http://www.mackavenue.com/ en tony@mackavenue.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-14T05:54:48+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/review_mcbride_makes_music_of_the_people_for_the_people/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/review_mcbride_makes_music_of_the_people_for_the_people/#When:05:54:48Z Tuesday, bassist Christian McBride releases "People Music" (Mack Avenue), his latest work under his Inside Straight quintet banner — one of four ensembles that he leads. My non-objective opinion aside as "We Always Swing" Jazz Series executive director, anyone who attended the recent Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour Celebration concert at Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts likely has a clear understanding not only of McBride's leadership capability — he served as that project's musical director — but also of his skill and energy level. It still amazes me that McBride — who I first encountered as a 17-year-old arrival on the New York scene, fresh from his native Philadelphia — will celebrate only his 41st birthday at the end of this month. Not only does it seem as though he has been on the scene forever now, but he has essentially been omnipresent. He has been everywhere — hear on XM/Sirius radio with his own interview show from Jazz at Lincoln Center, writing documentary soundtracks, serving as a music curator for a number of presenting series, mingling within both the hip-hop and R&B worlds, and recording and touring not only as a leader but also as a sideman with a bevy of his elders: Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea and Pat Metheny among them. - Read the entire article at ColumbiaTribune.com Reviews 2013-05-14T05:54:48+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/review_cecile_mclorin_salvant_-_woman_child/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/review_cecile_mclorin_salvant_-_woman_child/#When:21:03:31Z If you haven’t heard Cécile McLorin Salvant sing, Woman Child, her American debut album, will be something of a revelation. Winner of the Kennedy Center’s 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, the Miami-born artist studied classical music as well as jazz in France, where she worked with reed player and teacher Jean-François Bonnel and recorded her first album Cécile with his quintet. This is a young jazz singer who has it all—a rich velvet voice, inventive wit and musical maturity, and it is all on display on her new album. “I want to get as close to the centers of the song as I can,” she explains in a publicity release. “When I find something beautiful and touching I try to get close to it, and share that with the audience.” Joined on the album by Aaron Diehl on piano, James Chirillo on guitar and banjo, Rodney Whitaker on double bass and Herlin Riley on drums, McLorin Salvant puts together a setlist of tunes that she feels are “a little unknown or have been recorded very few times.” They may not be recognized as standards, she adds, but “many should be because they are so beautifully crafted.” Indeed, listening to the freshness of her performances, you can’t help but agree. Accompanied by the solo guitar, she opens with a traditional Bessie Smith blues number, “St. Louis Gal.” It is a clean spare performance that puts the focus on the vocal. Contrast this with her rich and playful take on the whimsical “Nobody” or the modern jazz sound of the album’s title song. This last one features some excellent solo work from Diehl and the rest of the ensemble. “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” sparkles with an almost flirty touch and a contrasting bass solo. “Le Front Caché Sur Tes Genoux” is a Salvant original, a waltz with a lyric from a poem by Haitian Ida Salomon Faubert. “Jitterbug Waltz” gets a kind of honky tonk treatment, while “John Henry,” the 19th century folk ballad gets a contemporary touch. And perhaps the tour de force of the album is the singer’s rapid fire take on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” which comes in at just under nine minutes and ends with one hell of a note. It makes the final track, “Deep Dark Blue,” seem a bit anti-climactic. If Cécile McLorin Salvant isn’t yet on your radar, Woman Child will put her there. - Read the entire article at BlogCritics.org Reviews 2013-04-29T21:03:31+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/examiner.com_-_top_5_cds_everyone_should_listen_to_this_year/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/examiner.com_-_top_5_cds_everyone_should_listen_to_this_year/#When:18:46:21Z