New Releases [Jazz] for the Week of 4/6/2010

Tags

African American, Bobby McFerrin, Jazz

Greetings jazz enthusiasts, April arrives just in time with a short list of New Releases for the first Tuesday of the month. First off, the Featured Album of the Week is the long anticipated recording by Grammy Award winning Bobby McFerrin, bassist / vocalist Richard Bona, the multifaceted Marcus Miller and guitarist Fabrizio Sotti with a host of imports and re-releases.

Featured Album of the Week

Bobby McFerrin - VOCAbuLarieS

Bobby McFerrin .:|:. VOCAbuLarieS – [EmArcy, 2010]

Ten-time Grammy Award winner/vocal innovator Bobby McFerrin surprises us yet again with VOCAbuLarieS, his first new release in eight years. Like his #1 worldwide hit song Don’t Worry Be Happy and his multi-platinum duo album Hush with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, VOCAbuLarieS is based on Bobby’s experiments with multi-track recording and his ceaseless exploration of the potential of the human voice. VOCAbuLarieS is Bobby McFerrin music for the 21st century. A collaboration with the composer/arranger/producer Roger Treece, VOCAbuLarieS features over fifty of the world’s finest singers, recorded one at a time and in small groups to create a virtual choir made up of over 1,400 vocal tracks. Constructed as meticulously as a Mozart symphony or a Steely Dan album, intricately synthesized from countless stylistic elements, VOCAbuLarieS may be unlike any album anyone has ever recorded. Yet the music is always accessible, joyous, and inviting. VOCAbuLarieS celebrates Bobby’s love of all musical genres, from classical to world music, R&B to gospel and beyond, building upon McFerrin’s past explorations and journeying into bold new territory. If the song Don’t Worry Be Happy is all you know about Bobby McFerrin, sit back and prepare to be amazed.

Michael Wolff On NPR JazzSet 4/1 West Coast Tour In May

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Jazz, Michael Wolff, Piano

Michael Wolff - Music

Acclaimed jazz pianist Michael Wolff’s appearance at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. is confirmed for broadcast on NPR Jazzset on April 1st. The performance will air on 119 NPR stations nationwide, and via http://www.jazzset.npr.org. Airdates on WBGO in New York will be Sunday, April 4th at 6pm and Wednesday, April 7th at 6:30pm. Wolff recently wrapped up a successful multi-weekend stand at his beloved Knickerbocker club in lower Manhattan (and plans a return for April 23rd and 24th.) Wolff has a great affinity for the room, which he described as the ‘only venerable restaurant/jazz joint left in NYC.’

In May, Michael Wolff heads to the West Coast for a pair of shows. His live shows have become known for their unpredictability, humor and high-octane punch. In fact, in a live review of a Wolff concert this summer, The San Jose Mercury News raved, ‘all of the music felt very full and passionately alive.’

Nilson Matta’s Brazilian Voyage | Copacabana

Tags

Acoustic Bass, Jazz, Nilson Matta

Nilson Matta's Brazilian Voyage - Copacabana

Nilson Matta’s Brazilian Voyage .:|:. Copacabana – [Zoho Music – 2010]

How it is possible that Nilson Matta is allowed to fly so under the proverbial radar, with recognition mainly from his peers is one of those mysteries that music suffers its artists to bear even with the growth of the industry and media. Matta’s bass has been complementing the music of luminaries from Joao Gilberto, Johnny Alf, Hermeto Pascoal and Chico Buarque de Hollanda to Joe Henderson and the legendary Don Pullen with grace and majesty. His career has spanned decades and throughout he has been a musician of immense technical skill and a composer with daring, creative ideas. Copacabana, an album that brings together tenor saxophonist Harry Allen and flutist, Anne Drummond with pianist Klaus Mueller, and Matta’s radiant rhythm section of drummer Mauricio Zottarelli and percussionist Zé Mauricio, is a tour de force of composition and musicianship of the highest order.