. Hushed at times, smoky, emotion-laden, singing just for you.


The songstress' take on “You and the Night and the Music” has an eerie feeling, with the addition of Lou Marini's flute over the exotic rhythm of drummer Victor Lewis. Wolper's voice is very much an ensemble instrument—as opposed to the singer standing out front—with a good deal of fluid scatting that slips sinuously around the flute.


“Grey, Not Blue,” a Wolper-penned tune and an extraordinarily soulful selection, wallows in the blues in front of Ken Filiano's fat bass lines and Ron Affif's delicate guitarlines; while Van Morrison's “Crazy Love” has the bass/guitar/voice meshing beautifully, making the song sound like it was written just for Andrea Wolper. Another original, “Not Sleeping in your Arms,” is a dark, hard-hearted (with reason, I suppose) highlight, sad and tinted with bitterness, like something Billie Holiday might have written and sung.


Andrea Wolper is a new name to me, but she's come up with one of the strongest and most interesting vocal efforts of the year.

Visit Andrea Wolper on the web.

Christine Rosholt - "Detour Ahead"

By Dan McClenaghan




Twin Cities-based vocalist Christine Rosholt comes from a theater background, but her debut CD, Detour Ahead, shows that she can take a side road and turn it into a very appealing main thoroughfare. The set's atmosphere is elegant and a bit sassy, with Rosholt—in front of a crack band that really knows how to swing—displaying sharp articulation and a clear, clean tone from the Ella Fitzgerald school of jazz vocals.


The set opens with style on the familiar standard “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon),” where Rosholt eases her cool vocal into a piano trio arrangement that features a jewel of a piano solo from Tanner Taylor. Johnny Mercer's “Early Autumn” shifts the tone into a higher gear that has the band bouncing and Rosholt's voice cutting through sweetly. It's hard to take your ear off her easy phrasing and subtle shifts in inflection, but again Taylor sparkles with a style that compliments Rosholt's vocals perfectly.


An interesting addition here is Antonio Carlos Jobim's “Chega de Saudade (No More Blues).” Rosholt's delivery, in English, is crisper than the normal bossa nova mode, before vocalist/guitarist Robert Everest takes a turn in Portugese, with the hushed and slightly fuzzy intonation usually associated with the bossa sound. The title tune, a melancholy ballad with an achingly beautiful, no-frills vocal by Rosholt, is another highlight.


The set also features “You and the Night and the Music”; a couple of Cole Porter tunes, ”It's De-lovely” and “From This Moment On”; “Daydeam,” from the Strayhorn/Ellington songbook; “I Cover the Waterfront,” “Bye Bye Blackbird,” and an unusual take on Fats Waller's ”Honeysuckle Rose” with a B3 organ in the mix, giving the tune less of the traditional rollick, more of a cool flow.


A fine debut by vocalist Christine Rosholt.

Visit Christine Rosholt on the web.

Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald

April 2,
The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra at National Museum of American History's Carmichael Auditorium. Renowned reedman Loren Schoenberg will conduct SJMO's tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, part of its "From Harlem To Hollywood" series. Vocalist Delores Williams, who has the requisite talent and charm, will join the orchestra for an evening that will likely embrace everything from sunny swing novelties to Ella's classic pop songbook collections.

Details 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 2
National Museum of American History - Smithsonian Institution

14th Street and Constitution Avenue
Washington, DC

• Information: 202-252-0012
• Price: $26

Marta Gomez Releases new album

Marta Gomez Releases new album

Chesky Records announced the release of Entre Cada Palabra (Between Each Word), the new album from acclaimed Colombian vocalist and songwriter Marta Gomez.

Gomez' successful Chesky debut Cantos de Agua Dulce (Songs of Sweet Water) charted on Billboard's Top 10 Jazz Albums and was described by the magazine's reviewer as "...the essence of Latin cool."

The album also charted at #12 on the CMJ New World Chart and at #10 on the World Music Europe Chart. Gomez was nominated for Best Latin Jazz Vocalist of 2005 by Billboard's Latin Music Awards and the LA Times heralded her as "...a remarkable new talent."

