Apollo Soul Festival
Soul/Jazz/urban/Electronic Music...
Showreel of the past Apollo Soul Festival at Staatsoper Berlin feat. Jazzanova, Omar, Five Corners Quintet, Fat Freddys Drop, Benny Sings, Outlines, Nicola Conte and many more.
A wonderful event held every year in Berlin.
This Festival ROCKS!
Native - Just Four
I think "Just Four" possibly ranks as the most rounded album to date from Native with a nice balance of tracks. The only downside, if any, is that with only seven tracks, the album is a little on the short side. Having said that, it's better than having unnecessary fillers.
Neil Cowley is a tasteful, measured pianist who, above all, travels down tension-filled, percussive roads. He is ably accompanied by bassist Richard Sadler and Evan Jenkins on drums. This group bonds like a good, firm glue.
Cowley loves to take heavy chordal signatures and replicate them over and over to create great tension. He than suddenly cuts it all off, leaving the listener is a state of gripping suspension, though quite happy to have been taken there as one exhales.
Long live Dexter!,
Season two of this Showtime piece of excellence is just as good as the first season, if not better. If you haven't already met Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C. Hall), he's a Miami police forensic expert - he specialises in blood spatter - with a taste for murder all of his own. By twist of tale, Dexter's past comes back to haunt him this season and Dexter the hunter becomes Dexter the hunted. This takes the excitement and suspense up to new heights.
Dexter is still coming to terms with the season one's shock ending and initially finds (to his horror) that his killing skills are not what they used to be. And as if he didn't have enough worries, Sergeant Doakes (played by the lovely Erik King), the only one around who senses that Dexter is not all that he seems, is still very much on his case. Add to that the fact that his sister Debra (played by Jennifer Carpenter), who is still recovering from her own trauma from season one, is asked to join the FBI manhunt for him. The team is being led by Special Agent Lundy (played by Keith Carradine) and this is a development, Dexter remarks sardonically, that "makes for an awkward family dynamic".
Also very interesting to see this season, is the relationship between just-demoted Lt. Maria Laguerta (played by the brilliant Lauren Velez) and the new Lieutenant parachuted in over her head to take over her shift command, Lt. Esme Pasquale (played by Judith Scott). The cracks in Dexter's seemingly perfect relationship with girlfriend Rita (played by Julie Benz) that began to appear in season one, also begin to get wider this season so look out for Jaime Murray, fresh off her stint on BBC's drama "Hustle", playing the sexy, free-spirited Lila.
There's much more but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Twists and turns abound and each episode seems to bring a new shock for the viewer to take in. The humour is dark but it is hysterically funny - a shock in itself, considering the over-arching subject matter. Unless you're someone who gets squeamish easily (most of the violence is implied rather than shown but there's still violence and there's still plenty of blood) this is a definite must-see. I never thought the day would come when I would be rooting for a serial killer - even a fictional one - but here we are. That I'm doing so is more down to the excellent writing and Hall's easy charm, than to anything else. I'm as happy as Larry to know that there's already a season three on its way and I hope they take this series as far as is logically possible.
A true dichotomy: Some of the best smooth, tough, calming and energizing music that speaks to my heart, mind and body. Esperanza is a true gift to all who enjoy jazz. In fact, she will appeal to those who don't often listen to jazz, but who love good music.
Some folks think that all Brazilian musicians in the early 1960s who were aspiring to international fame were necessarily playing Bossa Nova. After all, that is how Luiz Bonfa, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto and many others came to define Brazilian music to the world at a time when it was a fresh and exotic sound.
But musicians like Eumir Deodato and Joao Donato had other ideas. These men took the swaying rhythms of their homeland and developed a unique form of jazz. Muito a Vontade is a prime example of this. Just one listen will disabuse you of any notion you might have had that Donato was just another bossa nova musician.
The name of the album, which is said to mean that the musician playing is totally relaxed, captures perfectly the mood which the title cut tries to set from the start. The cover art reinforces the buyer's expectation of the kind of music he or she is going to hear. I like it from the first note to the last. Its hard to pin Donato down. If you are unfamiliar with his music, some cuts may remind you of some of Joe Sample's more energetic pieces, but on most of them, Donato's sound is a sound all its own.
The music you hear on this remaster is crystal clear. No muddiness whatsoever, every note stands out. Donato mentions in the liner notes that the album still sounds cool after 40 years. I agree completely. Check this out, you are in for a treat.
Biography by Steve Huey
Easily one of jazz's greatest vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson epitomized his instrument in relation to the era in which he came of age the way Lionel Hampton did with swing or Milt Jackson with bop. He isn't as well-known as those two forebears, perhaps because he started out in less-accessible territory when he emerged in the '60s playing cerebral, challenging modern jazz that often bordered on avant-garde. Along with Gary Burton, the other seminal vibraphone talent of the '60s, Hutcherson helped modernize his instrument by redefining what could be done with it — sonically, technically, melodically, and emotionally. In the process, he became one of the defining (if underappreciated) voices in the so-called "new thing" portion of Blue Note's glorious '60s roster. Hutcherson gradually moved into a more mainstream, modal post-bop style that, if not as adventurous as his early work, still maintained his reputation as one of the most advanced masters of his instrument.
Bobby Hutcherson was born January 27, 1941, in Los Angeles. He studied piano with his aunt as a child, but didn't enjoy the formality of the training; still, he tinkered with it on his own, especially since his family was already connected to jazz: His brother was a high school friend of Dexter Gordon and his sister was a singer who later dated Eric Dolphy. Everything clicked for Hutcherson during his teen years when he heard a Milt Jackson record; he worked until he saved up enough money to buy his own set of vibes. He began studying with Dave Pike and playing local dances in a group led by his friend, bassist Herbie Lewis. After high school, Hutcherson parlayed his growing local reputation into gigs with Curtis Amy and Charles Lloyd and in 1960, he joined an ensemble co-led by Al Grey and Billy Mitchell. In 1961, the group was booked at New York's legendary Birdland club and Hutcherson wound up staying on the East Coast after word about his inventive four-mallet playing started to spread. Hutcherson was invited to jam with some of the best up-and-coming musicians in New York: hard boppers like Grant Green, Hank Mobley, and Herbie Hancock, but most importantly, forward-thinking experimentalists like Jackie McLean, Grachan Moncur III, Archie Shepp, Andrew Hill, and Eric Dolphy. Through those contacts, Hutcherson became an in-demand sideman at recording sessions, chiefly for Blue Note.
