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Details: CD music

February 2014

A Swinging Delight

Summit Records DCD 619
Format: CD

Musical Performance

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Overall Enjoyment

The title song for Better Than Anything was written some years ago by David "Buck" Wheat and Bill Loughborough and has become a standard for many jazz performers, but I've never heard it set forth so persuasively as in the first cut of Rebecca DuMaine's new CD. With its endless list of delights, always culminating in "better than anything except being in love," the tune can become breathless or kitschy, but DuMaine manages to make it swing with her beautifully enunciated approach. It's a great start to an album that's the swingiest affair I've heard in some time.

Details: CD music

January 2014

Upbeat Jazz at 90

Merry Lane Records LLC
Format: CD

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Back in the day, one of my favorite bands was Spanky and Our Gang. They were a little stronger on folk than rock and sang some devilishly clever tunes, one of them being "Five Definitions of Love." I marveled that anyone could create such flowing music from reading the dictionary, and I was at a loss to describe the style. Spanky and Our Gang weren't just rock, or just folk, and what was that other element that made them irresistible?

Details: CD music

December 2013

Soothing Holiday Music to Heal Jangled Shopping Nerves

Nimbus Records NI7095
Format: CD

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Overall Enjoyment

If your nerves are frayed by shopping the malls where “A Holly Jolly Christmas” or “The Little Drummer Boy” are being blasted out with 16-percent harmonic distortion by inadequately powered sound systems, Christmas Lullabies might be just the album for you.

Details: CD music

December 2013

First Recording in 50 Years of an Ellington Classic

Harmonia Mundi HMU907493
Format: CD

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Overall Enjoyment

The Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn version of Nutcracker Suite has not been recorded since Duke's original in 1960. How great, then, to have an excellent new rendition in superb sound. And what a stroke of genius to pair it with Tchaikovsky's original, which is why this disc is titled Nutcracker Suites.

Details: CD music

November 2013

Holiday Tunes from Houston

Blue Bamboo Music BBM023
Format: CD

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After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans-based guitarist Chris Cortez moved to Houston where he quickly became a part of that city’s jazz scene. He founded Blue Bamboo Music, which not only gives him a recording outlet for his own talents, but also makes it possible to focus attention on other performers from the Houston area. One of the latter is singer Tianna Hall, whose often-sultry voice is heard on all but one of Noel’s tracks.

Details: CD music

November 2013

Passionate Jazz Rhapsodies on Familiar Holiday Tunes

Undaunted Music UM007
Format: CD

Musical Performance

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Overall Enjoyment

For the past few years, I've received albums of holiday music on the late side. Had I reviewed them, readers would have been hard pressed to purchase one in time for the holiday celebration. This year, however, there have been a lot of fine releases that started arriving in September, so there's no such problem. Starting this week, then, I'll be covering the best of the holiday titles, a group that runs across all genres. These aren't discs you'll find at Walmart or Best Buy, but you can easily obtain them from Amazon.com, CD Baby, or other online dealers. If you're lucky enough to have an old-fashioned dealer in your neighborhood, you can probably find them there.

Details: CD music

October 2013

Contemporary Jazz with Pop Influences

Falloff Records FO 1002
Format: CD

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Overall Enjoyment

Gina Kronstadt is based in Los Angeles and has a tremendously impressive resume as a violinist. I can say without reservation that you must have heard her. Her motion-picture credits include Pirates of the Caribbean, Disturbia, Star Trek, and three or four dozen others. She's also played on audio recordings by artists such as Ray Charles, Sheryl Crow, Taylor Swift, Barbra Streisand, Rod Stewart, and Elton John. And she's been on a lot of TV shows, including The Voice, The Tonight Show, and more.

Details: CD music

September 2013

50 Years and Still Going Strong

World Village 450025
Format: CD

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Can it be? The Swingle Singers are 50 years old, and Weather to Fly is their first 50th-anniversary album. It seems like only yesterday that the brainchild of Ward Swingle swept in from Paris and informed us that Bach and other Baroque composers could be successful with a hot-jazz treatment. The group has gone through a lot of personnel changes in their half century of existence. Ward Swingle left the group to form his own New Swingle Singers and is still alive, back in Paris after a stay in the United States, doing new arrangements and guest conducting.

Details: CD music

September 2013

An A+ Tribute to Joni Mitchell from Tierney Sutton

BFM Jazz 302062419-2
Format: CD

Musical Performance

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When Tierney Sutton was recording for Telarc, I always felt that she had great promise but that she tried too hard, sometimes resulting in uncomfortable grandstanding. But 2011 brought American Road, her first disc for BFM Jazz, and everything seemed to change. Her voice had matured and darkened a bit, and she seemed more at home and less driven to prove a point, which made her all the more able to make those points.

Details: CD music

September 2013

Cool Singing and Playing Bring Back an Era

Summit Records DCD 615
Format: CD

Musical Performance

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This saucy, hip CD stems from a live concert that Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler put together in 2010. Bentyne is a Grammy Award-winning singer from the Manhattan Transfer, and Winkler is a staple of West Coast jazz, both as singer and lyricist. Each is an appealing singer alone, but together they're downright irresistible. Not many jazz duos feature a match like this one.

CD Music

The Dave Miller Trio with Rebecca DuMaine: "Better Than Anything"

A Swinging Delight

Bob Dorough: "Eulalia"

Upbeat Jazz at 90

Charlotte de Rothschild and Danielle Perrett: "Christmas Lullabies"

Soothing Holiday Music to Heal Jangled Shopping Nerves

Tchaikovsky/Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn: "Nutcracker Suites"

First Recording in 50 Years of an Ellington Classic

Tianna Hall and Chris Cortez: "Noel"

Holiday Tunes from Houston

Tim Warfield: "Tim Warfield’s Jazzy Christmas"

Passionate Jazz Rhapsodies on Familiar Holiday Tunes

Gina Kronstadt: "Come Over"

Contemporary Jazz with Pop Influences

The Swingle Singers: "Weather to Fly"

50 Years and Still Going Strong

Tierney Sutton: "After Blue"

An A+ Tribute to Joni Mitchell from Tierney Sutton

Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler: "West Coast Cool"

Cool Singing and Playing Bring Back an Era