8TH INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL OF PORT-AU-PRINCE HAITI FEATURES INTERNATIONAL ROSTER INCLUDING CLAUDE CARRE, JAMES GERMAIN, LUCK MERVIL, MISHY WIDMAIER & OTHERS

Each year since 2007, the capital city of Port-au-Prince hosts the International Jazz Festival to a growing and diverse public. Located in the Greater Antilles, Haiti benefits from a mild January Caribbean climate during this one-week spectacular event.

The Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival offers an unprecedented cultural assembly in Haiti each year to a local and international audience as a non-profit event in partnership with the Ministry of Culture & Communication, the Ministry of Tourism, ten embassies, and major private and public institutions throughout the country.

Musicians from around the world participate in this common celebration of jazz in Port-au-Prince. These musicians come from the United States, France, Brazil, Mexico, Chili, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and of course, from Haiti and its Diaspora.

Past editions of the Festival have feature Henri Texier and Mino Cinelu from France, Annie Poulin and Brandy Disterheft of Canada, Nono Garcia of Spain, the Sacbe Group of Mexico, and Aaron Goldberg from the US. Despite some challenges the tourism industry faces in Haiti, the Festival's organizers host their musical guests in conditions comparable to many other international jazz festivals.

Every country brings its own touch, flavor, and identity to the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival, giving the event a universal dimension that only jazz can offer its fans. Haiti also brings its own color: kreyòl jazz, a rising movement in the international jazz scene. Pauline Jean, Beethova Obas, Meddy Gerveille de la Réunion, Reginald Policard, Turgot Theodat, Buyu Ambroise and Mushy Widmaier have been the ambassadors of kreyòl jazz during past editions.

For eight days, Port-au-Prince swings with jazz rhythms. The Festival participants pour into historic public spaces of the capital, such as the historic Sugar Cane Park with its gardens and vestiges from the colonial era, the gardens of the prestigious Karibe Hotel, and the FOKAL Cultural Center located in the heart of Port-au-Prince. For the after hours jam sessions, festival-goers fill the most attractive restaurants of Pétion-Ville, the nightlife neighborhood of the capital.

To achieve its mission to promote music and especially jazz around the country, the Fondation Haiti Jazz - the Festival's primary organizers - offers free music training workshops to young, local musicians in collaboration with the participating international music professionals.

Haiti is open for business and ready to receive jazz fans from around the world under the tropical sun.

Claude Carre

Claude Carré was born in Port-au-Prince. Being a traditional jazz guitarist, a researcher and a music teacher, Professor Carré is a passionate advocate of Jazz in Haiti. A few years ago, he created the "Haiti Jazz Club" where he inducts and teaches young musicians to jazz techniques. Co-founder of the Natif Jazz Trio in 1998, he's also written "Les Musiques d'Haïti", an essay on music. Finally, Claude Carré regularly lends his talent to foreign musicians invited to Haiti.

James Germain

During years, James German offered ¬a universe in the confluence of his afro-Caribbean roots. Born in Port-au-Prince, he grew on the hill of Saint-Antoine, a working-class district of the capital. James sings with a melancholic voice, airs of traditional voodoo songs blended with touches of opera or even gospel, by reinventing codes. Haiti, its songs and voodoo, are at the center of its work... His inspiration takes from classical to afro music, thus a unique world at the crossroad of several worlds. After a third album " Kréol Mandingue ", produced in Mali, James prepares a new album which shows its deep roots of Haitian culture and its force always renewed to impose its voice in the world.

Luck Mervil

In Quebec, the Caribbean, Europe; on stage, in song, on the big screen...writer, composer, actor and host Luck Mervil is undeniably one of the French-speaking world's most recognizable artists.Born in Haiti, Mervil started singing at the age of four. He grew up in New York and in Quebec, where he founded RudeLuck, a rap-reggae fusion group that earned many nominations, awards, radio hits, successful tours, and invitations to Francophone festivals in Canada and Europe. The album Pour le meilleur et pour le pire has sold more than 250,000 copies. Mervil recently launched TI PEYI A, a strikingly authentic and disturbingly sensitive new album blending various Creole styles in order to portray life, love and daily struggles in his birthplace.

Reginald Policard

Réginald Policard is a Haitian pianist who started playing when he was 12. His experience includes various styles such as Kompa, Jazz, Latin Jazz, Fusion, etc... He is a founding member and director of the famous band Caribbean Sextet with which he took part to the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Réginald Policard has also recorded fourteen solo albums. On August the 15th 2013, Boarding Pass, taken from his album Detour was among the Top 10 of Spotlight on Jazz.

Willerm Delisfort

"When words are not enough ... it is his music that speaks. "The pianist and composer Willerm Delisfort is a messenger of life, using music as a tool. His style extends from Jazz to Gospel or R & B. His versatility has allowed him to become a musician very in demand by Jazz, Rap, Soul or Fusion artists, among which Fareed Haque, Calvin Newborne, Corey Wilkes, Ernest Dawkins, T-Pain and many others.

X-Key

This group from Cap Haitian sounds like a typical "Root & Jazz-Fusion" band. All the emotion of Haitian Folk Rhythms is brought to life thanks to the combination of Haitian traditional drums and rhythms with a touch of Jazz, Funk and Rock. In 2012, X-Key took part in the 6th edition of the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival. Their much awaited first album is programmed to be released in 2014.

Mushy Widmaier

Mushy Widmaier is a "modern jazz" piano player, but one with a certain undertone of both Haitian folklore and European art music - but all of it as ingredients of a digested and unified whole sounding unmistakably as Him. Mushy is capable of fitting in with groups of almost any stylistic observance, and takes a most active and creative part in the proceedings. He seems to master a vast repertory, whether jazz standards, Haitian folk songs, popular dance music or originals.

Josue Alexis

Josué Alexis is a young pianist, born in Port-au-Prince. He begins practicing the piano at a very young age, exploring the classic repertoire under the supervision of teachers such as Joseph Pierre, Loubert V. Leopold and Serge Villedrouin. In 2003, he obtains a distinction prize in the national competition of piano and music theory. Self-taught in jazz music, he followed with interest the workshops of the previous editions of the Festival International de Jazz de Port-au-Prince. Currently he collaborates actively with singer and guitarist Hans Peters, and drummer John Bern Thomas. He will perform accompanied by Hermand Duverne (bass), Gessoit Pierre-Louis (Saxophone) and John Bern Thomas. Alexis is one of the great hopes of the new generation of Haitians jazz pianists.

Nadege Bellande

Born in California, Nadège Bellande Robertson began playing the piano and violin as a child, but found her true talent as a vocalist. In 1994, she moved to Haiti, and established herself quickly. In 2002, she created the band N'Didgenous with Gregory Vorbe. Nadège has also collaborated with Jean Pierre Grasset, Joel and Mushy Widmaier, Strings, and performed with Boukman Eksperyans, RAM, Belo, Fabrice Rouzier, The Fugees, The Marleys, and the Lynn University Philharmonic

CHARLIE PEACOCK - LEMONADE

LEMONADE - pianist, composer, record producer and Grammy Award Winner Charlie Peacock’s collection of twelve solo piano improvisations is an unexpected, yet winsome next musical step after his much-admired 2012 Folk-Americana release, No Man’s Land. Paste Magazine’s Holly Gleason proclaimed No Man’s Land “a cocktail of Dust Bowl feels, Cajun beats and shuffles, raw banjos and fiddles, steel guitars that pool, and spacious arrangements. This is music of red dirt and high humidity, different worlds that share the same sort of soul.”