Recorded live, sans overdubs, at St. Peter's Church in New York by audiophile label Chesky, "Entre Cada Palabra" is grace personified. Born in Colombia and schooled at Berklee College of Music, Gomez sings with a quiet, passionate radiance in an austere, largely acoustic instrumental setting of wafting flute lines, clapped rhythms, percolating percussion and bright-stringed guitars. The story-like songs—13 of which are Gomez originals and all sung in Spanish—are melodic gems informed by a range of South American folkloric music. Highlights include the flamenco-infused, flute-buoyed "Mar Adentro, Despacito"; the Colombian cumbia "Esta Linda la Mar" featuring the gorgeous interplay between Gomez's voice and guest Anat Cohen's clarinet; and the reflective balladic rendering of the classic Mexican ranchera "Cielito Lindo." —Dan Ouellette

Peggy Lee & Dean Martin - Medley

Minidisc Place: Retail Music Industry Battles Extinction

Minidisc Place: Retail Music Industry Battles Extinction

Josephine Livoti - debut CD ’Bright Moments’

Josephine Livoti, a New York-based jazz vocalist, announces the release of her independently produced debut CD ’Bright Moments’ on her label Sefina Music Enterprises. She will play the CD release concert Sunday, April 23rd at Saint Peter's Church, NY, with James Weidman, piano; Paul West, bass and Greg Bandy, drums. They accompanied her on her recording. Josephine's well-rounded repertoire includes songs from the Great American Songbook and compositions by jazz and Brazilian masters. Her dynamic trio plays with precision and adds creativity and soulfulness to Josephine's warm and rich vocal tones.

Josephine's vocal influences include Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Brazilian vocalist Elis Regina. Today, Josephine's creative inspiration for her singing comes from jazz and world music instrumentalists whose musical expression blends the old with the new, and who look to the world for their audience.

Josephine has performed with jazz masters isuch as Howard McGhee, Richard Davis, and Roland Hanna at such notable New York venues as the Blue Note, the Jazz Center of New York, and Saint Peter's Church (the "Jazz Church"). She has also been featured at The Greenwich Village Jazz Festival and the JVC Jazz Festival in New York City.

She began her career in music as an alto member of the New York Choral Society. There she developed a love for the works of Bach, especially hearing his compositions improvised in jazz settings.

Her music education includes jazz studies with Harold Danko, Hal Schaefer and Herb Buchanan; and cabaret and popular music studies with Elly Stone. At Mannes College of Music she studied voice with Marian Thompson, and received her diploma in Classical and Contemporary Music Studies, majoring in vocal performance. She has studied drama with Bill Hickey and musical theatre with Rita Gardner at the Herbert Bergoff Studio. Her interest in comedy led her to Chicago City Limits in New York City, where she studied comedy and improvisational theatre.

``Jazz Vocalists -- Hear & Now''

Jazz Alliance International Celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month with ``Jazz Vocalists -- Hear & Now''; Two-Disc Set Features 36 Standards and Contemporary Classics by Today's Reigning Voices Available in Stores April 24

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 27, 2006--In honor of Jazz Appreciation Month, Jazz Alliance International (JAI) is releasing "Jazz Vocalists -- Hear & Now." This stellar two-disc set to be released on Concord Records contains 36 standards and contemporary classics by today's top vocalists and will be available in stores on April 24.



After the success of its single-disc volumes from 2003, "Jazz Hear and Now" and "Smooth Jazz Hear and Now," JAI has assembled an overview of the jazz vocal world that is twice as comprehensive. The three dozen tracks, programmed with a focus on contemporary material on Disc One and standards on Disc Two, feature leading voices from several generations of jazz and jazz-related singers, including new stars Michael Buble, Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux; stalwarts Kurt Elling, Diana Krall and Dianne Reeves; jazz-friendly pop stars Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt; and living legends Al Jarreau, Abbey Lincoln and Jimmy Scott. In addition, the collection also includes three of the jazz world's late-great voices -- Ray Charles (with Poncho Sanchez's band), Shirley Horn and Etta Jones (in duet with Vanessa Rubin).

States project producer Michael Cuscuna, "In 36 tracks on two discs, we set out to make a representation of vocal jazz that would be listener-friendly to the novice just looking to get into this music with the intention for a balanced, wide-ranging slice of what is happening on the jazz scene today. We embraced the time-honored icons, veterans making a comeback, new artists (the emerging and successful) and singers from other fields who've chosen to do jazz projects. The bulk of the repertoire is standards, but we have included jazz originals and contemporary pop and R&B tunes that demonstrated that the art of jazz singing is by no means restricted to the Tin Pan Alley songbooks."

States JAI president Suzan Jenkins, "We know each track will help us in our continuing efforts to expand the audience for jazz by attracting all music lovers who simply appreciate great music. The collaborative efforts of the many parties involved in compiling Vocal Jazz Hear and Now -- artists, producers, publishers, recording companies, manufacturers, presenters, non-profits and media -- speak to the power of the Alliance and our continued diligence to preserve and promote the vital heritage of one of America's greatest national treasures."

Glen Barros, president, Concord Music Group, added "We are proud to distribute this superb benefit CD and contribute to the efforts of the Jazz Alliance in furthering the growth and development of jazz."

Proceeds from the sales of "Jazz Vocalists -- Hear & Now" will benefit JAI and JAI-supported programs.

