Kem Intimacy Never Sounded So Good by Abraham Kuranga In the crowded arena of R&B voices, the artist Kem seems to stand out. He wouldn’t have it any other way. This Detroit native came, unexpectedly, from the depths of poverty and hardship to become one of the most recognizable voices in Adult R&B/Jazz today. Bolstered … Continue reading
Lucy Woodward – Highline Ballroom – New York, NY – July 17, 2010 There was probably a certain amount of wishful thinking involved when the emcee at this show introduced Lucy Woodward as “The star of stage and screen” – but even if he somewhat over-inflated her importance, in a better world those accolades would be deserved. … Continue reading
Norah Jones – The Fall (Blue Note) Norah Jones has performed several types of music over the years since her breakthrough album Come Away With Me. In that album and her two follow-up CDs (three if you count her gig with the alt.country supergroup The Little Willies) she has worked in jazz, country, folk, pop and R&B – … Continue reading
Sharon Little Perfect Time for a Breakout by Jay S. Jacobs Just two years ago, Sharon Little was waiting tables. Now she has released her debut CD. One of her songs has been chosen as the theme song to a television series. She was personally picked to open a tour by this year’s biggest Grammy winners – … Continue reading
Various Artists – The Best of Bond… James Bond (Verve) The music behind James Bond has always been part of the allure of the super-spy, a loungy, seductive musical canon tailor-made to naked women dancing in silhouette behind the opening credits – vaguely suggesting danger and the good life. As the Bond film series approaches its 50th anniversary, … Continue reading
Lucy Woodward & Toby Lightman – The Canal Room – New York, NY – September 24 , 2008 Photos by Jim Rinaldi © 2008. All rights reserved. Continue reading
Ingrid Michaelson The Way She Is by Jay S. Jacobs It used to be in order to get your songs heard; you had to hope that somehow radio would catch on to you (often through payola). The whole business has changed, though, and Ingrid Michaelson is riding the wave of the new world order of … Continue reading
The Manhattan Transfer 35 Years and Still Swinging By Mark Mussari Where in the musical landscape hasn’t the Manhattan Transfer taken us? From their inception in the mid-1970s as a cabaret act with doo-wop tendencies to their be-bop covers to their daring experiments in jazz and swing, Cheryl Bentyne, Janis Siegel, Alan Paul and founder … Continue reading
Phoebe Snow Make Things All Right by Ronald Sklar The way Phoebe Snow can manipulate her vocal chords to achieve intense highs and duck-for-cover lows matches only the highs and lows of her own personal wild ride. Her voice, most well known for her 1974 hit, “Poetry Man,” is nothing short of a gift; however, … Continue reading
Us3 – Say What!? (V2) More than a decade on down from making an indelible – if somewhat short lived – impression on pop culture with their revolutionary jazz/rap fusion, Us3 just keep on keeping on. Their 1993 hit album Hand on the Torch, which featured the Herbie Hancock-sampling smash “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia),” opened people’s eyes to … Continue reading
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