It’s no stretch that the producer behind the music described above, and that of Folk/Americana darlings The Civil Wars and Holly Williams, would share the same sort of soul found in solo piano improvisation. For Peacock, it’s all one soulful musical world. The producer/pianist did in fact produce three of Entertainment Weekly’s Ten Best Country Albums of 2013. However, he’s also the same musician that has recorded and performed with such top tier jazz improvisers as Ravi Coltrane, James Genus, Bela Fleck, Marc Ribot, Jeff Coffin, Joey Baron and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Perhaps all of this is why Electronic Musician wrote: “Charlie Peacock's life is like a game of musical chairs: he is constantly changing seats and trading places.”

“I was raised by a California-born, improvising trumpet playing father whose grandfather was a Louisiana fiddler. Maybe that explains a little of my ability to move fluidly between several varieties of American music, whether it’s rooted in Hank Williams or Miles Davis.”

LEMONADE is Peacock’s third recording in the jazz (beyond jazz) genre. His first, Love Press Ex-Curio (2005) was followed by Arc of the Circle (2008), a duet recording with saxophonist Jeff Coffin. Each recording reached Top 5 on the CMJ Jazz Chart and both provide plenty of clues to Peacock’s unique piano approach, now fully revealed on LEMONADE.

“There’s no hiding that I’ve been affected by Keith Jarrett’s seminal solo piano improvisations, Facing You from 1972. I’m proud to be of the generation of musicians that grew up on that amazing record. Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure was also essential listening. I spent a day with Andrew in the late 70s and that was life changing. Even with the obvious influences, I’ve tried to do something a little different with the left hand by outlining chords in 5ths and 6ths and avoiding the jazz pedagogy voicings we all learned back in the day. Because I usually produce much simpler, less harmonically dense music, it’s helped me be content with harmony that floats seamlessly between simplicity and complexity, and maybe sounds a little less like a particular time in history. That’s what I hope for.”

Charlie Peacock’s production of The Civil Wars’ Barton Hollow garnered two Grammy Awards in 2011 and was Gold certified. The eponymously titled The Civil Wars (2013) debuted at #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart, has sold over 300,000 copies and is Grammy nominated. Peacock’s production of Holly Williams and The Lone Bellow were also singled out in 2013 as commercially and critically significant. With this sort of commercial momentum why choose to make an improvisational record now'

“I’ve never been one to put too much stock in commercial peaks. Thankfully I’ve had several, but I’ve always been after a lasting career – one that never peaks – just gets better. Artists I admire, like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Herbie Hancock have that kind of career story – basically a life of making music rooted in America, and that’s a music I know and love.”

As The Nashville Scene put it, Charlie is a “Producer - renaissance man” and proudly makes Nashville his home. Or does he' One journalist, after hearing a Charlie Peacock piano solo from a previous recording doubted this in print: “Are we sure Charlie lives in Nashville'” Not only does he live in Nashville, he remains as Keyboard magazine says, “one of the most respected musicians in Nashville.”

“There’s a reason Nashville is called Music City. It’s about the music first here, and improvisation, whether it’s jazz, bluegrass, or rock related, is absolutely central to the music created in our city – a city full of world-class improvisers. My solo piano record and playing is hardly an anomaly. It’s simply my version of what friends Jerry Douglas, Vince Gill, and Andy Leftwich do in their own sphere of influence. I had my pivotal experience with Keith Jarrett when I was seventeen. I’m hoping my record will spark imaginations and remind people that this is what musicians do – the music is inside us, and when we improvise, we are composing on the spot, real-time. I’m just doing my small part to tell that story, keep it alive. And if people dig what I do, I hope they will check out some serious mastery in pianists like Vijay Ayer, Uri Caine, and Brad Mehldau.”

Short Bio: Charlie Peacock is a Grammy Award-winning, multi-format performer, composer, and record producer. Peacock's current production credits include AAA and Americana successes such as The Lone Bellow, Holly Williams, Ben Rector, Brett Dennen and "Misery Chain" for Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell featuring Joy Williams, from the soundtrack to the film, 12 Years A Slave.

Charlie Peacock - LEMONADE 
Twenty Ten Music - Release: January 7th, 2014

PALMIRA GUITAR COCKTAIL - THE GUITAR EDITIONS

The band Palmira Guitar Cocktail, which is focused on guitar music of certain genres, introduces a new release of the album series called "Smooth Jazz Casino". The volume 2 of this album series presents smooth jazz and latin jazz again with a bouquet of world music sounding. Cool and relaxed tunes besides funky grooves and extraordinary guitar play. While listening there's a breeze of Brazil and samba as well as the impression of a side trip to Africa. Smooth jazz sounds to lean back and enjoy in your living room, music to accompany a cozy dinner or or while enjoying a glass of wine sitting by the open fire ...

The band Palmira Guitar Cocktail, which is focused on guitar music of certain genres, introduces a new album series called "Smooth Jazz Casino". The volume 1 of this album series presents mainly smooth jazz and latin jazz with a bouquet of Spanish and Hispanic air. Cool and relaxed tunes besides funky grooves and extraordinary guitar play. While listening there's a breeze of Brazil and samba as well as the impression of a side trip to Andalusia with flamenco & Co. Smooth jazz sounds to lean back and enjoy in your living room, music to accompany a cozy dinner or a sundowner on your terrace.

FRANK SINATRA'S - SINATRA WITH LOVE, FEATURES CLASSICS FROM CAPITAL AND REPRISE CATALOGS

With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, set the perfect mood for this special night with the romantic styling of “The Chairman of the Board.” On January 28, 2014, Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) will release Sinatra, With Love, a 16-track collection of Sinatra’s romantic classics from his Capitol and Reprise catalogs. This is Universal’s second release under the newly launched “Signature Sinatra” imprint, a deal uniting Sinatra's classic Capitol and signature Reprise recordings.

Sinatra, With Love features timeless ballads and swingin' standards including Cole Porter classics “From This Moment On,” “I Love You,” and “Just One Of Those Things.” “Ol’ Blue Eyes” continues to keep the romance flowing as he puts his signature touch on the Gershwin classic “Love Is Here To Stay,” as well as “It Could Happen To You,” “Nice ‘N’ Easy,” “The Look Of Love,” “Moonlight Becomes You,” “(Love Is) A Tender Trap,” and “The Way You Look Tonight,” all arranged by the legendary Nelson Riddle. Also featured are treasured renditions of “My Foolish Heart,” “It Had To Be You (featured in When Harry Met Sally),” the Johnny Mercer-penned “Something’s Gotta Give,” with an arrangement by Billy May, and “Wave,” written by Sinatra’s long-time collaborator Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Frank Sinatra began the golden age in which American popular music became a universal language and this extraordinary creative genius is its most articulate spokesman worldwide. Throughout his 60-year career, "Ol' Blue Eyes" performed on more than 1,400 recordings, was awarded 31 gold, nine platinum, three double-platinum and one triple platinum album by the Recording Industry Association of America. He was also awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Grammys, The Screen Actors Guild, The Kennedy Center and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. His contribution to our life and times extends far beyond his music, to embrace an exuberance, a zest for life, a sense of style and a glorious self-confidence that define, for all time, what it meant to be young at heart and have the world on a string. His spirit and vision continue to be defined by the wisdom and insight from the legacy of work he left behind.

