Vox
01/25/12 By Christopher Loudon
Sing Along With Mitch
Marsis Jazz
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...
12/05/11 By Christopher Loudon
Parallel Lives
Jazzed
Andrea Wolper says the album’s title reflects her refusal to be restricted in her musical excavation, exploring all genres that strike her fancy. True enough. But, in considering Parallel Lives ’ dozen selections and her interpretations of them, there seems...
12/04/11 By Christopher Loudon
Barbra Streisand
Columbia Records
In the annals of pop vocals, surprisingly rare are longstanding relationships between singers and songwriters. The two most enduring are the fitful partnership between Sinatra and the team of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen and the more steadily productive...
12/03/11 By Christopher Loudon
In the Moonlight
E1 Music
If Marilyn Monroe’s gifts had included first-rate jazz chops, this is precisely the sort of album she would have delivered. Sophie Milman has, across three previous albums, proven herself an intoxicating seductress, and now her steaminess is at full boil...
12/02/11 By Christopher Loudon
Open up Your Mind
Love Records
There is Allan Harris the romantic troubadour, serving up platters of Billy Strayhorn, Ellington and Nat King Cole tunes with his distinctly Cole-esque baritone. There is also Harris the singer-storyteller, two volumes—2006’s Cross That River and its 2009...
12/01/11 By Christopher Loudon
Talk To Me
Thirty-five years into a remarkably prodigious, late-breaking second career, Freddy Cole is rivaled only by fellow octogenarian Tony Bennett as the apogee of class. The days of Cole having to distinguish himself from sainted elder sibling Nat are well behind...
11/17/11 By Christopher Loudon
Duets II
Columbia Records
Christopher Loudon reviews Tony Bennett's #1 album, 'Duets II'
11/15/11 By Christopher Loudon
Sings Gentle Bossa Nova
Justin Time Records
As the 1960s reached their midpoint and traditional jazz and pop vocalists found their careers increasingly derailed, the fight for survival almost inevitably led down two paths: investigation of contemporary material, oftentimes dipping into the same songbooks...
11/14/11 By Christopher Loudon
Kaeshammer
Alert
Christopher Loudon reviews Michael Kaeshammer's self-titled 7th release
11/13/11 By Christopher Loudon
Listen Here
SSJ
One of the most underappreciated jazz vocalists of the past half-century, Sue Raney is also proving one of the most durable. Raney, who has been singing professionally since age 14, delivered a trio of excellent albums for Capitol while still in her teens...
