The week begins full force with John Coltrane from 1963 in Stuttgart, we follow up with new music from Betty Wright backed by The Roots , and conclude with 14 versions of "Felcidade" featuring Tom Jobim with Astrud Gilberto, Tania Maria, Juju Duarte, Gal Costa, Antonio Serrano and Jose Reinoso, Cris Deanno, Martinho da Villa, Maria Creuza, Baden Powell, César Camargo Mariano, Miucha, Nara Leao, Group Som Brasil , and Maria Bethania .
I don't know what's wrong with me—this is the third time I'm doing a Felicidade Mixtape, and guess what, there are no repeated tracks. Sure a handful of these artists were included before but here we have different versions, and in the case of Martinho da Villa with Tom Jobim, it's a club-based remix that samples their voices over a completely contemporary version. Music by Tom Jobim and words by poet Vinicius de Moraes, "Felicidade" is one of those classic songs that will never grow old precisely because it's stated premise remains true for most of [...]
I have a lot to say about new music from Betty Wright but only need a little space to say it. Bessie Regina Norris was born December 21, 1953 in Miami, Florida. She was popular R&B artist of the seventies who continues to be a force on the modern music scene in this new millennium. Not only are many of her songs sampled in modern music, she is often employed for behind the scenes vocal work, vocal coaching, and vocal arranging. Appearances on her new album by rappers Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg are based in part on her previous [...]
This is the quantum physics of jazz—music of explosive power that shatters preconceptions and forces whole new formulations of what the music can and should sound like. All who knew Coltrane describe him as a gentle man, and no one ever described him as angry or "militant." Coltrane's music however, especially during the sixties, was often anything but gentle, and because of the stylistic firestorm he created, Trane was often accused of destroying the basis of modern jazz. In fact, articles and interviews in Downbeat , the leading jazz magazine of Coltrane's era, sometimes described Coltrane's music [...]
Cannonball Adderley live kicks us off, Concha Buika boosts us into the stratasphere, and 12 versions of "You Are Too Beautiful" gently brings us back to earth featuring Thelonious Monk, Joe Williams, Chico Freeman, Ernie Andrews, Red Garland, Sarah Vaughan, Oliver Jones, McCoy Tyner with Jose James, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Kurt Elling, Harold Mabern , and of course John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman .
This is a 1932 Richard Rodgers (music) and Lorenz Hart (lyrics) composition from the minor show Hallelujah, I'm A Bum . As is the case with many other show tunes, jazz musicians rescued the song from obscurity. In 1963 Johnny Coltrane recorded the song featuring vocal work by Johnny Hartman for an album that is now considered the gold standard of vocal with horn, jazz ballad albums. The Coltrane/Hartman combination is so effective that that it not only established the song as a major jazz standard, the duo's version also made any other arrangement unable [...]
Regular BoL readers already know that Kalamu is a huge fan of Concha Buika—and if you don't know, you can go here , here , and here to get in the know)—so it is no surprise that I'm featuring her new album. Funny, my first impression was between lukewarm and low-heated; partly because I had already heard a number of the tracks and partly because there is a widely sampling of genres and styles so there is no consistent sound anchoring the 26 tracks. Indeed, I ended up making my own playlist of tracks. [...]
Cannonball Adderley was not only a popular jazz musician, he was also a populist in that he spoke to and about the working people of the black community. He was eloquent, often witty and able to engender a feeling of unity among his audiences. Although he was definitely a "race man" in that he championed the causes and culture of black people, he was not a racial essentialist, hence some of Cannonball's most popular and most enduring soul selections (for example "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and "Country Preacher" ) were written by and featured on piano the Viennese [...]
We open the week with hard blowing tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin , continue with the warm sounds of Sona Jobarteh , and conclude with our third Stevie Wonder covers Mixtape featuring Trijntje Oosterhuis, Stephane Belmondo, Mary Mary, Michael Jackson, Will Downing, Bob Baldwin, Maysa, Yahzarah, Nancy Wilson, Boyz II Men, Leny Andrade, Matt Lemmler, Stephanie Renee , and of course the maestro himself, Stevie Wonder .
A genius is a natural wonder, someone within the context of theirown place and time excels, innovates, and in some fundamental way completely changes our appreciation of some aspect of human life. Geniuses are probably more numerous than we know, many of them go unrecognized. Today, we recognize Stevie Wonder as a musical genius. Although early in his career many of his fans insisted on his legendary status, for certain the musical world universally recognized Stevie as a genius when he hit his golden period in the seventies beginning with Music Of My Mind and proceeding [...]