   

TRACKLISTING: 

1. Moonlight Becomes You / 2. Love Is Here To Stay / 3. Just One Of Those Things / 4. Misty / 5. Nice ‘N’ Easy / 6. It Could Happen To You / 7. The Way You Look Tonight / 8. Love Looks So Well On You / 9. (Love Is) The Tender Trap / 10. I Love You / 11. The Look Of Love / 12. Something's Gotta Give / 13. From This Moment On / 14. Wave / 15. It Had To Be You / 16. My Foolish Heart 

  

      

LAUREN KINHAN - CIRCLE IN A SQUARE

Acclaimed vocalist Lauren Kinhan celebrates the release of her new CD Circle In A Square on Sunday, January 19 at Arts Garage, 180 NE 1st Street, Delray Beach, FL. She performs with pianist Martin Bejerano, bassist Paul Shewchuk, drummer Mike Piolet and saxophonist Mark Small. 2 sets beginning at 7:00 p.m. Tickets: $25 general admission, $30 reserved seat, $35 premium seat. Go to http://artsgarage.org or call 561-450-6357 for more information.

The CD release show is the second in a string of dates for Kinhan who also performs January 7 in NYC; January 23 in Bowling Green, OH; January 24 in Kent, OH; January 25 in Maumee, OH; January 30 in Studio City, CA; February 2 in Cannon Beach, OR; February 3 in Portland, OR; and February 5 in Denver, CO.

While Lauren Kinhan is best known for her ongoing two-decade tenure in the internationally renowned New York Voices, she has steadily established herself as a powerful composer in her own right. Following up on her acclaimed 2010 album Avalon, she offers an emotionally incisive and melodically enticing set of new songs on Circle In a Square, which is slated for release on January 7, 2014 on Dotted i Records. Long recognized as a poised and penetrating musical interpreter, Kinhan focuses on telling her own stories with songs seasoned by life and the contributions of some of jazz's most evocative improvisers.

Working with ace pianist/keyboardist Andy Ezrin, veteran bassists Will Lee or David Finck interchangeably and the supremely supple drummer Ben Wittman, whose credits include Don Byron, Laurie Anderson and Paul Simon, Kinhan maintains the core rhythm section throughout the project. Without a trace of fussiness, she treats each track as a finely etched entity unto itself, bringing together just the right combination of elements.

"Twenty-five years ago I up and moved from my cozy Columbus Avenue apartment in Boston and departed for the mystery and magic of Gotham. Those were ambitious days, full of hard knocks, slinging beers as a waitress, gigging and discovering my musical path. Fast forward to today: I wanted to mark this milestone with a body of work that incorporates all the things I've learned along the way," says Kinhan, who produced the album with Elliot Scheiner, a studio maestro with 24 Grammy Award nominations and seven Grammys.

"I've always enjoyed the collaborative writing process," she says, "but this time I wanted to shape each song as much as possible from my own head, capturing my personal harmonic and lyrical palette and crafting the overall musical statement. Elliot created an environment conducive for everyone doing their best work."

With credits that range from Steely Dan, Sting, and Paul Simon to B.B. King, Chaka Khan, and Van Morrison, Scheiner is an expert at capturing an artist's sonic nuances. With Kinhan, he was particularly struck by the consistent quality of her compositions. "Beyond how effortlessly and beautifully Lauren sings, I was blown away by what a great songwriter she is," Scheiner says. "Her songs will be considered standards in the future."

Kicking off with the title track, Kinhan lays her cards on the table, celebrating music's power to transport us to a particular time and place in our life. In the first of several keenly incisive solos throughout the album, trumpeter Randy Brecker tips his hat to the Beatles' "Penny Lane" and then distills the mood of pleasurable longing in a series of graceful phrases. Saxophonist Ada Rovatti contributed to the music, coming up with the aggressive groove. Kinhan's heady lyric invoking Newton's Third Law of Motion (For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) is beautifully balanced by the story of her husband's love of his record collection.

On an album filled with gems, "Another Hill to Climb" stands out with a lovely string arrangement by Rob Mounsey featuring a quartet led by the wondrous Sara Caswell. A gospel-tinged ballad that brings to mind early Donny Hathaway, the song speaks to the need for perseverance in the face of life's inevitable vicissitudes. The piece closes with a striking string voicing, which seems to lead naturally into "Chasing the Sun," the album's only wordless piece. The soaring melody showcases Kinhan's bold, lustrous voice, which finds a perfect foil in the poetic guitar of Brazilian master Romero Lubambo.

Lubambo also plays a key role in the epic, emotionally wrenching "To Live and Die," a cri de coeur that delves into the turmoil of getting lost and the sense of loss afflicting those left behind. In another piece of savvy sequencing, she follows with the buoyantly grooving "Pocketful of Harlem," which kicks off with Wittman's wildly inventive drum solo. Kinhan beautifully evokes the challenges inherent in long relationships on "We're Not Going Anywhere Today," a poignant piece with a gorgeous lament of a solo by Ezrin, one of the under sung masters of New York's music scene. "The trust between all of us to play this slow and undulating dance is what it's all about," Kinhan says.

She's at her most playful on the voluptuously sensual tango "Chaussure's Complex," an erotic tableau defined by Gary Versace's agile accordion. The album closes with a sublime ballad, "The Deep Within," a poem by Kinhan about the soul's resilience set to a numinous melody by Kinhan and fellow New York Voice Peter Eldridge (who contributes to the recording on piano). "I love singing this song," Kinhan says. "The sweet motivic melody breathes from performance to performance, centering and reminding, like a lullaby that summons the spirit. Peter and I have collaborated over the years, and this song is something truly special."

Kinhan is something of a magnet for adventurous vocalists. She's performed with New York Voices since 1992, and is deep into the ensemble's 25th anniversary celebration, which they've marked with the release of three projects, the DVD/CD New York Voices Live at the Java Jazz Festival, and the CDs New York Voices Live with the WDR Big Band and Let it Snow, a holiday album. She's a charter member of the supergroup Moss with fellow vocal explorers Luciana Souza, Kate McGarry, Theo Bleckmann and Peter Eldridge, which released an acclaimed eponymous CD in 2008 on Sunnyside.

More recently she teamed up with The Manhattan Transfer's Janis Siegel, and former, founding Transferer Laurel Massé in JaLaLa, an uproariously skilled and entertaining trio that released the Johnny Mercer tribute That Old Mercer Magic in 2009 on Dare Records. And she joined a stellar cast of singers on an ambitious Bobby McFerrin choral project - VOCAbuLarieS - a collection of his original songs set for multiple voices arranged by Roger Treece, a project released on Decca in 2010.

