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The clock is ticking down to December 25 yet there is still time for a shout out for what is up there with the best festive tunes of the year. Taken from Michael Lington’s seasonal album ‘A Foreign Affair Christmas’ his simply yet soulful rendition of Wham's 1984 classic ‘Last Christmas’ is different enough to stand out from the crowd of usual Christmas suspects.
Good track
At the risk of being somewhat ‘Scrooge-like’ I have to confess a love hate relationship with smooth jazz at Christmas time. Over the years it has been akin to a right of passage for smooth jazz artists to release their very own festive collections yet in doing so their ambitions have been in the main limited to regurgitating the same old seasonal tunes over and over again. Of course there have been exceptions, the 2006 gem from Brian Culbertson, ‘Soulful Christmas’ or the equally good Boney James effort, ‘Christmas Present’, that followed a year later. Perhaps best of all was James Taylor’s magical 2004 recording on the Hallmark label, ‘A Christmas Album’, that featured piano from Dave Grusin but all these were a long time ago and since then nothing too much has come along to challenge them.
One artist who has attempted (several times) to do so is Dave Koz who, twenty-two years after releasing his first Christmas CD, ‘December Makes Me Feel This Way’,has just released his latest Christmas present to his fans, ‘Gifts Of The Season’. Produced, recorded and mixed by Darren Rahn this sharp 11-track collection features performances from Jonathan Butler, Melissa Manchester, Michael Lington and Chris Walker with half the tracks, being completely new to Koz with the other half comprising tunes he has recorded before.
Tipping a hat to Marvin Gaye with his tribute album ‘Dear Marvin’, sax-man Elan Trotman seems to have backed a winner. The first single from it, ‘Got To Give It Up’ proved to be a Billboard charting success and now, with the timeless ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’, he looks all set to repeat the performance. It is a rendition that brings freshness to the familiar in the most delightful of ways with input from veteran trombone player Jeff Bradshaw being the icing on the cake. Joining Bradshaw to make a feisty horn section is trumpeter Alex Lee Clark while simmering organ from Mitch Henry and rock solid backing from Sherrod Barnes on guitar, Keithen Foster on bass, Atticus Cole on percussion and Charles Haynes on drums all ensure the result is tight as tight can be.
The incomparable Peter White has often been described as the hardest working performer in smooth jazz and his 2019 schedule has proved him to be all that and then some. Yet away from the cruises, the tours and the globetrotting his latest endeavour has been to write a collection of songs for Starlux Airlines, a new luxury airline based in Taiwan. Primarily intended to be played on the airline’s onboard entertainment systems the tracks turned out so well they have become a six-track album simply titled ‘Music for STARLUX Airlines’.
Continue reading "Peter White - Music For Starlux Airlines" »
Currently preparing to join Peter White, Euge Groove and Vincent Ingala for the annual Peter White Christmas Show (check www.peterwhite.com for venues and ticket information) jazz vocalist Lindsey Webster is both looking back on what by any account has been a breakthrough year and looking forward to 2020 when her latest CD ‘A Woman Like Me’ will be released.
The single selected to showcase the album on radio is the ultra cool ultra sophisticated ‘Feels Like Forever’ that is smooth jazz for grown ups and then some.
Check back here in 2020 for a complete review of ‘A Woman Like Me’.
Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist d.Mills first registered on the Smooth Jazz Therapy radar in 2013 with the album ‘On The Table’. The first single from it was ‘59thSt.’ that not only captured the streetwise attitude of New York (the city that he then called home) but was also reminiscent of the kind of tune which worked perfectly as the theme music for a television cop show.
That’s isn’t as strange as it might sound as back then d.Mills wasn’t just carving out a career in music, he was also working as a NYPD detective.
He retired from the force a year later, relocating to Florida and marking the occasion with the single ‘Still Waters’.
Now, after way too long d.Mills is back with ‘Street’, a cool moody number of the highest order.
Sultry and sexy, the latest single from sax-man Andre Cavor is his reimagining of Jeffrey Osborne’s 1983 smash ‘Stay With Me Tonight’. It is taken from Andre’s latest CD ‘Reinvention’ which, in turn, is the follow up to his 2017 project ‘Road Trip’. By way of a spoiler alert this cool reworking of what originally was an up-tempo dance floor filler is very different to the original and worth checking out.