Tingvall Trio - Vattensaga

The TINGVALL TRIO was founded in 2003 by the Swedish pianist and composer Martin Tingvall. The pieces composed by him are characterized by catchy melodies which sweep along not only jazz lovers quickly and tend to stay with you long afterwards. Not only the technical ability of the musicians carries away. The three Hamburgers play Scandinavian jazz with Cuban reminiscences and an easy rock'n'roll attitude. In the expressive ballads also Nordic melancholy and liveliness resonate, however. Listening closely one can recognize traditional Swedish folk songs as one of the elements of the compositions. Despite the wide variety in their backgrounds, a level very much their own emerged from their creative alliance. Among the mentors who taught Swedish pianist Martin Tingvall his craft was Bobo Stenson. Jürgen Spiegel from Bremen, Germany gigged mostly as a veritable rock drummer, but audiences were "boffoed" above all by his enormously multifaceted playing and the vividness of this percussion work. Bass player Omar Rodriguez Calvo from Cuba was already a sideman of Ramon Valle and Roy Hargrove among others. Regards the new cd we can tell that follows "Skagerrak" and "Norr" and with it the trio finalizes their trilogy of nordic stories. Recorded at the famous ArteSuono studio in Italy, bestknown for a series of great ECM recordings, "Vattensaga" stands for an even improved group sound and the outstanding songwriting qualities of Martin Tingvall. Thirteen new musical pearls, leaving space for sound paintings of drummer Jürgen Spiegel , the mediterranean lightness of double bass player Omar Rodruguez Calvo and the bright piano playing of Martin Tingvall , experiencing a Fazioli grand piano fort he first time. A definite highlight of the trios band history so far.

John Proulx - Baker's Dozen ( Remembering Chet Baker )

“You can tell immediately that John’s approach to jazz is both new and refreshing; showing great respect for both the melody and the lyric — a rare thing among jazz vocalists. I’ll bet that Chet Baker is looking down on John saying, ‘Yeah, John, go for it’.”

-- William Claxton (Jazz photographer)

“This introduction to young, talented John Proulx does a great job of showing us what he is about: Strong musicianship, great intonation, mellow swing and a soothing, almost vibrato- less Chet Baker like tone quality. Bravo, John!”

-- John Clayton (3-time grammy nominated bassist, composer, and conductor)

"It's takes a lot of imagination as well as natural talent to make jazz standards sound fresh and vital. John sings and plays so beautifully and is an outstanding songwriter as well. He's simply a joy to hear"

-- Michael Feinstein

John's latest CD on MAXJAZZ, "Baker’s Dozen-Remembering Chet
Baker” is a tribute to the late trumpet player and vocalist. It features
legendary musicians Chuck Berghofer, Joe LaBarbera, and special
guest, Dominick Farinacci on trumpet. John’s 2006 debut CD, “Moon
and Sand”, has garnered national and international acclaim, and his
fan base is quickly growing. In addition to his own trio, John has
performed with the likes of Anita O'Day, Natalie Cole, and Marian
McPartland.

John is also a Grammy-winning composer. Jazz legend, Nancy Wilson,
recorded "These Golden Years", a song that John co-wrote with lyricist
D. Channsin Berry, for her 2006 Grammy-winning CD, Turned to Blue.
Jazz singer, Mary Stallings, also recorded "Stuck in a Dream", a tune
John co-wrote with lyricist K. Lawrence Dunham, on her 2005 release,
Remember Love.

John began his formal musical education at the age of 3 in Grand
Rapids, MI on Suzuki violin, but quickly switched to classical piano
lessons. His grandfather, Clyde Proulx, was a jazz guitarist who
introduced him to the world of jazz. Hooked on the freedom of
improvisation, his education took him to Chicago to study at Roosevelt
University’s Chicago School of Performing Arts. In 2001, John moved
to Los Angeles to further his musical pursuits. He has emerged as a
young talent on the Los Angeles jazz scene and loves the wide-range
of opportunities the city has to offer.