Raised in a jazz-steeped household, Kinhan became enamored with the signature singer/songwriters of the 1970s like Joni Mitchell and Carole King. While studying at Berklee College of Music she started composing and thinking about how to merge these two passions - jazz and the singer/songwriter narrative. Working as a studio singer and songwriter in New York City, she caught the ear of avant garde patriarch Ornette Coleman, who gave her strong encouragement. He ended up hiring her for his celebrated 1997 album Sound Museum, Three Women, which features her searing vocals on his tune "Don't You Know By Now." Lauren joined him on his historic retrospective at Lincoln Center with Billy Higgins, Charlie Haden, and Geri Allen, where she sang his song and one of her own compositions.

The year 2000 marked another creative leap for Kinhan. She collaborated with the Japanese guitarist Jiro Yoshida on Guitar and the Moon, an album of jazz standards featuring bassist Eddie Gomez, pianist Andy Ezrin and drummer Ben Wittman (Circle In a Square reunited her with Yoshida, who collaborated on the music of the funky, bebopping "Bear Walk" where Brecker makes another stunning appearance). The same year she also released her debut solo project, Hardly Blinking, an impressive program of original songs produced by the legendary Phil Ramone, along with Frank Filipetti, and Rob Mounsey.

In the decade between Hardly Blinking and her second album, Avalon, Kinhan started a family, and her new music was powerfully informed by that wonderful life-changing event. Combining her sophisticated harmonic vocabulary and love of pop music craftsmanship she created a smart, bracingly contemporary sound marked by scintillating wordplay and felicitous melodies. With Circle In a Square she continues to hone music that's tradition savvy but utterly of the moment. Rooted in jazz's improvisational imperative, Kinhan knows that you best celebrate the music by remaking it in your own image.

"Think of me as a horn player who sings a lyric or a dancer filling a phrase, a reedy voice that's lived in, adventurous and unapologetic," Kinhan says. "It all circles around living in the moment, telling a story and letting conventions be undressed and re-outfitted."

http://laurenkinhan.com/

YVONNICK PRENE & PADAM SWING - WONDERFUL WORLD

Brooklyn based quartet, Padam Swing are set to release their forthcoming album, Wonderful World, a triumphant effort that sees the group, as fronted by chromatic harmonicist, Yvonnick Prene, blend gorgeously layered textures of traditional gypsy jazz with licks of contemporary and modern groove.

Inspired by the musical genius of Django Reinhardt heard echoing through the streets of Paris during the 30's and 40's, Padam Swing continue an esteemed tradition with Wonderful World, while breathing a new light on modern jazz through experimentation of rapid tempos and bold key changes.

It's a staggering achievement from the four pieces, comprised of Scott Tixier (violin), Michael Valeanu (guitar) and Lorin Cohen (bass), and lead by Yvonnick Prene, whose foundations in jazz were laid at an early age. "As a child I was often alone in my apartment in the suburbs of Paris - my parents were working late," remembers Prene, who grew up listening to his father's CD collection (think Rolling Stones, Muddy Water, Sonny Boy Williamson). "When I was 7, there was a guitar with broken strings and a plastic toy harmonica in the apartment, and I couldn't use the guitar so I took the harmonica and started to bring it to school."

Prene's career officially began in Paris at 17. Since then, Prene has gone onto garner attention and gain prestigious awards for his outstanding showmanship, both as harmonica performer and composer. In 2007, Prene was named as a finalist in the "Trophées du Sunside" competition in Paris alongside his band, and was invited to participate in the prestigious Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program in Washington D.C, 2011.

His distinction continued to elevate Prene amongst his peers in North America, and was the first harmonica player selected to audition for the distinguished Thelonious Monk Institute in Los Angeles, performing in front of jazz legends Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Jimmy Heat, Kenny Burrell and James Newton. Following his audition, doors continued to open for Prene, and he was awarded multiple full-tuition scholarships at The City College of New York, (MICEFA 2007), Columbia University (Alliance Program, 2008) and at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music (Merit-Based Scholarship, 2009). It was here are the New School that Prene had the opportunity to study with the masterful Lee Konitz, Reggie Washington, John Patittuci, Peter Bernstein, Charles Persip, Kevin Hays, Charles Tolliver, Ben Street, Jerome Sabbagh, and Aaron Goldberg.

After gaining his Masters in Music and Research at Sorbonne University in 2011, and a Bachelor of Art from the New School, Yvonne signed to Danish label, Steeple Chase Records, through which he released his stunning debut album, "Jour de Fete," and saw Prene tour in almost every corner of the globe across Europe, North America and The Caribbean.

Wonderful World takes listeners on an ethereal journey, with original gypsy bossa tracks composed by Prene himself including the playful, "The Swimmer," to Johnny Green's exuberant "Coquette," and the glittering "Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love" composed by Charlie Mingus. It's truly a modern masterpiece by some of the most talented contemporary musicians in the jazz world.

htp://www.yvonnickprene.com

http://padamswing.com

SUMMERSTAGE/CHARLIE PARKER JAZZ FESTIVAL SHOWCASE FEATURING THE REVIVE BIG BAND W/SPECIAL GUESTS BILAL & DR. LONNIE SMITH

City Parks Foundation, in partnership with the Winter Jazzfest is pleased to announce the SummerStage/Charlie Parker Jazz Festival Showcase, a special event taking place at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday, January 9, 2014. The Winter Jazzfest turns 10 years old in 2014 and in celebration of this milestone, Winter Jazzfest is expanding to five nights from January 7th through January 11th. As a part of this expansion, Le Poisson Rouge will host a preview of artists that will perform as part of the 2014 SummerStage/Charlie Parker Jazz Festival lineup. This evening will feature The Revive Big Band, featuring special guests Bilal, and Dr. Lonnie Smith.

The Revive Big Band

The musical styles, experience, and tastes of Revive’s members vary widely, but their collective mission is the same. “We’re carrying on, within the tradition of big bands, what would be relevant today,” bandleader Igmar Thomas says. “[We're] modifying the message and making it translatable, accessible to the people, so that they have something relevant to grasp on to. It represents that little bridge.” Revive’s repertoire is an authentic gumbo, featuring original compositions by Thomas, as well as epic orchestrations of selected productions from different producers and notable Hip-Hop songs combined with the original sampled jazz record, all re-imagined and arranged into original works for a big band. “Our voice is one that has a foot deeply placed in the jazz roots and the tradition of that, à la Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie – but also, another foot deeply invested in 2013, and so on. That’s the direction: Dizzy, Dilla, and us,” declares Thomas.

http://igmarthomas.blogspot.com

Bilal

A classically trained vocal veteran, Bilal released his debut album 1st Born Second in 2001, which boasted the popular single “Soul Sista.” The follow-up, Love for Sale (2006), was shelved but leaked entirely online yet was well received to fans and music critics and has become an underground classic. In the following years, Bilal has collaborated and performed with some of the industry’s most prominent artists including, Beyonce (Fighting Temptations), Common (Like Water for Chocolate, Electric Circus, Be, Finding Forever), Jay-Z (American Gangster), Erykah Badu (New Amerykah Part One, New Amerykah Part Two), Robert Glasper (All Matter), Boney James (Better With Time), Musiq (Soulstar) and The Roots among others. He also covered Radiohead’s “High & Dry” for the 2006 Radiohead tribute, Exit Music: Songs With Radio Heads. Bilal also appears in Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.

