Julie Fowlis - Uam ( From Me )

The title of this album "Uam" means "from me" in English. The idea of passing a song, a tune or a story from one person to another is a common one throughout Gaelic Scotland, and I often feel being given a song is like being given a gift. One you can use and enjoy yourself, but one which ultimately must be passed on to someone else. The song is always more important than the singer and must be passed on to survive.

This album represents much of my own background, upbringing and musical experiences over the last few years. It also repreents the sound that people have come to expect from our concerts over recent times - the backbone duo of myself and my husband, Eamon Doorley, with lyrical highland fiddler Duncan Chisholm, driving guitarist Tony Byrne from Dublin plus the rhythmic beats of Martin O'Neill's bodhran playing. I am very pleased to welcome some long term friends and extraordinary musicians to the album too - Phil Cunningham, Mary Smith, Eddi Reader, Allan MacDonald, Jerry Douglas, Sharon Shannon and Ewen Vernal, plus of course our own family members Tom Doorley and Michelle Fowlis.

So here we are !
Julie

Since being presented with her award as BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year 2008 by KT Tunstall, the Daily Telegraph's prediction that "Fowlis could be the first Scottish Gaelic crossover star in the making" has seemed increasingly prescient.

Indeed Julie Fowlis is no stranger to awards and distinctions, winning Gaelic Singer Of The Year & Album Of The Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2007 and nominated for the third year in a row as BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year (the first ever Scottish Gaelic singer to win this prestigious award when given the title in 2008). Her single 'Blackbird' was also playlisted on BBC Radio 2, the first Scottish Gaelic artist to be playlisted in such a manner. She was also the first Scottish Gaelic artist to appear on the legendary show 'Later…with Jools Holland” in 2007.

She is perhaps most proud of her award as Scotland's Gaelic Ambassador - "Tosgaire na Gàidhlig", bestowed by the Scottish Parliament in 2008, the first person to ever receive this honour.

Since the release of her award-winning album 'cuilidh' in 2007 Julie has spent much time developing her own sound with a top-class touring band including husband Éamon Doorley, Dublin's Tony Byrne, Highlander Duncan Chisholm and bodhrán champion Martin O'Neill. This formidable line-up has become synonymous with emotive, expressive and high energy live shows.

Still finding time for collaborations with other musicians, Julie has recently worked with artists as diverse as Bill Whelan, John McCusker, Eddi Reader, Jayme Stone, and Salsa Celtica. She recently worked with Bill Whelan (Riverdance, Timedance) to produce a new piece of music, the World Premiere of which was on St Patrick's Day in Belfast 2009. As part of the internationally acclaimed Transatlantic Sessions 4 series, she has also been honoured to sing with James Taylor, Martha Wainwright, Stuart Duncan, Ronan Browne, Allan MacDonald, Liam O' Maonlai (Hothouse Flowers), Maireád Ní Mhaónaigh (Altan), Mike McGoldrick, Phil Cunningham, Tim O'Brien and Karen Matheson (Capercaillie).

In addition to having one of the busiest music touring schedules in Scotland, Julie has now delved into the world of broadcasting, presenting her very own show 'Fowlis and Folk' on BBC Radio Scotland for the second year running and also presenting regularly for television on Scotland's new Gaelic digital channel, BBC ALBA.

In the last year Julie has also worked on two other acclaimed recordings – the 'dual' project – an exploration of musical connections between Gaelic Scotland and Ireland with her husband Éamon Doorley, Irish songstress Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and Lochaber's Ross Martin, and 'Under One Sky', John McCusker's ambitious crossover project featuring the likes of John Tams, Iain MacDonald, Graham Coxon (Blur) and Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub).

Julie is currently also studying for a Masters degree through Scotland's only Gaelic College 'Sabhal Mòr Ostaig' in 'Material Culture and the Environment', exploring in depth the culture and social history of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, in it's European context.

For Julie is a passionate torchbearer for the culture of her native Western Isles. And, coupled with her extraordinary talent, it is this quiet determination to celebrate the music of the Outer Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland on its own terms that ensures that Scots Gaelic music is reaching a wider audience than ever before.