JAI, a subsidiary of the International Association of Jazz Educators, is dedicated to expanding the audience and visibility of jazz by raising the profile of the art form and by fostering better working relationships within the global jazz community through advocacy, education and research. For more information, go to www.gotjazz.info.

The mission of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) is to assure the continued worldwide growth and development of jazz and jazz education. Now in its 38th year, IAJE's annual conference is regarded as the largest annual gathering of the global jazz community. For more information, go to www.iaje.org

CASSANDRA WILSON - Thunderbird

Out on 4-4-2006

"Cassandra Wilson never fails to surprise and inspire. Sexy, honey-velvet vocals wrapped around her own jazzy blue compositions or inventive interpretations of others’ material led TIME magazine to name her “America’s Best Singer” in recent years. On her new CD thunderbird, which Blue Note Records will release on April 4, 2006, she has collaborated with red hot producer T Bone Burnett to surprise, yet again."


Track Listing

1 Go To Mexico
2 Closer To You
3 Easy Rider
4 It Would Be So Easy
5 Red River Valley
6 Poet
7 I Want To Be Loved
8 Lost
9 Strike A Match
10 Tarot

Sony takes MiniDisc to Mac

Sony plans to introduce Mac support for its new MiniDisc Walkman for the first time.


The company took the wraps off its all-new MiniDisc product, the MZ-RH1, this morning. This portable device is being marketed as a mobile recording studio.


Sony plans to make the device Mac compatible, “bringing greater choice in digital audio devices to Mac users”.


The company will release Mac software for the new product in “summer 2006”, it said.


The player can handle audio in the following formats: LinearPCM, ATRAC (ATRAC, ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus) or MP3 format.


It will also record audio, with several built-in features to enhance that use. Users can adjust the mode to reflect what they are recording, which could be a live event, their own ‘jam’ session, or a meeting.

The MZ-RH1 will be available from May 2006 across Europe.

Shirley Horn - Marian McPartland - PIANO JAZZ

Taped for McPartland's National Public Radio program in December 1984, three years before the release of I Thought About You, Horn's breakthrough album for Verve, the 55-minute session is a musical delight. The two women quickly establish a warm and mirthful rapport punctuated with more than a few contagious belly laughs.

Horn has three vocal features (”I Could Have Told You,” “Violets...,” “There's No You”), and finds common ground with McPartland as they duet on three “dirty old blues” (”Billie's Bounce,” “Cherry,” “Shirley's Blues”) and a slice of Ellingtonia (”Love You Madly”). The women's unabashed mutual admiration and sterling musicianship make this document all the more precious in light of Shirley Horn's passing just four months ago, at the age of 71.

New poll on Ella's Forum

Hi,
click here and go to the albums section to vote!

Miky

A temporary change in my mail address

Hi to everyone,
due to a long illness I'll be in the hospital for a month or two. Here they gave me a PC, but I cannott access my Gmail account, so I've created a new email account where you can reach me. This new address is only temporary, and it's: michelescasso@libero.it

Please feel free to write whenever you want!

Miky

Ella sings Summertime (Berlin, 1968)

Ella sings Misty

R.I.P. -- Sid Feller

Sid Feller, 89, Arranged Ray Charles Tunes

by Stephen Miller
New York Sun, February 17, 2006

Sid Feller, who died yesterday at 89, was a producer and
arranger whose 30-year partnership with Ray Charles produced
lushly arranged hits such as "Georgia on My Mind" and "I
Can't Stop Loving You."

As the head in-house arranger for Capitol Records and then
ABC Records, Feller also worked with Peggy Lee, Mel Torme,
Paul Anka, Steve Lawrence, and Eydie Gorme, and later in his
career was the musical arranger for "The Flip Wilson Show,"
and a host of other televised music specials.

But it was his special relationship with Charles that marked
the highest point in his career. The two men struck up a
close friendship around the time Charles left Atlantic
Records in a dispute over the ownership of record masters.
Feller helped woo Charles to the ABC label in 1959, and the
two turned out a series of albums starting with "Genius Hits
the Road." It was Feller who worked with Charles to produce
the two breakthrough albums "Modern Sounds In Country and
Western Music," which brought Nashville strings to Charles's
unique blend of country, rhythm, and blues. Among the tunes
on the two disks were "You Don't Know Me," "Careless Love,"
"You Are My Sunshine," and "Your Cheatin' Heart."

In the liner notes to the Rhino recording "Genius & Soul -
The 50th Anniversary Collection," Charles is quoted saying,
"Sid researched the hell out of it and came up with 250
tunes. I picked the ones I liked, and of the ones I picked,
they were all new to me except 'Bye Bye, Love.'"

Charles is reputed once to have said, "If they call me a
genius, Sid Feller is Albert Einstein."

