Vocal Jazz – musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

Less than 4 weeks until Christmas – Need another Christmas Jazz recommendation?

Stacey Kent

Stacey Kent is a Jazz singer that I believe to be more popular and better known in Europe than her native US.

I haven’t explicitly mentioned her on this blog (she does feature on Jazz Loves Disney that I reviewed previously). I quite like her, but these days I’m not listening to a lot of vocal jazz any more, with only few exceptions.

That said, she has done quite a lot of recordings you should definitely check out.

Including this one, if you start to be in the mood for more Christmas music.

Christmas In The Rockies (EP, Candid Productions 2020)

Stacey Kent Christmas In The Rockies 24/96

Don’t be scared off by the extremely cheesy cover (OMG; these fonts, the colours), this is actually a quite enjoyable performance of Christmas standards.

Note that this is only an EP, you get a total of four tracks.

You start with a very nice, if rather straightforward Sleigh Ride, going through the always beautiful Christmas Time Is Here, a really nice version of Winter Wonderland, and to wrap it all up, my favorite, The Christmas Song (see below)

Normally, I’d always recommend you buy albums, as on streaming revenues no regular artist can reasonably survive (particularly in Covid times when the live revenues are mostly gone).

However, my recommendation would be rather that you buy one of Kent’s other albums instead (check out Breakfast On The Morning Train for example), and add this album to your Spotify or Qobuz Christmas streaming playlist, as I find it a tad expensive for 4 tracks only.

Nevertheless, a solid recommendation for the next 4 weeks!

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz)

Melody Gardot’s New Album Sunset In The Blue – A Review (sort of)

Melody Gardot

Regular readers of my blog know that I’m a big fan of Melody Gardot. She’s the kind of Jazz(ish) singer that is somewhat different to the many other singers. Let’s be clear, she’s no Cecile McLorin Salvant nor Lady Day, but she has a very particular style and voice, and I’ve praised a lot of her previous albums on this blog (see here and here among others).

So I was very excited when her latest album came out about a week ago.

Sunset In The Blue (Decca 2020)

The cover this time is simply abstract, not even any text on there, and presumably less controversial than the cover of her last live album.

On her previous non-live album, Currency Of Man from 2015, Gardot went to a much more soul influenced style. This new album now is nearly in its entirety a long list of latin ballads, including strings (real ones, not the synthesizer variety). On several tracks Gardot even sings in what is presumably Portuguese.

By the way, given the current Covid situation, it seems that putting this album together was the logistical nightmare you’d imagine with musicians stuck in different parts on the planet. Nevertheless, they pulled it off.

Now I must admit I do like my occasional latin and string inspired ballad (it’s clearly better in my opinion than Diana Krall’s recent But Beautiful), but it is not something that I’m super passionate about. There is the occasional faster samba-type track like Ninguém, Ninguém, or more traditional ballads like From Paris With Love; but you get it, I’m not blown away.

Gardot’s beautiful voice, many original compositions, and the well done arrangements still make this a worthwhile album, but it wouldn’t be my preferred Gardot album by far.

Until we come to the penultimate track, Moon River. I’ve admitted previously that I love this song, it makes me sentimental every time I hear it. So far, Sarah McKenzie’s version was my preferred one, but this could really become my new favorite.

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz)

Diana Krall: The Dream Of You – Really Not My Cup Of Tea

Diana Krall

Let me start by saying that I really like Diana Krall. I’ve even listed her album The Girl In The Other Room in My 25 Essential Jazz Albums; her Christmas Album gets a regular rotation every December, and her early work like Live in Europe are sreally attractive to me, even if quite middle-of-the-road. And obviously, she has a fantastic, immediately recognizable voice.

Of her more recent albums, the only one I somewhat liked was Turn Up The Quiet, although it had a bit too much of a Cocktail Jazz background music vibe to me. However, I truly hated the T Bone Burnett produced album Glad Rag Doll.

Nevertheless, I was very much waiting for her latest release, and so I’m very sad to report that I’m unfortunately really underwhelmed.

This Dream Of You (Verve 2020)

Diana Krall This Dream Of You 24 96 Verve 2020

The album is named after a Bob Dylan song featured on the album.

Overall, you get three types of music here: You start with an overly cheesy But Beautiful (seriously, strings on Jazz albums really need to be handled with a lot of care, and hardly ever work), and get similar ballads, like More Than You Know, which is actually a bit better, due to the more sparing arrangement with piano only.

Then you get some country or folk music inspired songs, like the truly horrible (to me) Just You, Just Me, with an annoying fiddle that just forces me to hit the skip button immediately

And finally, you’ll get Krall-style Jazz standards, like Autumn in New York, or I Wished On The Moon. Unfortunately these just don’t really swing as much as her early straight jazz albums used to do. I really don’t get why, I wasn’t able to get a clear information on the rhythm section musicians, I’ve read on Qobuz that Jeff Hamilton and Christian McBride were on some of the tracks. But it really doesn’t sound like them, or they had a very bad day or were somewhat bored

In any case, this is an album I’d really suggest you check out before you buy. I for my side will pass.