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Julie Fowlis - Uam ( From Me )
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Kantango - Ida Y Vuelta ( Mircocosmo Edizioni )

kantango invite you to a journey, under the guise of a tango, a journey of "ida y vuelta" – a “round trip” to those who do not speak spanish – as well as the title of their new album, a journey to and from the tango, and from the thousand nations of the world from which come the many artists who have helped to release this new project, a trip to and from the testing (linked to tango, but also disconnected from it).

and here's the places that are the secret map of this new album, the places and people that bring them in and who have put their own in this project alongside kantango same: the france of richard galliano and the peru of susana baca (which for the first time they play togheter to a reworked version of “canzone ‘e sotto ‘o carcere”, of the straight napolitan raffaele viviani), the cape verde of lura of that in "canta um tango” weaves with his voice exotic and valuable canvasses, the tunisia of marzouk mejri that turns "k4dark" in a colorful suk, or the u.s. of rupa which lends her voice to the persuasive and beautiful hybrid "orphaline". but amada also, who in "dejame" invites us, through a milonga, to a sunny and superb summer.

to seal all, a large string orchestra accompanies kantango through original songs or great masterpieces like "la chanson des vieux amants" by jacques brel.

discovered and produced by joe barbieri, the kantango - here, you see - invite you to leave. take a suitcase that is big and generous.
the journey begins...

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Kantango - Ida Y Vuelta
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Tracklist

01. erabundo (
02. dejame (feat amada)
03. rain
04. canta um tango (feat lura)
05. la chanson des vieux amants brel
06. milonga
07. k4dark (feat marzouk mejri)
08. canzone 'e sotto 'o carcere (feat susana baca and richard galliano)
09. la influencia del principe de las piernas cortas
10. orphaline (feat rupa)
11. naranjas

“You can tell immediately that John’s approach to jazz is both new and refreshing; showing great respect for both the melody and the lyric — a rare thing among jazz vocalists. I’ll bet that Chet Baker is looking down on John saying, ‘Yeah, John, go for it’.”

-- William Claxton (Jazz photographer)

“This introduction to young, talented John Proulx does a great job of showing us what he is about: Strong musicianship, great intonation, mellow swing and a soothing, almost vibrato- less Chet Baker like tone quality. Bravo, John!”

-- John Clayton (3-time grammy nominated bassist, composer, and conductor)

"It's takes a lot of imagination as well as natural talent to make jazz standards sound fresh and vital. John sings and plays so beautifully and is an outstanding songwriter as well. He's simply a joy to hear"

-- Michael Feinstein

John's latest CD on MAXJAZZ, "Baker’s Dozen-Remembering Chet
Baker” is a tribute to the late trumpet player and vocalist. It features
legendary musicians Chuck Berghofer, Joe LaBarbera, and special
guest, Dominick Farinacci on trumpet. John’s 2006 debut CD, “Moon
and Sand”, has garnered national and international acclaim, and his
fan base is quickly growing. In addition to his own trio, John has
performed with the likes of Anita O'Day, Natalie Cole, and Marian
McPartland.

John is also a Grammy-winning composer. Jazz legend, Nancy Wilson,
recorded "These Golden Years", a song that John co-wrote with lyricist
D. Channsin Berry, for her 2006 Grammy-winning CD, Turned to Blue.
Jazz singer, Mary Stallings, also recorded "Stuck in a Dream", a tune
John co-wrote with lyricist K. Lawrence Dunham, on her 2005 release,
Remember Love.

John began his formal musical education at the age of 3 in Grand
Rapids, MI on Suzuki violin, but quickly switched to classical piano
lessons. His grandfather, Clyde Proulx, was a jazz guitarist who
introduced him to the world of jazz. Hooked on the freedom of
improvisation, his education took him to Chicago to study at Roosevelt
University’s Chicago School of Performing Arts. In 2001, John moved
to Los Angeles to further his musical pursuits. He has emerged as a
young talent on the Los Angeles jazz scene and loves the wide-range
of opportunities the city has to offer.

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John Proulx - Baker's Dozen
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Guy Clark - Somedays The Song Writes You

When Guy Clark discusses the art and craft of songwriting, people listen. He has, after all, been writing songs of uncommon quality for nearly four decades, songs like “L.A. Freeway,” “Desperados Waiting For a Train,” “The Randall Knife,” and “Texas, 1947.” Some of them have been snatched up and recorded by other distinctive artists, many of whom are no slouches in the songwriting department themselves (“She’s Crazy For Leaving” by Rodney Crowell, “New Cut Road” by Bobby Bare, “Let Him Roll” by Johnny Cash and “Heartbroke” by Ricky Skaggs, to name just a few), while others have filled out the ten studio albums bearing Clark’s name, beginning with his 1975 debut, Old No. 1. He’s just added an eleventh entry to his enduring body of work, Some Days the Song Writes You.