Dr. Lonnie Smith

Dr. Lonnie Smith is an unparalleled musician, composer, performer and recording artist. An authentic master and guru of the Hammond B-3 organ for over five decades, he has been featured on over seventy albums, and has recorded and performed with a virtual “Who’s Who” of the greatest Jazz, Blues and R&B giants in the industry. Consequently, he has often been hailed as a “Legend,” a “Living Musical Icon,” and as the most creative Jazz organist by a slew of music publications. Jazz Times magazine describes him as “a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a turban!” Always ahead of the curve, it is no surprise Dr. Smith’s fan-base is truly worldwide.

Ticket and Show Information

Tickets are required. Tickets are $15 in advance/$18 day of show

Doors open at 7:00PM

Concert begins at 8:00PM

For more event information, including group ticket sales, please visit Le Poisson Rouge’s website at:

http://www.lepoissonrouge.com/lpr_events/wjf10-summerstage-showcase-january-9th-2013/

ANNE FARNSWORTH - SEALED WITH A KISS

Jazz pianist and vocalist Anne Farnsworth’s latest release is Sealed With A Kiss, a collection of '60s and ‘70s pop and rock tunes she’s transformed with her arrangements into jazz. Along with her impressive singing and playing style, her rhythm section bandmates are key to the recording’s excellence. Master fretless bassist Alphonso Johnson and drummer Ndugu Chancler showcase the talents that led them to supporting bands like Santana and Weather Report. Tenor saxophonist Doug Webb appears on five of the tracks, with guitarist Steve Trovato on two.  The 13 tracks were recorded in high res and are available in FLAC format, as well as mp3 and CD.

Sealed With A Kiss pays loving homage to classic artists as stylistically diverse as Jimi Hendrix and Shelly Fabares. Farnsworth has found a recipe, a novel format for transforming these well-known favorites. Anne sings with a rich, flexible voice, supremely elegant, using her large range tastefully and without histrionics. On piano, she accompanies herself with dense, full-bodied chords and lyrical solos. Expansive tonal color and a full range of emotions are highlights of her musical style.

"...Sealed With A Kiss is a stunning collection of '60s rock tunes arranged for a jazz quartet." ~ HDTracks.com

“Anne Farnsworth is a jazz diva...”~ Jan Hocek - Jazzport.cz

"'60's Pop and Rock tunes arranged for jazz quartet? Sign me up!"

~ Christopher Levine - Eclecticblogs.com

"Love what you've done with the music. I’m spotlighting Sealed With A Kiss everyday this week....it's that good."~ James Janisse  - kebnradio.com

"Anne Farnsworth's calling cards are standards and modern pop - combining tasteful improvisation with lyrical imagination and a pinch of humor."~ La Stampa, Turin, Italy

"Her arrangements and performances transform such songs as “How Can I Be Sure,” “Until You Come Back To Me,” “Here, There And Everywhere” and even “Johnny Angel” into jazz without losing the essence of the pop melodies. To those of us who have always avoided pop music, these songs will sound like new material!" ~ Scott Yanow – LA Jazz Scene

RANDY BRECKER'S NIGHT IN CALISIA RECEIVES GRAMMY® NOMINATION

Multi-GRAMMY® Award winner Randy Brecker is back and sounding 'sweeter' than ever with a heart-touching musical 'celebration', written and brought to life for Randy by the talented Polish composer and trio leader, Wlodek Pawlik, and the wonderful Kalisz Philharmonic conducted by Adam Klocek .

This record is the result of a musical contribution to the celebration of the 1850th anniversary of Kalisz, the oldest city in Poland.  The culmination took place in June of 2010 with a concert called "Night in Calisia". The event was such a success the musicians decided to go into the studio to record the project nearly two years after the concert. The world premiere of a truly special project celebrating the city's anniversary.

"I'm honored to be nominated for this special project, a long time in the making which makes it even more special. When my brother Mike (Michael Brecker) was taken ill and needed bone marrow donors Wlodek Pawlik and family researched and found the area of Poland where our family on my mother's side: (Tecosky) lived: (Tykocin). After Mike's passing he wrote a suite dedicated to our family and the rigors or persecution in Poland, and I went to Tykocin and performed it. This became the CD Nostalgic Journey. Night in Calisia is part 2 of that journey. After winning Record or the Year in Poland 2013, I'm very happy that Night in Calisia is also being honored in the USA with a GRAMMY® Nomination! Amazing!...Thank you all!" - Randy Brecker

"...I was extremely happy that Wlodek accepted the commision of the Kalisz Philharmonic to write original music for us. It's not the first time that our orchestra has had the privilege to work with this outstanding composer and jazzman. This time around though, we are proud to present a world-premiere of a truly special project celebrating the city's anniversary, performing new remarkable compositions by Wlodek Pawlik, joined by the world-famous jazz giant Randy Brecker and the Wlodek Pawlik Trio. In my opinion, the music created by Pawlik is really beautiful, full of emotions and contrasts. I'm certain that it will catch your fancy..." Adam Klocek, Director of the Kalisz Philharmonic

Randy Brecker - trumpet

Wlodek Pawlik - piano

Pawel Panta - double bass, electric bass

Cezary Konrad - drums

Kalisz Philharmonic Orchestra

Adam Klocek - conductor

ALFREDO RODRIGUEZ - THE INVASION PARADE

"When you live in your own country, you are immersed in that reality and you're not necessarily conscious of all the different elements that make it what it is," says Cuban pianist and composer Alfredo Rodríguez, who moved to the United States in January 2009. "I breathed Cuban music. Being outside that reality gives me a different perspective. Creating and playing this music has been like finding out who I am, all over again." On The Invasion Parade, the follow-up to his stunning debut on Mack Avenue, Sounds of Space, Rodríguez explores his memories of Cuba, the people and the culture he left behind-and finds his new place.

 Co-produced by Quincy Jones, Rodríguez' champion and mentor, and featuring a superb ensemble that includes bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding, percussionist/vocalist Pedrito Martínez, and drummer/percussionist Henry Cole, The Invasion Parade comprises nine tracks including originals by Rodríguez as well as evergreens such as "Guantanamera," Maria Teresa Vera's "Veinte Años," and "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás."

  

"I searched different styles, different rhythms of Cuban music," explains Rodríguez. "I explored Conga Santiaguera [a rhythm from Santiago, in Eastern Cuba], Afro-Cuban music and also música guajira [country music]. I'm exploring the roots and searching for my own contribution to Cuban music."

Born in Havana, Cuba as the son of a popular singer, television presenter and entertainer of the same name, Rodríguez began his formal music education at seven. Percussion, not piano, was his first choice. "But to choose what I wanted I had to wait until I was 10," he explains. "So I picked piano. By the time I could actually switch to percussion, I knew the piano was my path."

H graduated to the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán, and then to the Instituto Superior de Arte. He had a strictly formal classical musical education, and learned popular styles on stage playing in his father's orchestra from the age of 14. "I had a chance to perform every day, and write arrangements for all kinds of music: boleros, rock 'n' roll, dance music, you name it. That is where I learned the discipline of being a professional musician."