My rating: 3 stars

Youn Sun Nah’s Latest Album Immersion – Really Not My Cup Of Tea

The Borderline between Jazz and Pop Music

Youn Sun Nah, while typically being classified as a Jazz singer, has always been on the borderline between Jazz and Pop. Nothing wrong with that, many great singers like Melody Gardot or Norah Jones successfully navigate both sides of the equation very well, at least in my personal opinion.

Youn Sun Nah’s greatest effort on the Jazz side of things were brilliant albums such as Lento or Same Girl. I’ve mentioned the brilliant cover she did of Metallica’s Enter Sandman on Same Girl in my post on my favourite Jazz covers of Pop songs here.

It is very understandable that artists want to evolve their musical style. Not surprisingly therefore, her previous album was called She Moves On (2017). I didn’t review this one on my blog, already because it really didn’t move me very much. And it is usually much more fun to write about albums I like, hence the large number of 4 and 5 star reviews here.

So why did I make a difference here? Well, it is rare that an album really puts me off and annoys me. I rarely have that (exceptionally for some reggae and rap albums), but typically just move on to something else.

In the Jazz territory, there’s one other similar example of an album that I really couldn’t stand, which was Diana Krall’s Glad Rag Doll, produce by T-Bone Burnett. If you wanted to torture me, you could easily use this album, just put it on repeat.

Youn Sun Nah – Immersion (Arts Music 2019)

Youn Sun Nah Immersion 24/48 Art Music 2019

So, what do we get on Immersion? A LOT of synthesizers first of all. Nothing wrong with synthesizers, I used to own several of them in my high school and student days. I’m just not so convinced they are the best combination for Jazz-type albums. But I presume that’s the point, this is actually not an Jazz album.

You also seem to get quite a bit of drum machines (or if it is a real drummer, he uses a heck of a lot of effects). You also get a lot of sound effects.

One example of the extensive use of synths is the cover version of Leonard Cohen’s beautiful Hallelujah. This is recorded over “carpet strings” (do people still use this expression?) that are just wobbling in the background. This really so completely misses the point of this song.

But the most annoying is a minimalistic ballad version of You Can Hurry Love, where the only instrument is a bell- or gamelan-like e-piano that sounds like somebody has taken the good old Yamaha DX7 out of the garage (or more likely, out of Logic Pro).

OK, I’ll stop my rambling here, you’ve got the point, I just don’t like this album.

My rating: 2 points.

If you still want to try it out, which you should, as I think this album may be a love it or hate it affair, you’ll find it here (Qobuz)

Melody Gardot Live In Europe – A Must Have Album – My Review

Melody Gardot

I’ve been a big fan of Melody Gardot for years now. I’ve mentioned her on this blog a couple of times already, reviewing her previous album Currency of Man, which also made my Top 5 Vocal Jazz Albums of 2015, as well as mentioning her great contributions to the compliations albums Autour de Nina, and Jazz Loves Disney.

She is a fantastic talent, with an amazing voice, and a very versatile style, from her early vocal jazz/singer-songwriter style albums Some Lessons, Worrisome Heart, and My One And Only Thrill, via the latin Swing of The Absence, to the much more soul-oriented Currency Of Man.

However, so far I haven’t yet seen her live (what a miss), so I was very excited when this latest live album was announced in late 2017.

Now it’s out, and I must admit it exceeded even my high expectations.

Live in Europe (Decca 2018)

Melody Gardot Live In Europe (24/48) 2018 Decca

So, what’s so great about this album?

First of all, the length, 1h45, so the band can really take the time to develop the songs, with the longest example, Morning Sun taking more than 12 minutes. Not one too many by the way, as this is one of the true highlights of the album.

The other great thing is that this in many places is a very minimalistic, “unplugged” style album, just Melody’s fantastic voice with very little instrumentation, which makes this even more special, and a very intimate experience. One example is the opening track, Our Love Is Easy, which over quite a while has her together with only a double bass. Outstanding!

This is a mix of several concerts in Europe, and you get the full bandwidth of styles. Lisboa (nicely enough taken from a concert in Lisbon) is an excellent example that the band can do a true latin samba-style swing, you get her “classics” like My One And Only Thrill, but even the more soul-type songs like Morning Sun get a very special, fresh treatment.

Melody Gardot is clearly surrounded by outstanding musicians here, as witnessed in the nearly 4 minutes instrumental intro of The Rain.

Another highlight of the album is March For Mingus, as it is really swinging and groving like crazy. The “original” of this song was a short 1:02 fragment on Currency of Man, which finally gets the 11:03 that it truly deserves.

Get this album as fast as you can! This is an instant classic.

My rating: 5 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz) and here (Prostudiomasters)

Sarah McKenzie Live in Berlin – May 5, 2017

Better late than never

This will be a post about all the things I’ve recently been late at.

