With his beautiful, embracing tenor vocals leading the way, and well-crafted, diverse arrangements surrounding it, Phil Perry creates joyous, romantic Magic (Peak PKD-8504-2; 49:03). Where many competent singers in the urban-jazz area tend to be reduced or eclipsed by over-baked arrangements, Perry smartly chooses partners like Russ Freeman and Lee Ritenour, who bring acoustic and rootsy instrumentations that complement his vocals. Freeman brings gentle guitar to the sunny Brazilian-threaded “Keep Reminding Me,” for example, as well as the soaring “All of My Days.” The Ritenour-penned “In the Morning (Father’s Lullaby)” is as warm and nostalgic in its instrumental details as it is in its lyrics, recalling a father’s advice (“We spoke of goals and how to reach them graciously”). Perry brings a lyrical sweetness and romantic joy to pieces like these, rendering them inspirational rather than corny or cliched. Some of his best work comes on the hopping, off-beat “Magic,” as he exclaims, awe-struck, “Like magic, the way you ease life’s pain when you speak my name,” and the warm, lower-register romance of “Keep Reminding Me.” There are a few skipable missteps, like the breathy “I Can’t Wait (‘Til Morning Comes),” but Perry’s pipes can make up for a great deal here.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro