Christopher Loudon
Christopher’s Contributions
02/04/12 • Vox
Hollywood
The Puppini Sisters
Listening to the Puppini Sisters is like eating too much peanut brittle. At first bite, the winsome threesome’s chocolate-box harmonies seem mighty tasty, but an entire album of the precise same candy-coated cuteness leaves you craving something—anything—less...
02/02/12 • Vox
To Brazil With Love
Diana Panton
Early on in her still relatively nascent career, Canadian vocalist Diana Panton had the great fortune, and good sense, to align herself with two outstanding jazz countrymen, multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson and guitarist Reg Schwager. It was Thompson who...
01/31/12 • Vox
Tell Me Once Again
Carol Kidd & Nigel Clark
Since launching her career in the mid-’80s, Scottish vocalist Carol Kidd has earned plaudits from Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett. In 1990, Sinatra invited her to open for him in Glasgow and subsequently declared her “the best...
01/29/12 • Vox
Dreamer In Concert
Stacey Kent
Though New Jersey-born Stacey Kent has called London home for two decades, she maintains a special affection for France. The long-ago European trip that led her to her husband—saxophonist, arranger and producer Jim Tomlinson—and the emergence of her music...
01/27/12 • Vox
It Happens Quietly
Jacqui Dankworth
Throughout this splendidly realized album, there’s no missing Jacqui Dankworth’s regal heritage. Her mother, Dame Cleo Laine, possesses one of the most distinctive voices in jazz and the echoes are unmistakable, particularly in Dankworth’s immaculate phrasing...
01/25/12 • Vox
Sing Along With Mitch
Mitchel Forman
Across a multi-decade career that has included work with Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Phil Woods and Freddie Hubbard, pianist Mitchel Forman has also aligned himself with such top-tier vocalists as Mel Tormé, Astrud Gilberto, Janis...
01/23/12 • Albums
The Dreamer
Etta James
Christopher Loudon's review of Etta James' final CD, from the latest issue of JazzTimes
01/16/12 • Albums
Lucky Girl
Jacqui Naylor
Jacqui Naylor’s eighth album is also her most democratic. Prior to the recording sessions, Naylor assembled a group of 90 friends and fans, performed 25 songs, asked her guests to rate each on a 1-5 scale, and included the highest-scoring 15 on Lucky Girl...
01/15/12 • Albums
Rock My Boat
David Linx
Belgian vocalist David Linx is to jazz what Rufus Wainwright is to pop, a chameleonic avant-gardist of the first order. Though Linx has been recording since the mid-1980s, a survey of just his 2010 projects—the richly imaginative tribute Follow Jon Hendricks…...
01/14/12 • Albums
Patrizio
Patrizio Buanne
Though the album, Patrizio Buanne’s third, was released overseas in 2009 and has been certified platinum, the young Italian baritone only recently began making waves in the U.S., thanks largely to a PBS special. The sort of waves Buanne makes tend to be...
01/11/12 • Albums
Black Lace Freudian Slip
Rene Marie
Christopher Loudon reviews one of last year's most exciting jazz vocal releases.
01/02/12 • Features
Freddy Cole's Time to Shine
Out from the shadow of his iconic brother, a class act enjoys the spotlight
12/24/11 • Albums
Whirlpool
Ran Blake & Dominique Eade
Simpatico relationships between vocalists and pianists—Shearing and Cole; Evans and Bennett; Bill Charlap and his mother, Sandy Stewart—are hardly unusual. Occasionally, though, such unions transcend sympathetic rapport and become truly empathetic. The finest...
12/23/11 • Albums
Music Is Better Than Words
Seth MacFarlane
Fans of the long-running animated TV hit Family Guy have likely heard series creator Seth MacFarlane sing standards in the guise of Brian, the Griffin family’s alcoholic, intellectual dog. Stepping out of character and into Hollywood’s fabled Capitol Studios...
12/22/11 • Albums
Tell It Like It Is
Thomas Quasthoff
When Stern magazine declared his “the most beautiful voice in the world,” it was in reference to achievements like his Grammy-winning recordings of Schubert, Mahler and Bach. But early on, thanks to older brother Michael, Quasthoff offset his classical education...
E-mail
Share
RSS
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.