Their relationship continued after Feller left ABC in the
mid-1960s to work in Hollywood, and Feller regularly toured
with Charles and conducted during his appearances with
orchestras.

Feller grew up in Brooklyn. His father, an Austrian Jew,
sold citrus fruit in the downtown Manhattan Washington
Market. Feller learned to play trumpet, his primary
instrument, while in the Boy Scouts. He also played the
piano, and credited his early interest in music and
arrangement to his mother consenting to have one hoisted
through the window of the family's Brooklyn walkup.

By the time Feller was in his mid-teens he was playing gigs
in the Poconos and small clubs in Manhattan. Feller was
completely self-taught as an arranger, and he told intimates
that he began figuring out the craft one day in the
Catskills on an hours-long sojourn in a rowboat, during
which he produced the arrangement for a song he had composed
himself.

In 1938, he was playing in the Hungarian orchestra at
Zimmerman's Budapest, a 48th Street restaurant, and also
taking lessons from a trumpeter playing in the orchestra at
nearby Minsky's Burlesque. It was there, while watching his
teacher play, that he first spotted Gertrude Hager, a
16-year-old chorine. Three years later, they were married at
Fort Knox, Tenn., where Feller was stationed as a warrant
officer leading a wartime entertainment unit.

Feller had played in Jack Teagarden's big band before the
war, and continued to provide Teagarden with arrangements
afterward. He toured with Carmen Cavallero ("The Poet of the
Piano"), and in 1951 signed on with Capitol as a producer,
arranger, and conductor. At Capitol, he worked with Jackie
Gleason, Nancy Wilson, and Dean Martin. He also led a band
on "USA Canteen," later renamed "The Jane Froman Show," a
short-format music show on CBS.

In 1955, Feller moved to ABC Records, where he provided
arrangements for Charlie Byrd and Woody Herman, among
others, before beginning his collaboration with Charles.

Although he had few writing credits, he did get one for the
song "You Can't Say No in Acapulco" for Elvis Presley's
movie "Fun in Acapulco" (1963).

Feller left ABC in 1965 and moved to Los Angeles and worked
as a freelance arranger and producer, working with Ms.
Wilson, Shirley Bassey, and Eddie Fisher. He added horn
arrangements on the Grass Roots' 1969 album "Leavin' It All
Behind," and horn and string arrangements to the "Osmond
Christmas Album" (1976). His list of credits from the 1970s
through this year as arranger, producer, or conductor
includes blues, Broadway show tunes, comedy, jazz, Latin,
and lounge.

Feller slowed down significantly after a heart attack in the
late 1990s, and moved to suburban Cleveland, where he was
coincidentally featured in a recent exhibition on Charles at
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was credited as producer
of eight of the 17 soundtrack songs on the recent biopic
"Ray."

"I cried through the whole move," Feller told the Cleveland
Plain Dealer. "Because as I watched Foxx's performance, I
really thought I was seeing Ray again."
_____

Sidney Harold Feller

Born December 24, 1916, in New York City; died February 16
in Beachwood, Ohio; survived by his wife, Gertrude, his
children Lois Feller, Bill Feller, Debbie Feller, and Jane
Toland, and five grandchildren.

Dianne Reeves wins GRAMMY for good night, and good luck.

February 09, 2006
Dianne Reeves wins GRAMMY for good night, and good luck.
Last night, Dianne Reeves (Download Music) took home the "Jazz Vocal Album" GRAMMY for her soundtrack to the George Clooney film good night, and good luck. The album was one of my Top Ten from 2005

Seasons of a Life - Lena Horne

1. Black Is
2. Maybe
3. I've Got To Have You
4. I'll Always Leave The Door A Little Open
5. You're The One
6. Something to Live For
7. Chelsea Bridge
8. Singin' In The Rain
9. Willow Weep For Me
10. Stormy Weather

Anita O'Day's new CD

"New releases and Info:

Anita's NEW CD will be out April 18, 2006. We have finished CD. It is entitled, "Indestructible Anita O'Day". With Eddie Locke, Chip Jackson, Roswell Rudd, Lafayette Harris, Tommy Morimoto and the great Joe Wider and a few others! It is in the classic style of the 60's Blue Note sound.

Anita's vocals are raw, honest and the have the wisdom of an 86 year-old women who has seen and been through more life than most of us ever will...Listening samples...coming very soon. If I must say so myself...this is the best record she has made in many many years. We recorded it three times, the third being the charm. The last sessions are with the great musicians listed above. They swing, she swings and so does the cd, It has 11 songs. 10 vocals and one instrumental. We did a version of Duke Ellington's, A Slip of the Lip Might Sink a Ship- John Colliani's amazing intense piano in a Louis Prima style will get all you swing dancers on your feet. John also plays on Is You Is and Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Scotch, we took liberties here, Anita and I re-wrote the lyrics to suit her tastes at the time. I can't wait for you to hear this record by this amazing 86 year-old master. The cover is a photo by Travis Anderson, a really great photographer from Minnesota. You can hear a audio bite from Blues Skies. Click on Blue Skies to the right."