Songwriting legend Guy Clark doesn't merely compose songs; he projects images and characters with the kind of hands-on care and respect of a literary master. Clark works slowly and with strict attention to detail, and has produced an impressive collection of timeless gems, leaving very little waste behind. The emotional level of his work, as well as the admiration and esteem of his peers, consistently transcends sales figures and musical genres. Using everyday language to construct extraordinary songs for more than 35 years, Clark continues to be the type of songwriter whom young artists study and seasoned writers, as well discriminating listeners, revere.

Born in Monahans, Texas, on November 6, 1941, Clark grew up in a home where the gift of a pocketknife was a rite of passage and poetry was read aloud. At age 16 he moved to Rockport, on the Texas Gulf Coast. Instructed by his father's law partner, he learned to play on a $12 Mexican guitar and the first songs he learned were mostly in Spanish.

Moving to Houston, Clark began his career during the "folk scare" of the 1960s. Fascinated by Texas blues legends like Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin' Hopkins and steeped in the cultural sauce piquante of his border state, he played traditional folk tunes on the same Austin-Houston club circuit as Townes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker. "It was pretty 'Bob Dylan' in the beginning," Clark said. "Nobody was really writing." Eventually, Clark would draw on these roots to firebrand his own fiddle-friendly and bluesy folk music, see it embraced as country and emerge as a songwriting icon for connoisseurs of the art.

Moving to San Francisco in the late 1960s, as social unrest was erupting through racial and generational fissures, Clark worked briefly in a guitar shop, returned to Houston for a short time, and then moved to the Los Angeles area, where he found work building guitars in the Dopyera Brothers' Dobro factory and signed a publishing agreement with RCA's Sunbury Music before pulling up stakes and relocating to Nashville in 1971.

The following year, country-folk singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, then newly ensconced in Austin, released an eponymous album featuring the Clark composition "L.A. Freeway," which became an FM radio hit. In 1973, Walker released Viva! Terlingua, recorded live in a Texas dance hall and including Clark's ballad "Desperados Waiting for a Train." As much as any others, these two Clark songs may arguably be said to have set the tone for a musical revolution that was first known as progressive country. By 1975, many of the revolutionaries would be defined as the Outlaws. Like the Bakersfield sound of the 1960s, the new sounds were a reaction to the formulaic rigidity and paternalism of Nashville's record producers and label executives.

In this alternative musical world of the late 1960s, inspired by the storytelling poems of Robert Frost and Stephen Vincent Benet, Clark began to write what he knew "with a pencil and a big eraser." "L. A. Freeway," for example, blueprints his fish-out-of-water experience in Los Angeles. "Desperados Waiting for a Train" is based on his memory of an oilfield worker who was a resident of his grandmother's hotel. Like almost all his songs, then and now, these two early masterpieces are expressions of personal memory and experience, further characterized by words that have a melody all their own.

Clark's move to Music City, one of three cities where Sunbury had offices and where his pal Mickey Newbury would make him welcome, proved fortuitous. Clark and his wife, Susanna, would become the axis for a groundbreaking fraternity of singer-songwriters for whom Nashville felt like "Paris in the '20s." Among them were Newbury, Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Billy Joe Shaver, Steve Earle, Dave Loggins and David Allen Coe. Bonded by their egalitarianism, the troupe's favored sidewalk cafe was the Clark's dining room table, where they gathered frequently for "guitar pulls" and show-and-tell song swapping sessions, and where they celebrated their successes and facetiously threatened to kill whoever had presented the best new song. Susanna Clark, a talented painter, tossed her brushes aside for awhile, joined the invasion and began writing hit songs herself.