Regardless of tempo or the amount of percussion employed, this music is soothing sounds. Sona Jobarteh's music wraps and enraptures us in an aural swaddling of sounds, enticing and encouraging us to rest, relax, bliss out, drift off, dream and enter into an altered state of consciousness. Deep down we all have had a primordial experience: the female voice is the first voice we heard, the first voice to bless us, lullaby us, comfort us. We never lose the longing to have a female voice in our inner ear, a voice healing our hurts, sharing our joys, reassuring [...]
Because we in the United States grow up in a culture that studiously avoids in-depth investigations of our history, we not only forget a lot of important information, worse that forgetting, we are totally ignorant of much of what has made us who we are. And beyond forgetting and ignorance, or twin demons eating our consciousness: we don't want to know and when we do find out we don't care. Indeed, we love to live in oblivion just as long as we can feed our pleasure syndromes. We used to call it comfort corruption, but really our refusal [...]
A wild and wonderful week featuring newly issued The Miles Davis Quintet ( Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams ), a stupendous concert recording from Charles Lloyd featuring Greek vocalist Maria Farantouri , and rounded out by Amerigo Gazaway 's mash up of Fela Kuti and De La Soul . Ah, the music, the music!
I came up with the concept for this project in fall of 2010. I wanted to follow through with it not only because it was a good idea, but because of the powerful impact both these artists have had on me and my music. Afrobeat, jazz, funk, and hip-hop are already so interconnected, and I always thought it would be exciting to work on a project that combined all of these elements together. I now have such a profound appreciation for both Fela Kuti and De La Soul's music. Both of these artists are timeless in their own [...]
Charles Lloyd was born in Memphis, Tennessee on March 15, 1938. At seventy-three he is one of the eminence grise of the jazz saxophone. He is far, far more than merely an elder statesman deserving of respect for the totality of his musical contributions over the years; the music Lloyd is making today, right now, projects an unparalleled spiritual depth. People often talk in the abstract about the emotional power of the music, in this Athens concert Lloyd illustrates and embodies that truism. From the opening number you recognize that this is spiritual service and not just a performance. [...]
This is music from what many of us consider Mile Davis' greatest jazz band: the quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. This is also hours of previously unreleased music and even a concert DVD. Live in Europe 1967 is pivotal in jazz history. John Coltrane died July 17, 1967. Trane was the only rival Miles had as the supreme jazz musician of the sixties. "Trane was on a search, and his course kept taking him farther and farther out...he was expressing through music what H. Rap Brown and [...]
Meet The Cookers: Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard , and then get down with the Princess of Dancehall Soul music Cherine Anderson , and close out your week with 18 superb covers of four Stevie Wonder compositions.
I really don't have too much to say except for two notes that might not initially be obvious but that you will recognize as you delve into this Mixtape. First, the versions are jazz heavy and not just fusion or quiet storm format but real, charging, hard blowing straight ahead jazz. Jazz musicians tend to be interested as much, if not moreso, in the harmonic underpinnings of a composition rather than only melodic hooks. Stevie Wonder compositions are harmonically advanced, especially for popular music. Stevie's music offers a cornucopia of sonic possibilities. The second item of interest is [...]
I celebrate being sexy, I celebrate being independent, being feminine, being street, being rebellious, being very intelligent and being conscious and I think the modern-day woman - and I do consider myself that - are all these things, so Cherine and Dancehall Soul is the same, where street meets sweet, where all these different genres meld. —Cherine Anderson Street sweet is how she be id-ed on Jamrock, succinctly capturing the essence of this young Jamaican songstress who came to prominence in two dissimilar films about contemporary island life. One was [...]
The Cookers are trumpeters Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard. They often played with a ferocious and furious onslaught of notes as if their brass instruments were AK-47s and their notes of choice were high caliber, hollow-tipped projectiles. But both were equally capable of delivering warm and tender ballads that could melt hearts that had been steeled by disappointments and betrayals. These were the quintessential post-bop trumpet men of jazz. Somehow, I always thought the older of the duo was the younger, perhaps because Lee Morgan got the earlier start as the mentee of the master Dizzy Gillespie and [...]
breath of life
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
Princesse - Tell Me | MP3
iamamiwhoami: kin - Teaser