Cécile McLorin Salvant - WomanChild When Cécile McLorin Salvant, 23, first burst onto the jazz scene in her late teens in the States, she confounded yet charmed both critics and the mass populace with her playful, modern takes on ancient, obscure tunes from way, way back. She throws down hard with her upcoming, May 28th release on Mack Avenue Records. “Womanchild” shows off the chilling range of those pipes as she fairly disembowels another era altogether. - Read the entire article at Examiner.com Yellowjackets - A Rise In The Road The Yellowjackets are back with “A Rise In The Road,” out June 25th via Mack Avenue Records. The multiple-Grammy-winning jazz band is missing its core, bassist Jimmy Haslip. But taking his place is the more-than-able Felix Pastorius. Special guest star, award-winning trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire lends his sterling notes to three of the tracks. Nothing else is missing in this fantastic, seamless follow-up, which cements this iconic band’s place in jazz circles still. - Read the entire article at Examiner.com Mack Avenue News 2013-04-16T18:46:21+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/aaron_diehls_bespoke_mans_narrative_puts_new_spin_on_modern_jazz_quartet/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/aaron_diehls_bespoke_mans_narrative_puts_new_spin_on_modern_jazz_quartet/#When:18:12:38Z The hot, young 2011 Cole Porter Fellow in Jazz could’ve gone in any creative direction for his first album on Mack Avenue Records (a payoff of the win). Aaron Diehl, 27, went back in time to a period where big band and be bop were kings and a neoclassical pianist by the name of John Lewis enacted a Renaissance of improvisational jazz and structured chamber music. In the 1950s and on into 1999, Lewis and his Modern Jazz Quartet — vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Connie Kay — classed up jazz. They revolutionized the concept and style of jazz with an emphasis on making full use of every note and the spaces in between, to where nothing went to waste, paying equal attention to the improvisational and written portions of each tune, as well as applying the fugue effect, playing a series of differing melodies concurrently. Known for the hit, “Django,” MJQ would set the bar high and set the trend for subsequent jazz-classical bands everywhere, with far-reaching, cross-over effects. In keeping with the Renaissance, Lewis also maintained the band’s fashionable first impressions. Every member of the band had to be dressed up and to the nines, with the same fastidious attention to detail as they paid to the music. It was while Aaron Diehl, then 19 and a sophomore at Juilliard, was tending to the late John Lewis’ music archives — all in an effort to make it easy on surviving widow Mirjana — that inspiration first hit for this debut album. In 2008, the rest of the concept came into view when... - Read the entire article at Examiner.com Reviews 2013-03-27T18:12:38+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/aaron_diehl_the_bespoke_mans_narrative/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/aaron_diehl_the_bespoke_mans_narrative/#When:00:28:45Z The wait ends soon. Jazz fans and critics have been eagerly anticipating pianist Aaron Diehl’s new album, which finally arrives on March 19. (Earlier in his career, the 26-year-old Diehl released a couple of live discs.) In 2011, Diehl was the first-place winner of the Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz Competition presented by the American Pianists Association. The victory earned him an opportunity to make a studio album for the Mack Avenue label. The elegant result, The Bespoke Man’s Narrative, had been slated to arrive in stores last summer, but its release was delayed. After listening to a promotional copy of this album for several weeks—and after seeing Diehl perform at the Detroit Jazz Festival in September—I believe he’s ready for his close-up (i.e., the international media attention that accompanies an exceptional debut disc). But rather than offering an ego-driven statement that focuses excessively on his own technical prowess, Diehl has delivered a disc that allows the gifted players in his quartet to shine. Over the course of five original numbers and five new arrangements, his potent piano work is intertwined with the music of drummer Rodney Green, bassist David Wong and vibraphonist Warren Wolf (on seven tracks). The quartet traffics in graceful swing on “The Cylinder,” featuring a spaciousness that surrounds Wolf’s ringing