Wednesday, April 8, 2015

New Music Monday for April 13, 2015

New Music Monday Playlist on YouTube and Spotify.

     Eliane Elias’ “Made in Brazil” marks a musical homecoming for the multi-Grammy-nominated keyboardist/singer/composer. In her three-decade long career as a solo artist, this is the first time she’s recorded a disc in her native Brazil since moving to the United States in 1981. Along with co-producers Steve Rodby and Marc Johnson, the latter her bass playing musical partner, Elias ventured ‘home’ and recruited a splendid cast of Brazilian musicians. She also peppered the sessions with delightful special guest performances from Mark Kibble and his multi-Grammy Award-winning gospel vocal group Take 6; one of Brazil’s most celebrated R and B stars, Ed Motta; and the distinguished bossa nova composer Roberto Menescal. 
     Much like the importance of a compass to an explorer, when bassist Avishai Cohen is asked what he would consider his favorite navigational instrument, he points to his bass-piano-drums trio that helps him find his orientation and drive to push forward. His new recording, “From Darkness,” sees the Israeli native go back to the very core of his musical idiom and activity and open an essential gateway into a new creative and expressive dimension. “It is the first time since 2007 that I have the feeling I am reaching a new, fresh and incredibly substantial form with the trio.” A belief reinforced by two outstanding partners, pianist Nitai Hershvovits and drummer Daniel Dor. “Both Nitai and Daniel take my music to places and perspectives that I had never suspected it would go and I couldn’t dream of anything better.”
     Also this week, iconic guitarist Larry Coryell crosses genres between blues, folk, rock and soul-infused jazz on “Heavy Feel”; saxophonist Tim Warfield puts his own spin on the music of Thelonious Monk with “Spherical”; and Chicago-based reed master Bernard Scavella debuts with “A Taste of Scavella.”

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