In 1975, after using his big eraser on his first try at cutting an album, Clark made his recording debut on RCA Records with Old No. l, ten critically applauded originals built to last, including "L. A. Freeway," "Desperados Waiting for a Train," "Texas, l947," "Instant Coffee Blues," "Rita Ballou," "She Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Let Him Roll," "A Nickel for the Fiddler," "That Old Time Feeling" and "Like a Coat From the Cold." On the cover, the songwriter is pictured with his wife's painting of his chambray "work shirt," customary attire emblematic of his values. During the next 20 years, Clark would continue to record albums that worked like a stun gun on other artists in search of new songs. The weaponry included Texas Cookin' (1976), Guy Clark (1978), The South Coast of Texas (1981), Better Days (1983), Old Friends (1989), Boats to Build (1992), Dublin Blues (1995), Keepers - a Live Recording (1997), Cold Dog Soup (1999) and The Dark (2002). The recordings include numerous collaborations with old and new friends such as Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Albert Lee and Rosanne Cash.

Nashville legend Johnny Cash, who then had been topping the charts for 20 years, was among the first Nashville recording artists to embrace Guy Clark's music. His interpretation of "Texas, 1947" was a 1975 chart hit, followed in 1977 by Clark's "The Last Gunfighter Ballad." In 1987, Cash would also cover Clark's "Let Him Roll." In 1982, famed songsmith Bobby Bare made it to the country Top Twenty with Clark's "New Cut Road." That same year, bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs escalated his mainstream trajectory with Clark's "Heartbroke," a #1 song that permanently established Clark's reputation as an ingenious songwriter. Among the many others who have gilded their careers with Guy Clark songs are Vince Gill, who took "Oklahoma Borderline" to the Top Ten in 1985; the Highwaymen, who introduced "Desperados Waiting for a Train" to a new generation that same year; and John Conlee, whose interpretation of "The Carpenter" rode into the Top Ten in 1987. Steve Wariner reached the Top Five with the Clark cover "Baby I'm Yours" in 1988, and the same year Asleep at the Wheel charted with his "Blowin' Like a Bandit." Crowell was Clark's co-writer on "She's Crazy for Leavin'," which in 1989 became the third of five straight #1 hits for Crowell. More recently Brad Paisley covered Clark's "Out in the Parking Lot" on his Time Well Wasted CD, and parrotheads are listening to Jimmy Buffett's interpretation of Clark's "Boats to Build."

Masterful and charismatic in live performance, Clark has built a devout U.S. and international following through years of touring prestigious clubs and concert halls. In 1990, Guy Clark was the catalyst for a series of Marlboro Music festival performances introducing the "guitar pull" to wider audiences. In various combinations of four singer-songwriters including Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely, John Prine and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Clark and his colleagues mesmerized SRO audiences with their humor, spontaneity, storytelling and songs. As a result, guitar pulls became a new tradition in clubs like New York's Bottom Line, and popular understanding of the depth and breadth of the music made in Music City has deepened. Clark, Ely, Hiatt and Lovett continue to perform as the Songwriter Tour, taking "guitar-pulls" to prestigious venues across the country.

Guy Clark remains a national treasure and folk icon, crafting masterful, poignant melodies and insightful lyrics. Tough, bare-boned and dryly sentimental, his beautiful songs reflect the man himself and display an old-fashioned masculinity that emphasizes honesty, integrity and carefully chosen words. His craggy, wistful story-songs, and plain-spoken delivery are also indicative of his persona. Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Foundation's Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004, Clark was honored with the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2005. The following year, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum named Guy Clark as its prestigious 2006 Artist-In-Residence. Workbench Songs (2006), released to universal critical acclaim and the delight of his worshipful fans, was nominated for the 2007 Grammy award as Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

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Guy Clark - Somedays The Song Writes You
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Ben Sidran - Dylan Different

"I met Bob Dylan once, a long time ago. He was an electrified wolf pressed up against the back of a booth at the Marigold Ballroom in Minneapolis. I saw him from the stage and told my Albert Grossman joke : "Here's a man whose last name should have been hyphenated."
After the set I went over to the booth and said "Bob you influenced me a lot."
Bob saiad "Oh, yeah ?"
Speaks were coming off of him. I passed Bob Dylan on a stairway once, fifteen years ago. He was coming down and I was going up. His security guy was walking in front of him, like he was clearing the road of lepers, and he said to me, "Get Back!".
Bob was looking down at his feet. He never looked up.
Under his hood, he looked just like a ghost. I dreamed about Bob Dylan once. It was just last year. I was standing in this long line. And everybody in the line had a stack of cards with writing on 'em and we were all just waiting to go into this big room and justify our lives by putting the cards in order.
And I had a plan.
I was gonna turn all my cards over so they looked like they were blank and I was gonna hand them in that way. And there was a long line of people coming out of that big room too and one of them was Bob Dylan. And he said, "Ben, what are you gonna do ?" And I showed him my cards and he handed me a pencil and said, " Man, you better get busy !"
I wrote a song for Bob Dylan, just hte other day. The chorus goes like this :
"We are the tears of a man in Thailand that wash up on a distant shore
We are the wings of a butterfly in China that started the oceans' roar
We are the straw that broke the camel's back, the bull in the china store
We are here but for a minute and gone for a whole lot more"
I never played it and maybe I never will.
But I know one thing.
If I ever meet Bob Dylan again, I'm not gonna bring it up. "

