Christopher Loudon
Christopher’s Contributions
05/25/13 Albums
Milagre
Maucha Adnet & Helio Alves
Individually, vocalist Maucha Adnet and pianist Helio Alves boast impressive résumés. She has collaborated with Charlie Byrd, Dori Caymmi, Eliane Elias, Gilberto Gil and Toninho Horta, and spent a decade touring and recording with Antonio Carlos Jobim. He’s...
05/22/13 Albums
Don't Cry For No Hipster
Ben Sidran
As pianist and vocalist Ben Sidran reminds us in the liner notes, “Anybody who self-identifies as a hipster is, by definition, not one.” Which would mean that Sidran, a card-carrying hipster of the first order, is declassifying himself with this album. Or...
05/22/13 Albums
Piano Bar After Hours
Jan Shapiro
Hundreds of aspiring jazz singers, Tierney Sutton and Luciana Souza among them, have benefitted from Jan Shapiro’s Berklee classes. But Shapiro doesn’t just talk the talk. Before she began teaching full-time, the Missouri native established a solid career...
05/20/13 Albums
My Funny Valentine: The Chet Baker Songbook
Matt Dusk
Vocal tributes to Chet Baker have, of late, become a mini-industry. While the vast majority of interpreters have gotten it wrong, confusing Baker’s personal pathos with his music, crooner Matt Dusk succeeds by resisting the temptation to don a misrepresentative...
05/19/13 Albums
Turn Up the Quiet
Heidi Vogel
Though she sounds as if she just arrived from Ipanema Beach, Heidi Vogel actually hails from London and boasts a fascinating history that began with Cirque du Soleil and progressed to lead vocalist for the British jazz-electronica ensemble Cinematic Orchestra...
05/16/13 Albums
Nearness
Tine Bruhn & Johnny O'Neal
Despite a multifaceted career than spans several decades, pianist Johnny O’Neal is still known to many only for his brief but authoritative appearance as Art Tatum in the Ray Charles biopic Ray . So musically accurate was O’Neal’s portrayal that first-time...
05/10/13 Albums
Fandango
Herb Alpert
The 1960s gave us the Beatles and the Stones, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. They also gave us Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Indeed, among the era’s American hitmakers, few came close to matching the popularity of the TJB (none of whom were Mexican...
05/07/13 Albums
Champian Sings and Swings
Champian Fulton
She was tutored in jazz by Clark Terry while still a tyke and gained youthful appreciation of big bands from Red Holloway, Butch Miles and other Basie-ites. In other words, 27-year-old pianist and vocalist Champian Fulton was taught to swing by experts and...
05/04/13 Albums
A Quiet Thing
Madeline Eastman & Randy Porter
A dozen years have passed since Madeline Eastman partnered with the late Tom Garvin for the sublime voice-and-piano Bare: A Collection of Ballads . Since then, Eastman’s go-to pianist has been the equally skilled Randy Porter. Eastman and Porter have recorded...
05/01/13 Albums
Miles Tones
Giacomo Gates
It has long been widely accepted that Kurt Elling is heir apparent to Mark Murphy. But an equally strong case can be made for Giacomo Gates. Indeed, while Elling has advanced to a somewhat distant—some might say higher—plateau, Gates remains truer to Murphy’s...
05/01/13 Albums
Passion of a Lonely Heart
Jana Herzen
Though Jana Herzen is best known in the jazz community as founder and president of Motéma Music, currently home to the likes of René Marie and Gregory Porter, the respected label was actually established so that Herzen could release her debut album, Soup’s...
04/28/13 Albums
Straight From the Heart
Izzy Chait
If you want to disprove F. Scott Fitzgerald’s adage that there are no second acts in American lives, look no further than Izzy Chait. Though his love for music dates to his youth and he sang with the Marine Corps while stationed in Vietnam in the mid-’60s...
04/25/13 Albums
Canto
Tania Maria
Though Canto is being promoted as Brazilian pianist and vocalist Tania Maria’s 25th release, its 10 tracks, culled from 2005 and 2008 studio sessions in Paris and São Paulo, actually pre-date 2011’s Tempo , her cozy pairing with bassist Eddie Gomez. In addition...
04/22/13 Albums
Blossom
Amanda Brecker
Over a decade ago, Brit boy wonder Jamie Cullum chose to call his breakthrough album Pointless Nostalgic , a title that would be ideal for this sincere but rather senseless exercise in backward glancing from Amanda Brecker. A 27-year-old vocalist of impressive...
04/22/13 Features
Molly Ringwald: A Star, Reborn
Former Hollywood teen sensation eleases her vocal-jazz debut
04/21/13 Albums
Smokey Mary
Harry Connick Jr.
Following a prolonged retreat into the worlds of pop covers and Broadway, Harry Connick Jr. is—spiritually, musically and physically—back on home turf. The last time Connick paid album-length tribute to his birthplace was in 2007, with the side-by-side post...
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ReportAbout Christopher Loudon
When the rest of the baby-boomers were wrapped up in the Beatles and the Stones, Christopher Loudon was discovering Sinatra, Fitzgerald and Bennett. Since 2003, Loudon has critiqued upwards of 700 vocal albums in these pages and shaped about a dozen profiles, including Diana Krall, Tony Bennett, Harry Connick Jr., Roberta Gambarini, Jamie Cullum, Nancy Wilson, Curtis Stigers and Dianne Reeves.