Well not all the things, but at least two of them. One is recognizing the 2nd anniversary of my blog!

On May 22, 2015, I’ve published my first post here. We’re now a bit more than two years and 194 posts later, and I’m still doing it.

And really, what keeps me motivated doing this, beyond my passion for good music, is your feedback. I’ve heard from so many of you individually, so many encouraging comments, and appreciative notes, I just have to say a big THANK YOU!

The second thing I’m really late at is a review of the concert of Sarah McKenzie I saw about a month ago now.

Sarah McKenzie Live at Passionskirche Berlin

I’ve written about her three times already (here, here, and here) and I remain a great fan of this young Australian singer. So when I had the opportunity to see her live in Berlin, I grabbed it.

And I’m very glad I did. My review of her last album was a bit mixed. There was nothing wrong with the music per se, I just felt the album was a bit overproduced, a bit sterile.

Obviously, live you get a completely different experience.

Let me get the negative points out of the way first.

Never do a Jazz concert in a church

The Passionskirche in Kreuzberg is a beautiful building and room, but why on earth somebody would want to do a Jazz concert in there really is beyond me. The acoustics are really bad, and the long reverb half killed the excellent swing of the band. Well at least, for the first time in my life I had a beer (they sold drinks before the concert) in a church. An interesting experience.

No pictures please

Unfortunately, the organizers didn’t want me to take any pictures, although I had brought my little Fuji X100T. That’s really a pity, as I believe a concert report with some pictures of the event is much more interesting for the reader. So sorry guys, text only.

But as of now starts the positive part: It really was a fantastic concert.

Her band was as good as ever, and we got a really great mix of standards and her own compositions. So the program switched between the good old classics of I’m old fashioned to her new Paris in the Rain.

What were my highlights? Well, as always, Moon River, in a duet with guitar only. Pierre Boussaguet on bass, who managed to even improvise a Bach Cello Suite into his bass solo. A blues, where the entire band was just swinging like crazy.

And, maybe my personal favorite, Sarah has now added You Must Believe In Spring to her repertoire. I´ve written here how much I love this Michel Legrand Song that was made famous in the Jazz world by Bill Evans. It was fantastic hearing her perform this gem.

In a nutshell: Sarah Mckenzie is still on tour, including her very first time at the legendary Montreux Jazz festival in July. Here are her tour dates, make sure you check her out when you can, she is just amazing!

Sarah McKenzie – Paris In The Rain – A Review (more or less)

I’ve previously praised the young Australian singer Sarah McKenzie for her last album on Impulse, We Could Be Lovers, have seen her perform live, and mentioned her in my Top 10 Jazz Covers of Pop songs. I was even able to exchange a couple of friendly words with her during the above mentioned concert.

So in a nutshell, I really like her. Hence, when I saw on Facebook that she is about to release a new album, I gotvery excited.

(Side note: following artists I like is one of the few useful purposes for me of Facebook. Why is it that in my generation the only people that regularly post updates are the ones you don’t care about? There seems to be some form of inverse correlation between posting activity and content value, with some rare exceptions)

Paris In the Rain (Impulse 2017)

So, now the album has been out for weeks, and I’m only just about now writing about it.

Sarah McKenzie Paris In The Rain Impulse 2017 (24/96)

Why is that? Well, not because I didn’t listen to it enough. The thing is, I was really trying to like it, but in a way something was just a bit wrong. And I spent the last month trying to put my finger on it.

Is it the singing? Absolutely not, that’s beautiful as ever.

Is it the songs? No, we get standards, like Tea For Two, beautiful ballads, like Little Girl Blue, own compositions such as Paris in the Rain, see below (she also has 4 other own compositions on the album!).

Is it the musicians? Again, not really. Actually, they do play extremely well. Sarah and Impulse were able to assemble some great musicians here: Mark Whitfield und Romero Lubambo on guitar, Warren Wolf on the vibraphone, Reuben Rogers on bass, Gregory Hutchinson on drums.

The horns are excellent too, from Dominick Farinacci on the trumpet, Jamie Baum on the flute, to Scott Robinson and Ralph Moore on saxphone.

So what is it? It was only when I read that this album was produced again (like the previous one) by Brian Bacchus, when the penny dropped. It is just a bit too perfect! That may sound a bit silly, but the album could use a little bit of “dirtiness” to my ears.

Bacchus, while not a household name, has worked with some of the greatest names in Jazz (e.g. John Scofield). However, he also produced Norah Jones and Gregory Porter. Not that I’m comparing this album to Norah Jones, unlike her this is 100% Jazz, but you get the total perfection of a Norah Jones album. This really doesn’t fully replicate the full energy I felt when I saw her live. I’d really love it if her next album will be a live one!

So why I strongly encourage you to check out this album, I’d even more recommend you see her live. As mentioned, she’s on facebook, and here’s her website that has the tour dates.

My rating: 4 stars

You can find the album here (Qobuz) and here (Prostudiomasters).