The News Review:
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- Bob Brozman’s New Ruf Records CD
- Tony Bennett | Music Artist | Videos News Photos & Ringtones |…
- Yawned in Bars page 1 – Music – Village Voice – Village Voice
- Phoenix reflects on musical career
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rte.ie – Jan 15, 2008
If you can handle the bright lights and cheesy atmosphere of Bourbon St then more power to you. But if you are looking for somewhere a little different to spend your evening Rock and Bowl is a great choice. This unique attraction combines three of the staples of Americana; bowling beer and live jazz and blues music. You can dance and bowl the night away to the jazz beats. The Maple Leaf Bar in the garden district is another great jazz club and at the cool end of the quarter on Frenchman St Snug Harbour is another memorable jazz joint. So yes for the most part New rleans is open for business. When you are there you can volunteer to help with the ongoing recovery work.
Bob Brozman’s New Ruf Records CD
Jazz-Quad – Jan 15, 2008
The new album features a passionate Brozman playing and singing at his improvisational best. He plays a variety of National guitars as well as Hawaiian guitar and ukulele banjo dobro and an assortment of stringed instruments from all over the world ranging from the kinawan sanshin and Greek baglama to the 22-string chaturangui and 14-string gandharvi from IndiaA master of many world music styles Brozman brings a multitude of influences to Post Industrial Blues from India Africa the South Pacific and the Caribbean but anchors it all with the rootsy sound of blues and Americana. His choice of additional percussion – including an array of non-traditional instruments such as a knife blade grass clippers disassembled marimba pipes and a broken toy piano – give the music an almost otherworldly feel at times but Brozman brings it all back home in his own inimitable style. The new album also reunites him with bassist Stan Poplin and drummer Jim Norris both mainstays of his earliest albums from the 1980s. Throughout Post Industrial Blues Bob Brozman enhances the stunning instrumental performances with many original and contemporary lyrics including songs about American geo-politics (“Follow the Money” and “Crooked Blues”) Hurricane Katrina (“Look at New rleans”) modern travel (“Airport Blues”) immigration and war (“Three Families Blues”) and the world’s orphans (“Lonely Children”). All demonstrate the universality of the blues as interpreted by Brozman.
Tony Bennett | Music Artist | Videos News Photos & Ringtones |…
MTV.com – Jan 15, 2008
In the early ’60s he mounted a comeback as more of an adult-album seller. And from the mid-’80s on he achieved renewed popularity with generations of listeners who hadn’t been born when he first appeared. This however defines Bennett more in terms of marketing than music. He himself probably would say that in each phase of his career he has remained largely constant to his goals of singing the best available songs the best way he knows how. Popular taste may have caused his level of recognition to increase or decrease but he continued to sing popular standards in a warm husky tenor varying his timing and phrasing with a jazz fan’s sense of spontaneity to bring out the melodies and lyrics of the songs effectively. By the start of the 21st century Bennett seemed like the last of a breed but he remained as popular as ever. Bennett grew up in the Astoria section of the borough of Queens in New York City under the name Anthony Dominick Benedetto… lang which went platinum and won the Grammy for Album of the Year as well as another award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. Bennett became a Grammy perennial also taking home Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance awards for Here’s to the Ladies (1995) and n Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday (1997). Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool (1999) was another Grammy winner in the retitled Best Traditional Pop Album category as was Playin’ with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues an album of duets released in 2001. ne year later Bennett paired off with a single duet partner recording A Wonderful World with.
Yawned in Bars page 1 – Music – Village Voice – Village Voice
Village Voice – Jan 15, 2008
Not to say maturity has been entirely unkind to Marshall—the production here as on 2006′s The Greatest is remarkably intimate: You can practically smell the cigarettes fuming in the studio ashtrays. But also like The Greatest Jukebox’s few truly memorable moments—such as the shimmering “Silver Stallion” which takes the jaunty country-rock tune popularized by the Highwaymen and turns it into a late-night whisper à la her version of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”—are dwarfed by the merely adequate ones. The most captivating cover here isn’t a cover at all: “Metal Heart” first appeared on 1998′s Moon Pix arguably Marshall’s most clear-eyed expression of that mix of trepidation and intrepidity that once defined her music. n the original Marshall’s vocals are double-tracked fluttering timorously between plucked guitar chords and the song has a nervousness to it simmering but never boiling. n this version “Metal Heart” fits snugly amid the Billie Holiday and the Janis Joplin having been transformed into another smoky ballad with Marshall belting “Metal heart you’re not worth a thing. ” The transformation is more touching than powerful: condemning someone to a “very sad sad zoo” sounds silly here forcing us to compare the naive Marshall of years gone by with this awkwardly grown-up version. You can hear in her voice that she remembers those days of naked beguiling expression even if she can’t quite re-create them… ” The transformation is more touching than powerful: condemning someone to a “very sad sad zoo” sounds silly here forcing us to compare the naive Marshall of years gone by with this awkwardly grown-up version. You can hear in her voice that she remembers those days of naked beguiling expression even if she can’t quite re-create them. Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues play Terminal 5 on February 6. Recent ArticlesMore by Garrett KampsNickelback’s Shitfaced Nights and Blowjob QueensA freshly reunited nation struggles to take this band seriouslyMogwai Are As Brassy As Ever and Even Jaunty For nceDeath Cab for Cutie’s Narrow StairsThe sound of settlingPortishead: Replicants of FunkTrip-hop Gs return with another astounding 5 a.
Phoenix reflects on musical career
SU – The Lantern – Jan 15, 2008
Phoenix remembers sneaking into Hughes Hall after hours to use the pianos and the practice space. Retro StylePhoenix acknowledges he has been influenced heavily by ’60s and ’70s blues and rock: The Beatles – “they taught the rest of us how to write songs” – The Rolling Stones Cream Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters among others. His latest album “Plastic Blues and Grooves” released through independent label Junkyard Cat Records sounds unmistakably similar to that of Hendrix. It isn’t just Phoenix’s soulful wailing voice or his Hendrix-esque guitar style. A number of songs on “Plastic Blues and Grooves” are almost carbon-copies to songs off of “Are You Experienced?” or “Axis Bold as Love” just slightly altered chord progressions or melodies. Phoenix still performs donning ’60s drab and a left-handed white Stratocaster so it’s not much of a stretch. That may be Phoenix’s greatest strength as well as his greatest flaw.