Ben Sidran - Dylan Different

"I met Bob Dylan once, a long time ago. He was an electrified wolf pressed up against the back of a booth at the Marigold Ballroom in Minneapolis. I saw him from the stage and told my Albert Grossman joke : "Here's a man whose last name should have been hyphenated."
After the set I went over to the booth and said "Bob you influenced me a lot."
Bob saiad "Oh, yeah ?"
Speaks were coming off of him. I passed Bob Dylan on a stairway once, fifteen years ago. He was coming down and I was going up. His security guy was walking in front of him, like he was clearing the road of lepers, and he said to me, "Get Back!".
Bob was looking down at his feet. He never looked up.
Under his hood, he looked just like a ghost. I dreamed about Bob Dylan once. It was just last year. I was standing in this long line. And everybody in the line had a stack of cards with writing on 'em and we were all just waiting to go into this big room and justify our lives by putting the cards in order.
And I had a plan.
I was gonna turn all my cards over so they looked like they were blank and I was gonna hand them in that way. And there was a long line of people coming out of that big room too and one of them was Bob Dylan. And he said, "Ben, what are you gonna do ?" And I showed him my cards and he handed me a pencil and said, " Man, you better get busy !"
I wrote a song for Bob Dylan, just hte other day. The chorus goes like this :
"We are the tears of a man in Thailand that wash up on a distant shore
We are the wings of a butterfly in China that started the oceans' roar
We are the straw that broke the camel's back, the bull in the china store
We are here but for a minute and gone for a whole lot more"
I never played it and maybe I never will.
But I know one thing.
If I ever meet Bob Dylan again, I'm not gonna bring it up. "

Ben Sidran



Ben Sidran has been a major force in the modern day history of jazz and rock & roll having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison.
It's been a long and varied journey for Ben Sidran—from playing boogie woogie piano as a six year old in Racine, Wisconsin, leaning into his jazz records, listening to a Blue Mitchell solo "literally like an Eskimo huddled around a fire", to growing up to play boogie woogie piano around the world and, eventually, recording with Blue Mitchell on his first solo album. Despite the reality that Sidran is better known in Europe and Japan than in America—a fact of life for most jazz musicians—Ben Sidran is an American success story.



Track List

Everything Is Broken
Highway 61 Revisited
Tangled Up In Blue
Gotta Serve Somebody
Rainy Day Woman
Ballad of a Thin Man
Maggie's Farm
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Subterranean Homesick Blues
On The Road Again
All I Really Want To Do
Blowin' in the Wind

Ben Sidran — Vocals, Piano, Wulitizer, Hammond B3, Fender Rhodes

Alberto Malo — Drums and Percussion

Marcello Giuliani — Acoustic and Electric Bass

Rodolph Burger — Guitar, Vocal on "Blowin' in the Wind"

Bob Malach — Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Bass Clarinet

Michael Leonhart — Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Amy Helm — Background Vocals

Georgie Fame — Vocal and Organ on "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35"

Jorge Drexler — Vocal on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Leonor Watling & Luca — Backgroiund Vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Ralph Towner - Paolo Fresu : Chiaroscuro ( Ecm 2085 )

Chiaroscuro” introduces a new duo and a rare instrumental combination – trumpet and acoustic guitar. The repertoire: a programme of old and new Ralph Towner compositions and duo improvisations, plus an old Miles Davis favourite, its presence a key to the musical priorities at work here.

The album was recorded last autumn in Udine, but the story of the Towner/Fresu alliance really begins further South, at a festival in Sardinia, 15 years ago. Towner had been commissioned to write music for a local ensemble. Fresu was its trumpeter. “I didn’t know him at all then,” Ralph recalls, “but from the very first phrase that he played, I thought: ‘This guy really understands melodies!’ And I thought there and then that we should do some more work together.”

The composition played that night, “Punta Giara”, resurfaces here in rearranged form, along with pieces shaped especially for this album, including the title track, a study in strong contrasts. The atmospheric “Sacred Place”, heard in two versions, and “Doubled Up” bring Towner’s new baritone guitar to the fore. Tuned a fifth below his classical concert guitar it allows him new flexibility in the low range, and the freedom to be, effectively, his own bassist on the clever “Doubled Up”, the most overtly jazz-like of the new tunes. .“’Doubled up’ has many meanings, of course, including doubled up with laughter. Here the theme is sequenced, so to speak, the events happen twice, each theme ‘doubled’ by the two players.”

Two pieces from Ralph’s ECM back-catalogue are revisited: “Wistful Thinking (originally heard as a solo piece on “Open Letter”, in 1992), and “Zephyr” (first scored for the band Oregon on 1987’s “Ecotopia”).

Of the subtle account of “Blue In Green”, Towner says., “I’d always wanted to do that song with a trumpet.” Paolo Fresu’s clear, vibratoless sound acknowledges its debt to Miles. Fresu has always been forthright about his formative influences (his bold remaking of “Porgy and Bess” in 2001 being a case in point). For Towner, as for so many musicians, “Kind of Blue” was a pivotal recording: “The whole ensemble was amazing, but especially Miles and the great Bill Evans working together - my favourite musicians of all time, in the improvising sphere.”

The album concludes with “Two Miniatures” and “Postlude”, improvisations that put the spotlight on the 12.string guitar, extending an approach that had worked well on Ralph’s solo albums “Anthem” and “Time Line”. “I like to do these free things – well ‘free’ is really a misnomer. The same compositional process is at work, but you only get one shot at it.”