(from her site)

Concord acquires Telarc!

Acquisition Strengthens Concord's Position as One Of The Industry's
Preeminent Independent Record Companies

Beverly Hills, CA - The Concord Music Group today announced the
acquisition of Telarc International Corporation. The Cleveland, Ohio-
based Telarc has been a leader in classical and jazz recordings for
over 25 years. Included in the transaction is Heads Up
International, which became part of Telarc in 2000. Heads Up is
known for its highly successful catalog of contemporary instrumental
and world music. Following the recent acquisition of Fantasy, Inc,
this transaction further bolsters the Concord Music Group as one of
the world's largest and most dynamic independent record companies.

Founded in 1977 by musicians and former teachers Bob Woods and Jack
Renner, Telarc has amassed 46 GRAMMY(tm) Awards and a catalog of
more than 1,000 master recordings ranging from classical and
classical-crossover to jazz and blues, from such legendary artists
as Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Ray Brown, Andre Previn, and Oscar
Peterson. The current jazz roster includes celebrated
singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli and vocalist Tierney Sutton.
Telarc's extraordinary classical roster includes landmark recordings
from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Cincinnati
Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras, and the Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. Artist-oriented and known throughout the industry for sonic
innovation and super-high quality audio, Telarc became the first
label to commercially use digital recording in 1978, and, in 1983,
was one of the first to launch compact discs in a joint effort with
Sony Corporation. In 2004, Telarc was named Label of the Year by
Gramophone Magazine in the UK.

Heads Up International's roster, headed by founder and label
president Dave Love, includes internationally respected artists such
as Spyro Gyra, Najee, Michael Brecker, The Yellowjackets, and highly
acclaimed world music artists Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Hugh
Masekela. Both Telarc and Heads Up have a significant number of
recordings in high definition and Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD)
format, based on the superior Direct Stream Digital recording
technology.

"The cultures of our companies are very similar and we see lots of
synergies through the merging of our talented staffs and our mutual
goals," says Telarc president Bob Woods. "Glen Barros and I have
known each other for some time and I respect the creative indie
mentality our companies share, which allows us to respond quickly to
the constant change and abundant opportunities in our industry.
We'll be a larger entity, but we won't move slowly. Besides," Woods
added, "Telarc and Heads Up are certain that they will kick
Concord's butt in the company softball game."

Glen Barros, president and CEO of the Concord Music Group, said, "We
are incredibly proud to welcome Telarc and Heads Up to the Concord
family, as we truly admire these great labels. Telarc's history of
impeccable audio and musical standards has made it one of the
world's most respected independent labels and we are honored to be
the ones chosen to safeguard this rich legacy. As with all great
record companies, Telarc and Heads Up are built on a solid
foundation of great artists and great people. We truly look forward
to working alongside Bob Woods, Dave Love, and their talented team
and know that they will make a great contribution toward the
achievement of our mutual goals." Added Barros, "The only thing I'm
worried about is how Bob is going to take the news when he finds out
that there is no company softball game."

The Concord Music Group is one of the world's largest independent
record and music publishing companies, committed to offering
innovative, high-quality popular music. Concord Music Group's family
of labels includes Peak, Playboy Jazz, Stretch, Concord Picante, and
Fantasy Records, which is home to such historic imprints as
Milestone, Pablo, Prestige/New Jazz, Riverside/Jazzland [one word],
Stax/Volt/Enterprise, Specialty, Takoma, and many more. The combined
catalog features over 3,000 albums from such legendary artists as
Charlie Byrd, Rosemary Clooney, Herb Ellis, Stan Getz, Mel Torme,
John Lee Hooker, Little Richard, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Miles
Davis, Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Isaac Hayes, Albert King,
Thelonious Monk, Joe Pass, Art Pepper, Otis Redding, Vince Guaraldi,
Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, Sam Cooke, Count Basie, and Creedence
Clearwater Revival, just to name a few. In 2004, Concord Records, in
association with Starbucks Hear Music, released Ray Charles' final
recording, Genius Loves Company, winner of 8 GRAMMY(tm) Awards
including Album of the Year. The label's current roster includes
GRAMMY(tm) Award-winning artists Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Sergio
Mendes, Ozomatli, Eddie Palmieri, and Poncho Sanchez, among many
others. Peak Records, a joint venture with Concord, is an industry
leader in smooth jazz and R&B and features a stellar artist roster
including The Rippingtons, Gerald Albright, David Benoit, LaToya
London, and Lee Ritenour.

