Suresh Singaratnam -|- Lost in New York

Tags

Jazz, Suresh Singaratnam, Trumpet

Suresh Singaratnam - Lost in New York

Suresh Singaratnam -|- Lost in New York – [Suresong Music, 2010]

Suresh Singaratnam is a trumpeter of uncommon breadth – unique not only for the small crowd he inhabits as a virtuoso of both classical and jazz styles but also for the continuity and clarity of his voice across both idioms. When he began to study the trumpet at age nine, it never occurred to him that he might have to choose between the two.

Torontonian by way of Zambia (where he was born) and the U.K., Singaratnam boasts a background that defies classification as nimbly as his artistic taste. In eighth grade he asked a music teacher if she knew of anyone who played both jazz and classical trumpet at a high level and she steered him to Wynton Marsalis, two of whose records he promptly went out and bought. Suresh studied with Canadian trumpet virtuoso Norman Engel throughout high school, and even then exhibited an uncommon aptitude for the technicalities of the trumpet, besting pianists and string players alike to win the Scarborough Philharmonic Youth Concerto Competition at the age of 17. In his last year of high school he studied with Toronto Symphony trumpeter Barton Woomert, then spent a year at the University of Toronto studying with Chase Sanborn.

JUSTIN TIME ARTIST HILARY KOLE TEAMS UP WITH 11 LEGENDARY PIANISTS ON HER AUGUST 10 RELEASE, YOU ARE THERE

Tags

Female Vocalist, Hilary Kole, Jazz

Featuring Duets with Monty Alexander, Kenny Barron, Dave Brubeck, Alan Broadbent, Freddy Cole, Benny Green, Hank Jones, Steve Kuhn, Michel Legrand, Mike Renzi, and Cedar Walton

Hilary Kole - You Are There

You Are There marks the second album on Justin Time for Hilary Kole, the New York-based jazz singer (and pianist, arranger, and composer). Even though hundreds of singers are releasing what seems like hundreds of CDs these days, it’s fair to say that no vocalist – in either the classic or the contemporary era – has done an album like You Are There. This is a set of voice-and-piano duets, and though that fact by itself may call to mind Ella Fitzgerald’s famous meetings with Ellis Larkins and the iconic Tony Bennett-Bill Evans collaborations, no one has done what Hilary does here: she has teamed up with eleven different great pianists – each of them true legends of the keyboard – and recorded thirteen spontaneous piano-vocal duo tracks with these amazing musicians.

The project got underway when Hilary met the late keyboard colossus Oscar Peterson in 2005. She was, then as now, singing frequently at Birdland (then as always, “the Jazz Corner of the World,” and her New York base of operations). Peterson made his final New York appearances at the Times Square venue, and Kole was always there (and so was every musician in Manhattan who wanted to learn from the master). The two became friends, and on one set, to her astonishment, Peterson invited her to sing with his quartet.