Ben Sidran



Ben Sidran has been a major force in the modern day history of jazz and rock & roll having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison.
It's been a long and varied journey for Ben Sidran—from playing boogie woogie piano as a six year old in Racine, Wisconsin, leaning into his jazz records, listening to a Blue Mitchell solo "literally like an Eskimo huddled around a fire", to growing up to play boogie woogie piano around the world and, eventually, recording with Blue Mitchell on his first solo album. Despite the reality that Sidran is better known in Europe and Japan than in America—a fact of life for most jazz musicians—Ben Sidran is an American success story.




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Ben Sidran - Dylan Different
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Track List

Everything Is Broken
Highway 61 Revisited
Tangled Up In Blue
Gotta Serve Somebody
Rainy Day Woman
Ballad of a Thin Man
Maggie's Farm
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Subterranean Homesick Blues
On The Road Again
All I Really Want To Do
Blowin' in the Wind

Ben Sidran — Vocals, Piano, Wulitizer, Hammond B3, Fender Rhodes

Alberto Malo — Drums and Percussion

Marcello Giuliani — Acoustic and Electric Bass

Rodolph Burger — Guitar, Vocal on "Blowin' in the Wind"

Bob Malach — Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Bass Clarinet

Michael Leonhart — Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Amy Helm — Background Vocals

Georgie Fame — Vocal and Organ on "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35"

Jorge Drexler — Vocal on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Leonor Watling & Luca — Backgroiund Vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Enrico Pieranunzi - Wandering ( Cam Jazz )

Not only is Enrico Pieranunzi considered the best jazz composer and pianist in Europe, he is also regarded as an amazingly prolific artist. The ideas and the music never stop. Perhaps that creative restlessness is why he named his third release of 2009, Wandering. The recording is his 14th for the acclaimed Italian jazz label, CAM Jazz, which will release the new music in the United States on October 13, 2009 in digital form only.
Pieranunzi’s release of three recordings this year presents a unique opportunity to understand his diverse influences and distinctive voice in light of these very different discs. With Enrico Pieranunzi Plays Domenico Scarlatti , the fearless Roman took on an unprecedented challenge: improvising on the sonatas of the famous classical composer Domenico Scarlatti. He followed that with the ephemeral Dream Dance, the seventh album he’s recorded with his long-time American partners, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron.
Now with Wandering, he returns to solo form such as on Scarlatti, but returns to his own evocative compositions and mastery of his own personal process. As always, Pieranunzi plays elegantly and with such astute technical ability that it heightens the tension for the listener. He also captures the emotional undercurrents of the music expertly, stoking our imaginations.

Writes Paul Benkimoun in the liner notes,
“Harmonic and melodic progressions appear as events in the course of the stories told in Wandering… ‘Fermati A Guardare Il Giorno’ has this evocative power. Who knows why ‘Wandering 2,’ as ‘Dark,’ engender black and white images…With its repeated bass vamp, ‘Improstinato 2’ too recalls a dark menace…A master in creating atmospheres, Enrico Pieranunzi allows us to hear all of the tenderness which he is capable of in the tune ‘Rosa Del Mare’; … ‘For My True Love’ finds its intensity in the delicacy with which Pieranunzi exposes in different ways the same thing: words of love…Through the multiple facets which make up each of its pieces, Wandering yields a portrait of Enrico Pieranunzi. Thanks to a magnificent pianistic mastery, to an extended dynamic and to the amplitude of his sound palette, the artist manages not to be repetitive albeit remaining himself in every instant.”

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Enrico Pieranunzi - Wandering
Enrico Pieranunzi - Plays Scarlatti
Pieranunzi - Johnson - Baron - Dream Dance
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