He entered the world of jazz and improvisation at 15, when an uncle gave him Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert. "Until then it had been all Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. I didn't know anything about improvisation. The Köln Concert changed my life."

In 2006, Rodríguez was chosen to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival. While there, he was invited to a gathering at the house of the festival's founder and director, Claude Nobs, who asked him if he would play for Quincy Jones.

"When I finished, Quincy said he liked it a lot and that he wanted to work with me. That someone I admire so much would be interested in doing something with me was incredible. But I'm a realist, and while it was a nice idea I thought it would be difficult. And it was."

It took him three years. Finally in 2009, while in Mexico after playing some engagements with his father who lived there at the time, Rodríguez made his move with "nothing: a suitcase with a sweater, a pair of jeans and my music."

Sounds of Space, his first album on Mack Avenue, was released in 2011.

The title The Invasion Parade refers to an annual tradition, a carnival parade in Santiago de Cuba commemorating the invasion of the Liberation Army that marked the end of Cuba's War of Independence. In this blocks-long parade "not only comparsas [drumming and dance groups] participate but also all the people of Santiago, they come out and join playing whatever they have-drums, pots, whatever, and singing improvised lyrics," explains Rodríguez.

The term "invasion" in the title, he's quick to note, "refers to the invasion of the streets by people who come out to participate and celebrate. In my mind it also has to do with an invasion of culture. I wrote and arranged the music but not everybody in the group is Cuban. We have Cubans but also Americans [such as Esperanza Spalding], a Puerto Rican [Henry Cole], a Bulgarian [bassist Peter Slavov] and it's a mix of cultures in which everybody contributes."

The soprano sax in "The Invasion Parade" is featured to evoke the Chinese trumpet, the one melodic instrument in the Santiago conga ensemble. "The idea is to recall that sound without trying to sound traditional-and at the same time express who we are," he explains.

The sunny "Guantanamera" receives a dissonant, almost unsettling treatment. "My music is very influenced by contemporary music-Messiaen, Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Prokofiev-and I try to bring my experience and that sound to Cuban music to take it to a different place," he says. "And obviously, my 'Guantanamera' is not about the same Guantanamera that [composer] Joseíto Fernández knew [in the 1920s]," explains Rodríguez. "For me, music comes from life experience. My music reflects the reality I lived in and my experiences, which are very different from his."

The Latin standard "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" and the classic "Veinte Años" were set as a change of pace from Rodríguez' detailed, tightly constructed compositions and arrangements.

"We have performed 'Quizás...' many times with the trio so we just went into the studio and played it," says Rodríguez. "We did the same with 'Veinte Años.' We know this music so we just let ourselves go. I think it adds some balance to the record after so much composed music. It adds a looser, more spontaneous feel."

Rodríguez also explores the music of the Yoruba-rooted, Afro-Cuban religion better known in the U.S. as Santería, from unexpected and often deeply personal angles.

"A Santa Bárbara," dedicated to the Catholic Saint who has her counterpart in Santería as the deity Changó, is a classic song by Celina y Reutilio, a beloved duo of Cuban guajiro music. "Reutilio died many years ago, but Celina [González] was very close to my family. I even had the chance to play and arrange for Celina, so this a very personal song for me," says Rodríguez. "Those of us working on improvised music, have been exploring Afro-Cuban music and the country music of Cuba has been ignored, and it's a beautiful part of our culture."

"Snails in the Creek" "Caracoles en el Riachuelo") is a song for Eleggua, another Santeria deity, and features the singing of Pedrito Martínez, which he improvised in the studio.

"El Güije," titled after a goblin in Cuban fables, features Spalding on vocals and evokes the quirky, playful melodies of Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal, a Rodríguez favorite. "This is a song that has influences from the Caribbean, South America and other places, but the rhythmic foundation is Cuban and to me it means that yes, we are global, but underneath it all, our roots are Cuban."

And then in "Timberobot" and "Cubismo," Rodríguez addresses his interest in and concerns about technology, modernity-but also dancing, and in particular, timba a modern Cuban style.

"Sometimes there's a gulf between the intellectual elements around music and the dancer's needs. It happened in jazz and it was very damaging. In my music I don't want to lose that connection to the dance floor, and that doesn't happen with music that has a folk essence. You go ask a rumbero [rumba practitioner] in Cuba and for him there is no difference between the singer, the player and the dancer. It's all one thing. And if you don't know all the three aspects then for him, you know nothing about it."

As if to drive the point home, "Cubismo" has a simple, repeated refrain: "Dancing Cubism." "It's a celebration of timba-but a Picasso timba, a Juan Gris timba," he offers with a laugh. "It's an abstract timba. You are dancing timba and looking at 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'.

"The invasion of The Invasion Parade is a peaceful one, and an honest one," he says. "It's a celebration to which all are invited, exactly like in the conga Santiaguera. That's the message we want to send out."

Upcoming Alfredo Rodríguez Performances:

February 7 / Cornell University Concert Series / Ithaca, NY

March 6 / Scullers Jazz Club / Boston, MA

March 7 / Ferst Center for the Arts / Atlanta, GA

March 8 / Art on Broadway - First United Methodist Church / Wichita, KS

March 14 / Michigan Theater / Ann Arbor, MI

March 22 / The Broad Stage at Santa Monica College/ Santa Monica, CA

March 28 / Napa Valley Performing Arts Center at the Lincoln Theater / Yountville, CA

April 23 / Kuumbwa Jazz Society / Santa Cruz, CA

April 24 - 27 / SFJAZZ Center / San Francisco, CA

PATRICE JEGOU - FROM THIS MOMENT ON

“From This Moment On”, featuring Grammy-winning trombonist Conrad Herwig, is the first single from the award-winning Canadian-born vocalist, Patrice Jégou. Jégou, a classically trained mezzo-soprano, is a former figure skater who changed careers in her twenties at the suggestion of a cast-mate while skating in an ice show in Mexico. Patrice holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts in Classical vocal performance from Rutgers University (Mason Gross School of the Arts). Patrice and her accompanying musicians deliver a blisteringly-hot performance on this recording. The hard-swinging arrangement by top Nashville arranger Chris McDonald features a scorching trombone solo by Herwig. Jégou is blessed with an arrestingly beautiful and sophisticated voice. She handles multiple musical genres with ease, effortlessly delivering jazz, big band, gospel and blues with a rare mastery that evokes instant comparisons to Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Eva Cassidy, and Diana Krall.

Jégou’s debut CD, “Speak Low”, due out in April 2014, was produced by Yinka Oyelese, Mark Kibble of the vocal group Take 6, and Cheryl Bentyne of The Manhattan Transfer. “Speak Low” features collaborations with several of the world’s finest musicians and arrangers including multi-Grammy winners such as the vocal group Take 6, Gospel superstar Andraé Crouch and the Andraé Crouch Singers, world-renowned jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum, bassists Victor Wooten and David Finck, trombonist Conrad Herwig, and guitarists Bob Mann, Paul Jackson Jr and Vic Juris, among others.

Jégou has performed extensively in the USA, Canada and Mexico, as well as in Europe (England, Spain, Italy), and South America (Peru and Argentina). In Trujillo, Peru, she won First Prize at the prestigious international singing competition, IX Concurso y Festival Internacional de Canto Lírico. After two coveted residencies at the Banff Center in Canada, Patrice is embarking on a new musical chapter in her life, transitioning away from Classical singing and moving towards musical styles that were always her first love: jazz, blues, gospel, and big band.