Concord's acquisition of Fantasy late last year paved the way for
the re-signing of rock icon John Fogerty after years of estrangement
from Fantasy. As founder and songwriter of the legendary band
Creedence Clearwater Revival, and throughout a stellar solo career,
Fogerty has written some of rock music's most enduring classics such
as "Bad Moon Rising," "Proud Mary," and "Fortunate Son." The Long
Road Home - The Ultimate John Fogerty - Creedence Collection, was
released on November 1st, 2005.

Concord Music Group is owned by Act III Communications and Tailwind
Capital. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. and JPMorgan Chase provided debt
financing for this transaction.

Ella Fitzgerald's 1953-1954 Chronological CD on Classic Label is available! Hooray!!!!!!!!
1. Careless
2. Blue You
3. I Wonder What Kind Of A Guy You'D Be
4. When The Hands Of The Clock Pray At Midnight
5. Crying The Chapel
6. An Empty Ballroom
7. If You Don'T Know, I Know Who Will
8. Melancholy Me
9. Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell
10. Moamin' Low
11. Taking A Chance On Love
12. I Whised Onn The Moon
13. Baby
14. I Need
15. Who'S Afraid
16. I'M Glad There Is You
17. Baby, What Else Can I ,Do
18. What Is There To Say ?
19. Makin' Whoopee !
20. Until The Real Thing Comes Along
21. People Wil Say We'Re In Love
22. Please Be Kind
23. Imagination
24. My Heart Belongs To Daddy
 

Tony Bennett among Kennedy Center Honorees
NEA Jazz Master Tony Bennett was one of several honorees at this Sunday's Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in Washington, D.C. The celebration lauded the lifetime achievements of outstanding American artists including singer Tina Turner and actor Robert Redford. Bennett was honored with performances by jazz vocalist Diana Krall and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis . You can read more about the evening in The Boston Globe . 

Interview -- Ruth Price, Director of The Jazz Bakery, Los Angeles

"Twelve years ago, jazz vocalist Ruth Price put her piano in a Los Angeles photographer's studio and presented a jazz concert. Today, she runs The Jazz Bakery, one of the most prestigious jazz clubs in the United States. The Bakery features a wide range of jazz, 'from Legends to Latin.' A concert-only venue (no noisy restaurant service), the club's natural wood stage and ceiling offer exceptional acoustics. In addition to the usual headliners, you might hear Uri Caine performing classical music, or a trio from Poland or Japan. And Ruth has succeeded by running the club as a non-profit organization. Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing her.

The Jazz Bakery is a non-profit jazz club. Why did you choose to go with a non-profit business model rather than the more traditional for-profit club?
Because I had never been in business, and the idea horrified me.
So with a non-profit I had a board that could help me open, and I could turn to them with questions. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It's been that way always, ever since we started almost 12 years ago.

And it's called the Jazz Bakery because you're "

vireggio 1980 

:-) 

Berlin 1976 

Ella in Toronto 1955 ca 

Skitch Henderson, dead at 87

Conductor Skitch Henderson Dies at Age 87

Associated Press, November 2, 2005, 7:13 AM EST

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Skitch Henderson, the Grammy-winning conductor who lent his musical expertise to Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby before founding the New York Pops and becoming the first "Tonight Show" bandleader, died Tuesday. He was 87.

Henderson died at his home in New Milford of natural causes, said Barbara Burnside, spokeswoman for New Milford Hospital.

Born in England, Lyle Russell Cedric Henderson moved to the United States in the 1930s, eking out a living as a pianist, playing vaudeville and movie music in Minnesota and Montana roadhouses.

He got his big break in 1937, when he filled in for a sick pianist touring with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. When the tour wrapped up in Chicago, he used the original pianist's ticket and went to Hollywood.

There he joined the music department at MGM and played piano for Bob Hope's "The Pepsodent Show." His friendship with Hope put him in touch with other stars of the day, including Crosby, who became a mentor to Henderson.

He studied with the noted composer Arnold Schoenberg, and Henderson's talented ear brought him renown from some of the era's most successful musicians.

"I could sketch out a score in different keys, a new way each time," Henderson said earlier this year.

That quicksilver ability earned him the nickname "the sketch kid," which Crosby urged him to adapt to "Skitch." It stuck.

During World War II, Henderson flew for both the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Corps. At his estate in New Milford, which he shared with his wife, Ruth, Henderson kept a collection of aviation memorabilia. Even at 87, he had said he hoped to fly the Atlantic once more.

After the war, Henderson toured as Sinatra's musical director and lived what he called a "gypsy lifestyle," touring the country with various bands. It was Sinatra's phone call that lured Henderson to New York.

"Frank said, 'I'm moving the "Lucky Strike Show" to New York. Get rid of those gypsies and get back here where you belong,'" Henderson recalled in 1985.

