Christopher Loudon
Christopher’s Contributions
02/02/13 Albums
Like Water, Like Air
Masha Campagne
Five years have passed since Bay Area vocalist Masha Campagne made her recording debut, forging a simpatico alliance with pianist and arranger Weber Iago and emerging as one of the most surprising Brazilian stylists to ever navigate the Jobim and Caymmi...
01/24/13 Vox
Almost Love
Marcus Goldhaber
Across his two previous albums, Marcus Goldhaber skirted the perimeter of jazz vocalism, evoking the spirit of Chet Baker while never quite capturing Baker’s ethereal charm. Almost Love finds him settling instead into a pop-folk groove—equal parts James...
01/20/13 Features
Mark Murphy: The Explorer
At 80, the great vocalist is in the midst of a career renaissance
01/18/13 Vox
Love Songs
The Four Freshmen
Take a valuable document, make a photocopy, make a copy of the copy, repeat the process another 19 times and the end result would be a barely recognizable replica of the original. Such is the case with the latest (and 22nd) configuration of the Four Freshmen...
01/12/13 Vox
Smile
Andrea Marcovicci
Tunes for tough times: such was Andrea Marcovicci’s goal when she set about assembling her 17th album. Noting, of late, a heightened sense of gloom among her audience members, the celebrated cabaret songstress decided to lay down her torch and serve up some...
01/08/13 Vox
Lost in a Lover's Dream
Georgie Fame
Thanks to the million-selling success he achieved with “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967, British vocalist and keyboardist Georgie Fame is often misbranded as yet another pop star who turned to jazz when the hits stopped coming. In fact, Fame’s jazz...
01/05/13 Vox
The Best Thing For You
John Proulx
Assessing this musical hodgepodge from vocalist and pianist John Proulx, it’s difficult to move the praise meter past “pleasant.” Proulx is undeniably talented, with a keyboard style that often suggests the verve of Vince Guaraldi and a voice that echoes...
01/02/13 Vox
Loverman
Barbara Cook
Aged to perfection—such is Barbara Cook. The doyenne of New York cabaret has, at 83, never sounded more appealing than she does across this 15-track set almost entirely arranged and orchestrated by Ted Rosenthal. The lyric soprano that propelled Cook to...
12/29/12 Vox
Aurora
Sara Serpa & Ran Blake
Though classically trained, vocalist Sara Serpa’s musical education really began when she discovered Hot Clube Jazz and its offshoot school in her native Lisbon. Moving Stateside, she earned her master’s at New England Conservatory, where her teachers included...
12/26/12 Vox
Viva Duets
Tony Bennett
This is Tony Bennett’s third trip to the Duets well, and he’s come up rather dry. The original Duets , released in 2006, included a pairing with Colombian vocalist Juanes. Last year, one selection on Duets II featured Bennett with Spanish singer-songwriter...
12/22/12 Vox
Release Me
Barbra Streisand
Though the title rather terrifyingly suggests an album of Engelbert Humperdinck covers, it actually refers to 11 tracks, languishing for various lengths of time in the Columbia vaults, handpicked by Streisand for belated release. Though such initiatives...
12/19/12 Vox
Notes From the Frontier
Jacqui Sutton
Her career has taken her from Madison to San Francisco to Portland to Manhattan, but it wasn’t until Jacqui Sutton arrived in Texas that she found just the right setting for the boldly unpredictable meld she calls “frontier jazz.” The Houston-based Sutton...
12/16/12 Vox
1619 Broadway: The Brill Building Project
Kurt Elling
Manhattan’s most famous music address remains best known for the brief period during the late 1950s and early ’60s when young songwriters like Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Barry Mann and Burt Bacharach were churning out the pop...
12/15/12 Vox
(Re) Generet(ion)
Gregory Generet
For most of his artistic life, Gregory Generet has toiled as a post-production editor for various CBS news and sports programs, netting three Emmys for his efforts. An ardent jazz fan with a latent desire to become a vocalist, Generet established a wide...
12/13/12 Vox
Black Orchid
Malia
When Malawian vocalist Malia first broke through in the mid-aughts, it was with the dense, production-heavy albums Yellow Daffodils and Young Bones . Overflowing with pop-soul sass, they were filled with both slick originals like “Mr. Candy” and “Richer...
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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.