Tag Archives: Anna Hinkley

Ricky Riccardi – Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong

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Title: Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong
Author: Ricky Riccardi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Formats: Hardcover, Kindle
Release date: September 2020

 

Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong is the second biography of the famous trumpeter from Louis Armstrong scholar and enthusiast Ricky Riccardi. Where Riccardi’s first biography focused on Armstrong’s later years, Heart Full of Rhythm paints a portrait of Louis Armstrong as a popular performer in the years between 1929 and 1947.

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Aaron Burnett & the Big Machine – Jupiter Conjunct

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Title: Jupiter Conjunct
Artist: Aaron Burnett & the Big Machine
Label: Fresh Sound New Talent
Formats: CD, Digital
Release date: November 6, 2020

 

From Aaron Burnett & the Big Machine comes Jupiter Conjunct, a follow up to their 2019 album Anomaly. Drawing on hip-hop and electronica influences, this album pushes the sound of jazz along the trajectory of other current artists like bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, who is a featured guest on this project. Led by Burnett on saxophone, the group consists of trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, keyboardist Carlos Homs, bassist Nick Jozwiak, drummer Kush Abadey, and Joel Ross on vibraphone.

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Ruthie Foster Big Band – Live at the Paramount

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Title: Live at the Paramount 
Artist: Ruthie Foster Big Band 
Label: Blue Corn Music 
Formats: CD, Digital 
Release date: May 15, 2020 

 

Ruthie Foster delivers a high-powered performance in Live at the Paramount, her ninth album with Blue Corn Music. Complete with the combination of extraneous noise and high energy that inevitably accompanies a live album, Ruthie Foster delivers a big band set that shows off her well-known voice in a swing setting. Recorded at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas, on January 26, 2019, John Mills is the music director and conductor of Foster’s big band, and all of the arrangements for this concert are by Mills and John Beasley.  

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Alicia Crowe Sings Tribute to Alberta Hunter Live!

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Title: Sings Tribute to Alberta Hunter Live! 
Artist: Alicia Crowe 
Label: Spitslam/Dist. MVD 
Formats: LP, Digital 
Release date: February 7, 2020

 

Jazz vocalist Alicia Crowe offers a sweet send-up to the legacy of the great Alberta Hunter with her new album. Recorded live on November 14, 2018, during her Alberta Hunter Tribute show at the Triad Theater in New York City, Crowe is backed by Takaaki Otomo on piano, Noriko Ueda on bass, and George Gray on drums. Covering many of Hunter’s greatest hits, from “My Castle’s Rockin’” to “Handyman,” Crowe presents a musical portrait of one of the great vocal performers of the twentieth century. 

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John Bailey – Can You Imagine?

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Title: Can You Imagine?
Artist: John Bailey
Label: Freedom Road
Formats: CD, Digital
Release date: January 20, 2020

 

Can You Imagine? is the second album from New York trumpeter John Bailey, who conceptualized the project around one of the fantastical “what ifs” of jazz: What if Dizzy Gillespie won his unlikely and somewhat jesting bid for president in 1964? What if Dizzy had made Miles Davis head of the CIA and Duke Ellington the Secretary of State? Would we, as a nation, be more compassionate and empathetic to our fellow humans? Though the campaign may have been in jest, Dizzy raised serious issues on the campaign trail during one of the most volatile periods of the Civil Rights Movement.

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Billy Vera – Rip It Up: The Specialty Records Story

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Title: Rip It Up: The Specialty Records Story
Author: Billy Vera
Publisher: BMG Books (RPM Series)
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Release date: November 5, 2019

 

From musician Billy Vera comes Rip It Up: The Specialty Records Story, an account of the years and the music of independent music label Specialty Records under the ownership of Art Rupe. Founded in the mid-1940s, Specialty Records produced music – some hits, some not – by Sam Cooke, Percy Mayfield, Lloyd Price, Little Richard, and many, many others. From gospel and R&B to doo wop and rock and roll, Specialty rolled out albums for over forty years until its sale to Fantasy Records in 1990. Continue reading →

Devonté Hynes & Third Coast Percussion – Fields

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Title: Fields
Artist: Devonté Hynes & Third Coast Percussion
Label: Cedille
Formats: CD, Digital
Release date: October 11, 2019

 

Devonté Hynes, perhaps better known as R&B artist Blood Orange, has covered a lot of musical ground in his career. He recently released his fifth album, Angel’s Pulse, under his Blood Orange persona, and he previously produced indie rock music under the name Lightspeed Champion. Many of Dev’s fans might be unaware, however, of his love of classical music and his 2018 debut at the Kennedy Center as one of four pianists performing Philip Glass’s 20 Etudes. Now, with the release of Fields, featuring Hynes collaboration with the Chicago-based ensemble Third Coast Percussion, he makes his recording debut as a composer in the classical music world. Continue reading →

Richard Thompson – The Mask in the Mirror: A Chamber Opera

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Title: The Mask in the Mirror: A Chamber Opera
Artist: Richard Thompson (comp.)
Label: Navona
Formats: CD, Digital
Release date: February 8, 2019

 

The Mask in the Mirror, a three-act chamber opera from composer and pianist Richard Thompson, portrays turmoil and tragedy in this dramatization of the courtship and marriage of renowned African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) and author Alice Ruth Moore (1875-1935). Conducted by Stephen Tucker, The Sanaa Opera Project released a recording of The Mask in the Mirror earlier this year. Featuring tenor Cameo Humes in the role of Paul and soprano Angela Owens as Alice, with mezzo-soprano Lindsay Patterson Abdou in several supporting familial roles, The Mask in the Mirror balances man against woman, jazz against classical composition, and society against self in a rise of tension that resolves only with end of their relationship and Paul’s subsequent surrender to tuberculosis. Continue reading →