He served as musical director for the "Lucky Strike" radio show and "The Philco Hour" with Crosby. And when NBC moved to television, the studio brought Henderson along as musical director.

In 1954, NBC pegged him as the bandleader for Steve Allen's "Tonight Show," which brought Henderson into the nation's living rooms every night. Even as the hosts changed from Allen to Jack Paar to Johnny Carson, Henderson was a constant.

He founded the New York Pops in 1983, using popular tunes to make orchestral music exciting.

"People come to hear music that's accessible to them -- old songs that are powerful and don't go away," he said.

In 1975, Henderson was sentenced to six months in prison and a $10,000 fine for filing false income tax statements. He was convicted of wrongly reporting that he donated musical scores and arrangements worth $350,000 to the University of Wisconsin in 1969. His defense lawyer blamed the tax violations on bad advice from an accountant.

Even in his late 80s, Henderson maintained a tireless work schedule as music director for the Pops, where he regularly served as conductor. He also was a frequent guest conductor at a number of orchestras around the world.

"I watch the public like a hawk. If I see boredom, I worry," Henderson said. "You can tell by the applause: There's perfunctory applause, there's light applause, and then there's real applause. When it's right, applause sounds like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce."

Ella and Nelson 

Shirley Horn is dead

by Richard Harrington
Washington Post, October 22, 2005

No one mined the depths of a lyric the way Shirley Horn did, with a whispery voice that conjured cashmere and cognac. You could lose yourself -- you couldn't not lose yourself -- as the lifelong Washingtonian's dusky alto crawled unhurriedly through time-tested standards and rediscovered treasures, tapestries of song embroidered with her own crisp chords and subtly spun piano filigrees.

Horn's trademark: exquisitely slow tempo and sensitively savored lyric, effortlessly melded. Heart and soul expressed at a piano bench.

Horn, who died Thursday night at 71 after a long illness, could swing a tune with the best of them, and often surprised fans when she did, but that approach simply didn't fit her temperament. Instead, Horn did ballads and cool, understated ruminations better than anyone except her first champion, mentor and lifelong friend, trumpeter Miles Davis. Both were masters of silence and anticipation, but even Davis teased Horn about her pacing. "You do 'em awful slow!" he once said.

Indicating the level of respect Davis had for Horn, the legend, then ailing, accompanied her on the title track of the 1990 album "You Won't Forget Me," the first time he'd recorded with a vocalist in four decades, and Davis did so in the long-abandoned lyrical style he'd defined in the '50s, shortly before he first discovered her. The two were talking about collaborating on an all-ballad album when Davis died the following year. Horn won her only Grammy for 1998's "I Remember Miles," dedicated to Davis.

Another sign of respect came from the great pianist Ahmad Jamal, who accompanied Horn on her penultimate album, 2003's "May the Music Never End." Jamal, one of Horn's early inspirations and models, and himself a master of minimalism, had, in his 55 years of recording, never accompanied a vocalist. But for the first time in her career, Horn was unable to accompany herself on record, the result of losing her right foot to complications from diabetes. It was a significant change, denying Horn use of her piano's expression pedal for controlling the instrument's sustain and quiet features that so defined her sound.

The last few years had been rough on Horn, as she dealt with arthritis and underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer. In June Horn suffered a stroke and had been hospitalized since.

Several years earlier, Horn had been forced to abandon the security of her piano bench and rethink her approach after her voice and piano could no longer be intimate extensions of each other. Last December, just before a brief appearance at a Kennedy Center concert honoring her, Horn seemed weary but as quietly determined as ever, insisting: "I've tried to keep things as level as possible through this whole thing. I'm cool. I know what I have to do: I'm never going to give up the piano, I'm never going to stop singing till God says, 'I called your number.'"

Horn was at times reflective, at times wry, and on occasion caustic and cantankerous. She expressed frustration with the music business, particularly that such pianist-singers as Norah Jones and Diana Krall didn't acknowledge her as the influence she clearly heard herself to be. Motoring around her house in a wheelchair dubbed "the Cadillac" (the fancier "Jaguar" was reserved for concerts), Horn would proudly point to assorted honors, including last year's Jazz Master award from the National Endowment for the Arts. But she also seemed frustrated, reduced to performing only a concert or two a month, backed by pianist George Mesterhazy. "I can't get into the music," she said. "I just get lost."

In recent concerts, she managed to find both humor and pathos singing Paul McCartney's "Yesterday," lending multiple meanings to the line "I'm not half the girl I used to be."

So much about Shirley Horn was glacially slow, from her delivery of a song to the acclamation that came late in her career. You can't really make time stand still, but Horn managed an approximation, insisting that ballads were meant to be played slow, the better to understand the power of the story being told and the emotion of the lyric under exploration.