With her extensive Classical training, Patrice’s rich mezzo soprano voice reflects a rare combination of discipline, power, flexibility, warmth, and beauty: qualities she finds in some her favorite singers like Diane Schuur, Sarah Vaughan, Patsy Cline, kd lang, and Shirley Bassey. Patrice currently resides in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

Patrice says “It is a great honor and privilege to share my new single and video via the Jazz Network Worldwide, the leading online jazz community. I am excited that The Jazz Network Worldwide will play a crucial role in the launch of my new CD in spring 2014.”

TONY BENNETT, DIANA KRALL, STEVE WINWOOD, TROMBONE SHORTY, JOHN PIZZARELLI, MONTY ALEXANDER HEADLINE JAS ASPEN SNOWMASS 2014 FESTIVAL

JAS Aspen Snowmass have announced their 2014 June Festival line-up, including four nights of music at the Benedict Music Tent, JAS Café Downstairs @ the Nell performances, and the continuation of the June Festival lawn party. With dates which coincide with the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, JAS has altered the first weekend of the Festival to a Thursday - Saturday format, kicking-off on Thursday, June 19 with a rollicking night of New Orleans music featuring trombonist and vocalist Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue. "Brass band, funk, rock and even some gospel-drenched soul music.. in many ways, he is a genre unto himself," says Billboard Magazine of Shorty. The band will be joined by special guests The Soul Rebels Brass Band and the legendary New Orleans jazz vocalist John Boutté, whose diverse styles encompass blues, Latin, gospel and R 'n B.

On Friday, June 20 multiple GRAMMY® Award-winning jazz singer/pianist Diana Krall will take the stage in her first return to Aspen since 2006. Krall's new show, based on her extraordinary new album Glad Rag Doll, is an exhilarating and adventurous exploration of new sounds, new instrumentation and new musicians, which Diana calls, "a song and dance record." 

 

Tony Bennett (Photo courtesy of the Artist)

The first weekend of the festival will conclude on Saturday, June 21 with one of the most influential artists in all of popular music, Steve Winwood. For more than four decades Winwood has remained a primary figure in rock 'n' roll. His last performance in Aspen was at the 2007 JAS June Festival where he kept an enthusiastic audience on their feet throughout the entire night. 

The following weekend, on Saturday, June 28, JAS and the Aspen Music Festival and School will co-present a very special evening at the Benedict Music Tent featuring the legendary Tony Bennett. New this year, JAS & AMFS will offer an on-site pre-concert dinner at the JAS Patron Hospitality Tent, mirroring the Patron (VIP) ticket that JAS provides at their festivals. Patron tickets will include gourmet catered hors d'oeuvres, dinner and dessert, full open bars, on-site parking, and premium floor seating for the concert. Reserved and general admission seating will also be available for Bennett's performance. 

The expanded Free Lawn Party, a huge hit at last year's June Festival, will once again take place on the Benedict Music Tent grounds prior to the main stage acts on June 19-21, starting at 6pm nightly. The party includes a variety of on-site food booths, beverage and full bar service vendors and live music on two stages.

  

Additional shows surrounding the Festival will take place at the JAS Café Downstairs at the Nell, including jazz vocalist René Marie on June 26-27 with a tribute to one of America's most iconic entertainers, Eartha Kitt, a show based on Marie's acclaimed new release I Wanna Be Evil. Marie is followed by vocalist Tierney Sutton on July 2-3 performing "After Blue," a tribute to Joni Mitchell, from her new release.

Other highlights of the 2014 JAS Café Summer Season include the return of Jamaican jazz piano virtuoso Monty Alexander's Harlem Kingston Express, August 8-9 and world-renowned jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli, August 15-16. More summer shows will be announced at a later date.

Tickets for the June 19-21 JAS June Festival performances at Benedict Music Tent and the summer JAS Café performances will go on-sale Monday, January 6 through the JAS Box Office at 866-JAS-TIXX (527-8499), www.jazzaspensnowmass.org or at the Belly Up Box Office in Aspen (970-544-9800). Tickets for the Tony Bennett show will also go on-sale Monday, January 6 at the AMFS Box Office, 970-925-9042 or www.aspenmusicfestival.com.

  

Patron (VIP) tickets for the JAS June 19-21 Festival will be available on January 6 at 970-920-4996 or www.jazzaspensnowmass.org. Lodging and ticket packages can be found at 800-SNOWMASS.

 For more information on the JAS June Festival please visit www.jazzaspensnowmass.org or call JAS at 970-920-4996.

Aritsts appearing:

Trombone Shorty (Photo: Kirk Edwards)

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue: Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews has God-given talent, natural charisma and a relentless drive to bridge music's past and future. His latest album, Say That to Say This, sounds like nothing else out there, as Andrews and his longtime band, Orleans Avenue - guitarist Pete Murano, bassist Mike Ballard and drummer Joey Peebles - continue their natural musical evolution.In a very real sense, the torch is passed from one great New Orleans band to another on the album, which features the first new studio recording from the original members of the legendary Meters in 36 years, as they revisit their 1977 classic "Be My Lady," with Andrews singing lead and playing horns.

Andrews' previous projects include 2010's GRAMMY® Award-nominated Backatown and hissophomore effort, For True which spent 12 weeks atop Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Chart. In the past few years alone, Andrews has appeared on recordings by an eclectic assortment of artists ranging from Zac Brown to Eric Clapton to Rod Steward and Cee Lo Green. In February 2012 Andrews performed at The White House. "That was a dream come true about 50 times over," he says. "When we started playing I forgot I was out the White House because I was on stage with all this musical royalty - B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Booker T. Jones, Jeff Beck, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Gary Clark Jr., the list goes on. And then, when I turned to the audience, there's the President and the First Lady. I'm like 'This can't be happening.'" Good things continue to happen for Trombone Shorty, thanks to his virtuosity, his dedication, and his ability to move people. That he pursues his passion with such humility and unpretentiousness makes his still-unfolding story as compelling as the music he's making along the way.

John Boutte: John Boutte's job is to sing - to sing jazz, to sing it with such style and grace that no one ever mistakes him for anything other than a master. Growing up, Boutte was awakened by the sounds of his New Orleans neighborhood. Voices carried over the fence from the church behind his home in the Seventh Ward, the home where his mother Gloria still lives, where most of his Creole family still lives and sings. Past the front yard, second-line parades rolled by, matching the madness of Carnival season and the transcendent joy of the jazz funeral. This roux of influences created John Boutte, and serves him to this day. He is one of those remarkable cases where the art arises from the true heart.

