While worth checking out, Private Stock, Volume 1 (Three Keys) is somewhat of a mixed bag. This compilation includes remixed versions of tunes by artists on the label-including keyboardist Marcus Johnson (Three Keys’ owner), saxophonist Jaared, singer Alyson Williams and keyboardist Bobby Lyle-alongside album tracks and bonuses. Some of the remixes work; some don’t.
Williams’ “Superstar” lets her forthright delivery shine, but on the remix of “You,” Jaared’s horn is buried-and when you do hear him, his normally muscular sax sounds shrill. One highlight of the album is singer Yahzarah’s “Blackstar,” an exotic, rhythmic track in which her voice is complimented by intricate percussion. The album includes two versions of singer Jarrard Anthony’s “Sweet Memories,” although the remix version is burdened by a distracting squishy electronic effect.
Related Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
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
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
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