Horn started studying piano and composition at Howard University's School of Music when she was 12, with dreams of a career in classical music. But the realities of racism in the '40s precluded that possibility, and by the late '40s she'd become immersed in the thriving jazz scene around 14th and U streets NW. Debussy and Rachmaninoff gave way to Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, Erroll Garner and Jamal. The girl piano player began to make an impression in local clubs, but even after forming her first trio in 1954, Horn was not one to advance herself.

In fact, that Horn came to sing at all was part accident -- a patron bribed her to sing "Melancholy Baby" -- and part pragmatism: A club owner gave Horn a raise on the condition that she keep singing.

That Miles Davis became a fan via Horn's 1960 debut album, "Embers and Ashes," was part miracle: few copies were manufactured and they were hard to find. Yet Davis managed to and became smitten, playing it so much at home that his kids could sing along to it. A year later, he invited Horn to open for him at the Village Vanguard, though that opportunity almost passed. When he called her and made the offer, Horn didn't believe it was really Davis. She hung up. But Davis sent her a train ticket to New York, and she went.

It could have been a breakthrough moment, but in the end, it was only a moment. Quincy Jones, who was in the opening-night crowd, would produce a pair of Horn albums in the early '60s but miscast her as a stand-up singer, denying her the comfort of accompanying herself in the trio format in which she was so adept. "Nobody knows how to play for me except me," she would complain. "I need to hear my own chords and set my own tempo."

Wider recognition didn't arrive until 1986, when she signed with Verve and began a string of critically acclaimed albums that garnered nine straight Grammy nominations.

Horn never pursued a career with the single-mindedness of such peers as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae or Betty Carter -- she simply wasn't as driven or hard-nosed or forceful. But Horn's records drew stellar guests, and she performed around the world as her health allowed. In the end, Shirley Horn's life was much like her song: She got as much music as possible out of every precious note, and in so doing made each note that much more precious.

Last December, looking back on her life, Horn suggested that she never had a choice in the matter: "I think when I was born, it's like God said, 'Music!,' and that was it. All my life, that's all I knew. It's in me, it's jammed up and it's got to come out."

Shirley Horn - some new recordings

But Beautiful: The Best Of Shirley Horn

Album Length Compact Disc

release date 10/11/2005

This new collection celebrates one of the most beloved voices in jazz with songs taken from Horn’s outstanding Verve Records catalog. Three recently-recorded live tunes are also featured on the CD.
Shirley Horn has been part of the Verve Records family beginning with her 1988 release, Close Enough For Love. Her successful relationship with Verve so far has also produced such acclaimed recordings as Here’s To Life and Light Out Of Darkness. The songs collected on But Beautiful were taken from a selection of Horn’s Verve recordings, including these as well as You Won’t Forget Me, The Main Ingredient, I Thought About You, and Loads of Love/Shirley Horn with Horns (originally released on Mercury Records).

The tunes are:

I Just Found Out About Love
2. You Won't Forget Me
3. You Don't Know Me
4. The Great City
5. Fever
6. If You Love Me (Really Love Me)
7. A Time For Love
8. Come Dance With Me
9. Nice 'N' Easy
10. But Beautiful
11. Here's To Life
12. Jelly, Jelly
13. Loads Of Love
14. I Didn't Know What Time It Was

I think that no. 1 (for sure), 9, and 12 are the new tunes, recorded live at le jazz au bar, in the last week of 2004. There were plans for a complete album, but obviously only these tunes have made it to a compilation...

Diana Krall's New CD cover

New Forum about Ella Fitzgerald

Hi
I've created a new area to discuss Ella. It's here (http://www.freeforumzone.com/viewforum.aspx?f=75542).

My site has a new look also, and new stuff on it (new images in the chronology section, and more dates added as well).
I hope you'll find it useful. Thanks!

Miky

Ella arriving at the airport in England 1980 

Ella And Tom Jones 

Dianne Reeves on George Clooney's Goodnight and Good Luck

Ella in concert, 1965. various shots from this session were used in the "Ella in Hamburg" cover art. 

Diana Krall - Christmas Album

Track Listing:

1. Jingle Bells
2. Let It Snow
3. The Christmas Song
4. Winter Wonderland
5. I'll Be Home For Christmas
6. Christmas Time Is Here
7. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
8. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
9. White Christmas
10. What Are You Doing New Year's Eve
11. Sleigh Ride
12. Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep

This new album will be out on November 1, 2005.

Oscar Peterson's stamp

On Oscar's 80th birthday, his own stamp was presented, and this is it.

See more of Oscar's birthday celebration on allaboutjazz.com!

Ella in New York 13 July 1963 

Ella and Duke2 

Ella and Duke 

great pictures from Ella FItzgerald EPs 

great pictures from Ella FItzgerald EPs