Diana Krall: Diana Krall's extraordinary new album Glad Rag Doll, is an exhilarating and adventurous exploration of new sounds, new instrumentation and new musicians. It stars a singer and piano player, filled with mischief, humor and a renewed sense of tenderness and intimacy. The record reveals itself at that remarkable vanishing point in time where all music: swinging, rocking and taboo, collide with songs of longing, solace and regret. All are made new again in a vaudeville of Krall's own imagining. It is at once a major departure and a natural progression for the gifted musician. Diana simply calls the album "a song and dance record." As ever with a Diana Krall record, her distinctive feel and unique sense of time is crucial. She has established a new and exciting rhythmic rapport with drummer Jay Bellerose and bassist Dennis Crouch that has let loose some of her most joyous piano playing heard on record to date.Krall's 2009 GRAMMY® Award-winning album, Quiet Nights, used Brazil as a musical point of reference and landed at #3 on the Billboard 200, her highest ever position on the chart and her fourth consecutive album to debut within the top 10.

Steve Windwood (Photo: Sam Erickson)

Steve Winwood: For more than four decades, Steve Winwood has remained a primary figure in rock 'n' roll, a respected innovator who has helped to create some of the genre's most celebrated achievements. Winwood burst into prominence in 1963 with the Spencer Davis Group and since that time his celebrated skills as a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist have developed an impressive catalog of popular music.

It should come as no surprise to learn that many honors have been bestowed on Steve Winwood. He is a recipient of the Ivor Novello Outstanding Song Collection and the Musicians Union Classic Rock Award - honors both voted for by his peers. He has also received an honorary Doctorate Degree in Music from Berkley College of Music as well as a second Doctorate from Ashton University in his hometown of Birmingham, England. While rightfully acknowledged for his many achievements, Winwood forges ahead undaunted, continuing to create and perform new and exciting material.

Tony Bennett: Tony Bennett, one of the legends of jazz and popular music, was born in Astoria, Queens New York on August 3, 1926. He had his first hit, "Because of You," in 1951 and made a career singing standards, including his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Bennett's career waned in the mid-1960s, as rock music became dominant, but rebounded in the 1990s as Bennett brought back his original style, tuxedo and the Great American Songbook. Bennett has won 17 GRAMMY® Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award), and two Emmy Awards. He has been named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree and has sold over 50 million records worldwide.

René Marie: René Marie - singer, actress, writer. Eartha Kitt - singer, actress, writer. Never before has there been a vocal recording tipping the hat to the divine Ms. Kitt and her fiery, sensual and clever interpretations of songs. With her incredible range of vocal ability, her powerful emotional resonance and strong independent streak, René is the right artist to conceive of this historic project, her latest album: I Wanna Be Evil (With Love to Eartha Kitt). This brilliantly entertaining album burnishes René's reputation as the most provocative risk-taker among today's jazz divas. For René Marie, success means shining attention on important issues in America and on bold artists like Eartha Kitt who helped change America's landscape for the better. René has become one of those bold artists.

Tierney Sutton: "A serious jazz artist who takes the whole enterprise to another level," - The New York Times. Sutton, a five-time GRAMMY® nominee, is often described as "a singer's singer," but just as often she is described as a "musician's singer," who uses her voice like an instrument. Spanning over 20 years of collaboration, the Tierney Sutton Band's nine CD's have consistently topped the US jazz charts, leading to Tierney's selection as Jazzweek's Vocalist of the Year as well as to numerous other accolades in the music world. Tierney's latest CD, After Blue, is an intimate, jazz-inspired re-imagining of the legacy of Joni Mitchell.

Monty Alexander's Harlem Kingston Express: Jamaican jazz piano virtuoso Monty Alexander is acclaimed the world over for his seemingly extraterrestrial technique and sublime, heartfelt swing. In a career spanning five decades he has built a reputation exploring the worlds of American jazz, popular song, and the music of his native Jamaica, finding in each a sincere spirit of musical expression. For the Harlem-Kingston Express presentation, Alexander traveled to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studio in Kingston and teamed up with Jamaican top session players to record Concrete Jungle, a set of twelve compositions penned by Bob Marley and reinterpreted via Alexander's jazz piano-oriented arrangements. The resulting union of musical perspectives digs deep into the Marley legend and brings together the two worlds that Alexander most treasures, building the musical bridges that are the very essence of his craft.

  

John Pizzarelli: World-renowned jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli was called "Hip with a wink," by Town & Country, "madly creative" by The Los Angeles Times and "the genial genius of the guitar" by The Toronto Star. Using performers like Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra and Joao Gilberto and the songs of composers from Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin to James Taylor, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Lennon & McCartney as touchstones, Pizzarelli has established himself as one of the prime interpreters of the Great American Songbook and beyond, bringing to his work the cool jazz flavor of his brilliant guitar playing and singing.

 

REGINA CARTER - SOUTHERN COMFORT

Violinist Regina Carter is considered the foremost jazz violinist of her generation - a designation which doesn't quite paint the picture.  As a result of her curiosity, passion, and quest for beauty brought to every stop taken on her full musical journey, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (a "genius grant"). Those are more apparent than ever on her upcoming debut Southern Comfort (Sony Music Masterworks), in which she explores the folk music of the South.  The album will be released on March 4, 2014 and coincide with an international tour.

Southern Comfort thematically connects Carter's earlier albums I'll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey (2006), which features her mother's favorite early jazz standards; and Reverse Thread (2010) which celebrates the tradition of African music re-imagined for violin, accordion, bass, drams and kora. On her new album she explores the folk tunes her paternal grandfather, a coalminer, would have heard as he toiled in Alabama - and the project expanded to include other folk tunes of the region. 

Intent on making the past, present, Regina sought out distant relatives and books about the era in which her grandfather lived.  From there, she went to the Library of Congress and the renowned collections of folklorists such as Alan Lomax and John Work III digging deep into their collected field recordings from Appalachia.  On Southern Comfort, Regina interprets her own roots through a modern lens.

"When I would hear some of these field recordings, if I heard something that touched me I put it on the list," said Carter.  "I had maybe 50 tunes that I felt strongly about, and I finally forced myself to work more on those to stop myself from collecting more."

The 11 tracks on Southern Comfort include Carter's interpretations of Cajun fiddle music, early gospel and coal miner's work songs in addition to some more contemporary tunes.

"In the Appalachians there were Scottish and Irish descendants, slaves and Native Americans. It was a cultural hodgepodge and the music resulting from it is intoxicating.  This disc was to pay homage to my family," said Carter, "but it turned out to be so much more."

The musicians on this recording bring a different mixture of backgrounds to the project, including guitarists Adam Rogers and Marvin Sewell, bassists Chris Lightcap and Jesse Murphy, accordionist Will Holshouser and drummer Alvester Garnett, who also provided arrangements.  Stefon Harris, Xavier Davis and Nate Smith also contributed arrangements, about which Carter expressed, "Each arranger brings out something musically that's unique to them which speaks to me."

On being signed to Sony Music Masterworks, Carter adds, "I'm so excited to work with a label that has such history; it's the perfect place for this project. Moreover, it's wonderful to be reunited with U.S. label head Chuck Mitchell. I've provided Southern Comfort - the nurturance and comfort Chuck and SONY have provided covers a realm far greater."

Tracklisting:

1.Miner's Child   

2.Trampin'   

3.Hickory Wind   

4.Shoo-Rye   

5.Blues de Basile   

6.I'm Going Home   

7.Honky Tonkin'   

8.Cornbread Crumbled in Gravy   

9.See See Rider   

10.I Moaned and I Moaned   

11.Death Have Mercy/Breakaway   

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