notes on the vibes. Although Diehl excels with balladry, he can also unleash the fireworks, as he does with a frenetic flurry of notes in the double-time section of “Stop And Go.” An eight-minute rendition of the Gershwins’ “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” features poignant arco segments from Wong, plus supple brushwork from Green that adds a late-night feel to the early section, followed by a trap-set accent at the 6:28 mark, setting up the regal exhalation that becomes the song’s satisfying conclusion. - Read more at DownBeat Magazine Reviews 2013-03-13T00:28:45+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/kevin_eubanks_-_the_messenger_new_york_times/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/kevin_eubanks_-_the_messenger_new_york_times/#When:18:36:01Z Eclecticism was a creative prerogative for the guitarist Kevin Eubanks long before he took the musical helm of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” when it became a corporate necessity. Mr. Eubanks left the show in 2010, and his output since has suggested a gentle but pointed reclamation. Consider the title and tone of “Zen Food,” released on Mack Avenue that year. “The Messenger,” due out on the same label on Tuesday, is a sharper and less self-conscious album, his most satisfying in more than a decade. An amalgam of funk and fusion, it also features some beautiful ballad writing, on songs like “The Gloaming” and “Sister Veil.” Mr. Eubanks’s longtime band, which includes Bill Pierce on saxophones and Marvin (Smitty) Smith on drums, supports the effortless flair of his playing — as do Mr. Eubanks’s brothers, Robin (a trombonist) and Duane (a trumpeter), on a few tracks. And if nobody ever asked for a slow-groove version of John Coltrane’s “Resolution” featuring Alvin Chea of Take 6, the result ends up exceeding all reasonable expectations, especially during a too-brief guitar solo. - Read more at New York Times Reviews 2013-02-15T18:36:01+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/adding_pages_to_a_songbook_new_york_times/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/adding_pages_to_a_songbook_new_york_times/#When:17:13:58Z Can one astoundingly gifted singer revive a beloved but dormant jazz vocal tradition? They say it takes only one to start a movement. As Cécile McLorin Salvant spun songs into a brilliant silk tapestry at the Allen Room on Saturday evening, I thought, “Here she is.” If anyone can extend the lineage of the Big Three — Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald — it is this 23-year-old virtuoso born in Miami to a French mother and a Haitian father and trained in France. Ms. Salvant has it all: perfect pitch and enunciation, a playful sense of humor, a rich and varied tonal palette, a supple sense of swing, exquisite taste in songs and phrasing, and a deep connection to lyrics. She fearlessly bends notes, but always toward an expressive purpose, and her scat improvisations are not the kind of vacuous ornamentation that has become the bane of contemporary jazz singing. Her temperament is sunny, but she is no simpering Pollyanna. For years music journalists have presumptuously proclaimed one or another aspiring jazz singer to be the next Billie, Sarah, or Ella the way rock critics in the 1970s used to announce “the new Dylan” every month or so. In contemporary jazz only one singer, the imperial and expansive Dianne Reeves, comes close to matching the Big Three. Now the question remains: given the totally different technological and cultural landscape that exists half a century after the golden age, can history repeat itself? Ms. Salvant’s performance with an excellent trio — Aaron Diehl on piano, Paul Sikivie on bass and Rodney Green on drums — was the crowning moment in the first four evenings of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. Each program was devoted to a different female singer. - Read more at New York Times Reviews 2013-02-04T17:13:58+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/kevin_eubanks_releases_textural_mindscape_in_the_messenger/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/kevin_eubanks_releases_textural_mindscape_in_the_messenger/#When:16:45:38Z Kevin Eubanks doesn’t try to tell audiences what to think about his music. He plays and lets them decide for themselves. This is an open-minded guitarist and songwriter (of The Tonight Show fame) who prefers definitions and interpretations in the abstract without any hint of the abstruse. Jazz is the bottom line, but never the end of the road. In Eubanks’ upcoming album, “The Messenger” (a February 19th, Mack Avenue Records release), the music — mostly originals, save for Max Middleton’s “Led Boots” and John Coltrane’s “Resolution” — lends itself well to future, live jam sessions with a world of guest artist possibilities crossing every stylistic genre. This is, after all, the guitarist’s intrinsic chic, broadened in scope from his ambient, 2010 freshman release, “Zen Food.” “I wanted to branch out a little bit more on this recording. I didn't want to be as concerned with the ‘jazz sound’ as much; I wanted to let out a little bit more of what I've been musically exposed to,” Eubanks said. “…to me, it’s all just music… As jazz musicians, we can play anything.” Kevin Eubanks, his core Quartet — bassist Rene Camacho, percussionist Joey De Leon Jr., drummer Marvin Smitty Smith, reedist Billy Pierce — and a few special guests, including brothers Duane> (trumpet) and Robin (trombone), and Take 6’s Alvin Chea definitely play anything. They give funk, blues, rock, and modern jazz a textural, lingering quality that’s hard to beat. “The Messenger” is a slight departure and evolution from Eubanks’ previous album, “Zen Food,” but not a drastic one. He’s still got a loose, relaxed, meditative hold overall — this is a guy who has to take his time in the moment and really savor each note, nothing goes to waste — but there’s a heightened sense of urgency, and an acute awareness of human nature in all its dynamic, appealing forms beneath the calm. Before, with “Zen Food,” Eubanks seemed inordinately enamored of a higher state, far removed from everyday temptations. With “The Messenger,” he explores the baser, man-made conventions, with fond remembrances of the past, his past — 1970s funk, so get on the dance floor, fools! His choice to go funk, almost every time, will win favor with the more mainstream-oriented, broader-based audience. Even slower, more esoteric tunes such as “The Gloaming,” which Eubanks previewed last spring on tour, there’s groove. That’s intentional. “We wanted the groove to take over; also, those tunes will be fun to do live, and people will be able to sit in.” On “Resolution,” “420,” and “Led Boots,” that groove sets Eubanks apart. He and his band marry it with a suave sense of jazz in the horn notes and the spaces in between each percussion hit and guitar twang. “I love playing funk; I grew up playing it,” Eubanks enthused. “The ‘Motown Sound?’ They were jazz musicians! If I had played ‘420’ for some cats who are real ‘funkateers,’ they’d say, ‘Whoa, I hear some Sly [Stone] in there, and I’m thinking, ‘Ok, it looks like I’m good to go.’ It felt good and very natural to me. As jazz musicians, we can play anything.” Guitarist Jeff Beck played the hell out of “Led Boots” on his 1976 “Wired” album. But he didn’t have Alvin Chea (of Take 6) to make it better. Chea does this funked-out scatting groove that just takes over, along with the large and in charge bass of Camacho. Eubanks’ own ‘70s funk riff guitar goes laid back, adding both a rhythmic and harmonic bottom, keeping the groove going, occasionally crying out in a snazzy squeal of cool. Eubanks should receive a Grammy just for “Loved Ones.” It feels incredibly intimate, yet revelatory at once. His exquisite guitar work envelopes the listener in a warm, tender hug. The moving notes tell a tale of love, loss, and forgiveness, with a parable at the end underlining the fragility of life and a message to cherish those moments with family and friends, because the future isn’t guaranteed. Reflectively, the four-minute, 10-second melody is at turns sweet, sorrowful, tender, and sure. The first minute will bring you to your knees, bringing a holiness to the quiet.... - Read the full article at examiner.com Artist Updates, Reviews 2013-01-29T16:45:38+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/singer_songwriter_jon_regen_signs_to_sly_dog_records/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/singer_songwriter_jon_regen_signs_to_sly_dog_records/#When:16:47:35Z Acclaimed singer/songwriter and pianist Jon Regen, has signed to Sly Dog Records. Regen will make his label debut in 2013 with the single Revolution, out March 26. Watch the video for Revolution here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xokBKDowYY4 Regen will celebrate the signing with tour dates across the United States and Europe. Upcoming appearances include the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT (Jan 19-20), the Iridium in NYC (April 4), PizzaExpress in London (May 11) and more to be announced shortly. What