Barbara Casini - Formidable ! ( Philology )

Non finisce piu' di stupire questa cantante-chitarrista fiorentina innamorata fin da ragazzina del Brasile ormai divenuta la sua seconda patria musicale. Tuttavia la scoperta della bossa nova, di Jobim, João Gilberto & co., non è stato un punto di arrivo in cui si sono fermati i suoi interessi musicali ma l'inizio di un lungo viaggio che le ha consentito di incontrare da un punto di vista interpretativo dai Beatles agli standards jazz passando per quello che per alcuni versi può essere considerato un cd fondamentale per la sua crescita artistica. Stiamo parlando naturalmente di “Vento” registrato con Enrico Rava per l’etichetta francese Label Bleu, con Stefano Bollani al pianoforte, Giovanni Tommaso al contrabbasso, Roberto Gatto alla batteria, e con l’accompagnamento dell’Accademia Filarmonica della Scala diretta da Paolo Silvestri, autore degli arrangiamenti.Ora abbiamo il piacere di rincontrarla impegnata nella canzone d’autore francese. In “Formidable!”, nuova produzione Philology, Barbara interpreta 12 classici di Charles Trenet. Grazie alla sua bella ed espressiva voce, all’impeccabile accompagnamento di Fabrizio Bosso, tromba, Pietro Lussu, pianoforte, e Ares Tavolazzi, contrabbasso abbiamo il piacere per il nostro udito e per il nostro cuore di ascoltare in una veste totalmente nuova brani immortali come “La Mer”, “J’ai Connus De Vous”, “Boum!”, “Le Soleil Et La Lune” sino ad arrivare alla toccante “Que Reste-T-Il De Nos Amours”, che chiude l’album.

Ecco come la stessa Barbara descrive questo suo ultimo lavoro " Un viaggio in auto da sola, la voce di Trenet alla radio in uno dei suoi brani piu' famosi.... e io, colpita al cuore da quel canto, all'improvviso voglio sapere tutto di quello che chiamano il "cantante pazzo".... la sua musica è teatro e poesia, e io voglio indossare le sue canzoni, voglio diventare un po' francese e un po' pazza anch'io : cosi' nasce questo progetto e questo nuovo dico, come sempre per un nuovo incanto e il desiderio di portarlo con me e trasmetterlo agli altri "

A noi non resta che augurare a tutti buon viaggio e buon ascolto !

- Barbara Casini – Formidable! Feat. Fabrizio Bosso, tromba, Pietro Lussu, pianoforte, e Ares Tavolazzi, contrabbasso.

Enrico Pieranunzi - Wandering ( Cam Jazz )

Not only is Enrico Pieranunzi considered the best jazz composer and pianist in Europe, he is also regarded as an amazingly prolific artist. The ideas and the music never stop. Perhaps that creative restlessness is why he named his third release of 2009, Wandering. The recording is his 14th for the acclaimed Italian jazz label, CAM Jazz, which will release the new music in the United States on October 13, 2009 in digital form only.
Pieranunzi’s release of three recordings this year presents a unique opportunity to understand his diverse influences and distinctive voice in light of these very different discs. With Enrico Pieranunzi Plays Domenico Scarlatti , the fearless Roman took on an unprecedented challenge: improvising on the sonatas of the famous classical composer Domenico Scarlatti. He followed that with the ephemeral Dream Dance, the seventh album he’s recorded with his long-time American partners, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron.
Now with Wandering, he returns to solo form such as on Scarlatti, but returns to his own evocative compositions and mastery of his own personal process. As always, Pieranunzi plays elegantly and with such astute technical ability that it heightens the tension for the listener. He also captures the emotional undercurrents of the music expertly, stoking our imaginations.

Writes Paul Benkimoun in the liner notes,
“Harmonic and melodic progressions appear as events in the course of the stories told in Wandering… ‘Fermati A Guardare Il Giorno’ has this evocative power. Who knows why ‘Wandering 2,’ as ‘Dark,’ engender black and white images…With its repeated bass vamp, ‘Improstinato 2’ too recalls a dark menace…A master in creating atmospheres, Enrico Pieranunzi allows us to hear all of the tenderness which he is capable of in the tune ‘Rosa Del Mare’; … ‘For My True Love’ finds its intensity in the delicacy with which Pieranunzi exposes in different ways the same thing: words of love…Through the multiple facets which make up each of its pieces, Wandering yields a portrait of Enrico Pieranunzi. Thanks to a magnificent pianistic mastery, to an extended dynamic and to the amplitude of his sound palette, the artist manages not to be repetitive albeit remaining himself in every instant.”