critics are saying about Jon Regen: "Swinging and soulful" - All Music Guide "At once bluesy and plucky" - USA Today “It's Regen’s voice that ultimately sets him apart from his peers... evokes the raw descriptive power of early Springsteen or Waits” - Roll Magazine "Exudes cool sophistication without sacrificing catchy accessibility" - Cleveland Plain Dealer Find out more at http://jonregen.com Artist Updates, Press Releases 2013-01-10T16:47:35+00:00 http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/cecile_mclorin_salvant_fire_ice/ http://www.mackavenue.com/news/article/cecile_mclorin_salvant_fire_ice/#When:21:47:47Z On 2010’s Cecile, her first and only album to date, the warm but powerful young vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant offers songs like “Easy to Love” and “I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone.” But at a recent New York gig in anticipation of her 2013 sophomore release, Woman Child, the 23-year-old had other topics on her mind, including death (“John Henry”), primality (“[You Bring Out] The Savage in Me”) and violence (“Outside of That”). “I got to hearing more and more songs with really intense lyrics, and I wanted to add those in,” says Salvant of the period between recording her two albums. “I’ve been gleaning things from those kinds of darker subject matters. I guess it’s a part of life, so it’s always valid if I try to represent different aspects of life. Abbey Lincoln is a singer who greatly influenced me in her choice of repertoire, because it’s not always about ‘This man loves me’ or ‘He doesn’t love me’ or ‘I’m gonna cry.’ She had this conscious choice to think about repertoire in a different way.” But Salvant has been up to a lot more than listening to music since the recording of Cecile. In October 2010, after living in France for three years, she took first place in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, an achievement that made her career move “a little bit forward and faster.” She won by being herself, a fact that isn’t lost on the Miami-born singer. “On the finals night, I just did what I wanted to do,” recalls Salvant. “I was just, like, ‘Well, you know, I got this far. Let me just sing the songs that I like and not worry about anything else.’” The win brought more than scholarship money and the chance to work out a deal with Concord Music Group. (Salvant opted to release Woman Child on the Mack Avenue label.) Present for her big day was pianist Jacky Terrasson, who liked what he heard and kept the singer in mind for a future project. On Terrasson’s Gouache, due for an American release in February, Salvant provides vocals for Erik Satie’s “Je Te Veux” and sings the John Lennon/Yoko Ono composition “Oh My Love.” Through the competition Salvant also met her manager, Edward Arrendell. Arrendell connected Salvant with his other artist, Wynton Marsalis, and the pair hit it off; Salvant has since worked with Marsalis in Paris, Chicago and New York, and the two will tour along with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in December 2013. “I learned so much from just a 15-minute rehearsal with him,” says Salvant about her first time playing with Marsalis. “Stuff about phrasing, rhythm, interpretation. Getting back to listening to Louis Armstrong sing, which I hadn’t really checked out that much. Learning how to try and make the rhythm section sound good. As Monk would say, you have to make the drummer sound like he’s swinging. A lot of things that were eye-openers. Ear-openers, I guess.” The admiration flows both ways. In an e-mail, Marsalis touched on the multifaceted nature of Salvant’s talents. “She has poise, elegance, soul, humor, sensuality, power, virtuosity, range, insight, intelligence, depth and grace,” he writes. Set to be released in the first half of 2013, Woman Child is informed by Salvant’s experiences as a sidewoman but focuses on the dissonance between the types of songs that comprise Cecile and the heavier material she’s been working on in a live setting. The album will include familiar tunes like “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” as well as pieces like “Nobody,” Bert Williams’ early 20th-century ode to solitude. “It’s about this dichotomy,” says Salvant. “Our lives are basically, just, incredibly wracked with impending doom. But at the same time we laugh and we have a good time, and we don’t think about that all the time. There’re so many contradictions to life and love.” - Read the Full Article at JazzTimes.com Artist Updates, Interviews 2012-12-26T21:47:47+00:00