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Pianist/composer Donald Vega blends jazz, classical and Latin influences on “Spiritual Nature”

While pianist Donald Vega is beginning to draw attention in jazz circles as Mulgrew Miller’s successor in the Ron Carter Trio, he makes a bold statement as a composer and bandleader on Spiritual Nature. Joined by the regal rhythm tandem of bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash, Vega explores the marriage of jazz, Latin and classical music on his auspicious Resonance Records debut. 

“It’s a dream come true,” says the 37-year-old pianist in a news release regarding the opportunity to record with McBride and Nash. “Spiritually, this is my dream trio.”

 The core trio is augmented by guitarist Anthony Wilson, violinist and label mate Christian Howes, tenor saxophonist Bob Sheppard, trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos and trombonist Bob McChesney on Vega’s sophomore outing (following 2008’s self-producedTomorrows, which also featured drummer Nash).
Classically-trained in his native Nicaragua, Vega emigrated to Los Angeles at age 14 and began learning the language of jazz from mentor Billy Higgins at The World Stage and later with bassist John Clayton at the University of Southern California. Bassist Al McKibbon, a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s band of the late 1940s, subsequently took the young pianist under his wing and schooled him on the bandstand on the finer points of bebop. Vega met drummer Nash while working in McKibbon’s trio in Los Angeles. For Spiritual Nature, Vega imagined pairing Nash with bassist McBride, whom he had met in 2007 while attending The Juilliard School in New York. 

“The idea of having this tasty drummer with this killing bass player was so interesting,” he says. “But for them to get together in one place, it’s very rare because they’re both so busy. And when we finally got together, the music just played itself, like magic.”
Throughout Spiritual Nature, Vega shifts the configuration from trio to quartet to quintet, providing plenty of scintillating moments along the way. He kicks it off with the aggressively swinging, hard boppish “Scorpion,” which showcases his voicings for trumpet and sax on the frontline and also features an outstanding drum solo from Nash.

 “I love writing harmonies,” says Vega, “but most important to me is the melody. I always want it to be singable.”

 Ron Carter’s “First Trip,” which originally appeared on Herbie Hancock’s 1968 Blue Note classic, Speak Like a Child, is rendered here as a jaunty swinger underscored by Nash’s brushwork, McBride’s walking bass lines and featuring Wilson on guitar. “My attitude here was, ‘OK, Herbie’s version was so incredible, nobody’s going to do it better than that. So let’s just have some fun with it.'”
The album concludes with a loose, highly interactive trio rendition of Benny Golson’s classic ballad “I Remember Clifford” that is underscored by Nash’s signature brushwork and McBride’s contrapuntal approach to the bass. “All the other tunes on the album were heavily arranged,” says Vega, “so we wanted just one tune where we don’t have to read, we don’t have any arrangement, we just play. Benny Golson’s writing is great and we all knew this tune, so the idea was, ‘Let’s just go in and play.’ And you can hear that kind of looseness on this track.”
Backed by such a formidable lineup, Vega makes a giant leap as a composer-arranger and bandleader in his own right on Spiritual Nature.

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Jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins debuts “To the Ladies of Cool” on Resonance Records in March

Jazz vocalist Kathy Kosins doesn’t take anything for granted.  Since 2010, Kosins has adapted to the changing needs of the music industry, and specifically her fans, by releasing a regular series of digital singles.

The new album, her fifth, is titled To the Ladies of Cool, and the songs all derive from the repertoires of four canonical female singers of the 1950s: Anita O’Day, June Christy, Chris Connor, and Julie London. This is her first album for Resonance Records (which will release CD on March 13), owned and operated by George Klabin, whom she describes as, “this generation’s Bob Thiele, Norman Granz, and Creed Taylor.”    

From this vast pool of hundreds of titles, she says in a recent news release, “I selected 20 songs that were of interest to me.  On some occasions, I was intrigued by the title of a song I had never heard of.  A few of my choices were rather obscure – others were quite famous at one time, although I might not have known them.”  


In one instance, Kosins took Johnny Mandel’s famous instrumental “Hershey Bar,” a melody that had been scatted wordlessly by O’Day, and, with the composer’s express permission, added her own lyric to it and created “Hershey’s Kisses.”  Thus, she made “Hershey Bar” into something else entirely.  


Kosins stresses that To the Ladies of Cool shouldn’t be mistaken for a tribute album, in which a contemporary artist will simply “cover” the works of a canonical performer; it is even less a set of imitations. 
          
She also made a point to record the sessions in Los Angeles – then, as always, ground zero for the “Cool School” associated with these ladies.  Even more importantly, this gave Kosins the chance to work with such outstanding members of the L.A. local scene as the superlative pianist and musical director Tamir Hendelman (who was responsible for all of the album’s arrangements), guitarist Graham Dechter, multiple reed player Steve Wilkerson, and percussionist Bob Leatherbarrow.

Kosins is a singer, composer, songwriter (words and music), arranger, educator, and painter.  Born in Highland Park, Mich. (a city surrounded by the larger city of Detroit), she grew up in Detroit’s internationally known jazz and R&B scene.  Kosins was initially known as a singer of soul, rock, and funk, having worked extensively with the celebrated band Was (Not Was) as well as Michael Henderson. For the last 15 years or so, however, she has become famous as one of the most successful jazz singers of the contemporary era. As an instructor in this field, she has conducted master classes at over 100 colleges and universities. She also continues to work as part of a project called Detroit Memphis Experience.

Kosins has also maintained a second career as a visual artist, primarily as a painter of abstract original canvases – and has enjoyed gallery showings of her works throughout North and South America. 
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Resonance Records to release CD of previously unheard Wes Montgomery music in 2012

With a lot of sleuthing and a team of experts on the case, long lost tapes of Wes Montgomery have been discovered and restored. Resonance Records will release Echoes of Indiana Avenue – the first full album of previously unheard Montgomery music in over 25 years – on March 6, 2012, which would have been Montgomery’s 88th birthday. Over a year and a half in the making, the release will provide a rare, revealing glimpse of a bona fide guitar legend. The tapes are the earliest known recordings of Montgomery as a leader, pre-dating his auspicious 1959 debut on Riverside Records. The album showcases Montgomery in performance from 1957-1958 at nightclubs in his hometown of Indianapolis, Ind., as well as rare studio recordings. The release is also beautifully packaged, containing previously unseen photographs and insightful essays by noted music writers and musicians alike, including guitarist Pat Martino and Montgomery’s brothers Buddy and Monk.


On this scintillating discovery, Montgomery plays it strictly straight ahead, swinging with a momentum and ferocity that is positively visceral – a clear display of Montgomery’s bebop side. Listening to these recordings only reaffirms how Montgomery exerted such a profound influence over generations of guitarists – from George Benson, Pat Martino and Joe Pass to John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Kevin Eubanks, and Russell Malone to Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Joined by such Naptown colleagues as drummer Paul Parker and keyboardist Melvin Rhyne (who would later appear on Montgomery’s first Riverside release), pianist Earl Van Riper, bassist Mingo Jones and drummer Sonny Johnson, as well as brothers Monk on acoustic bass and Buddy on piano (the brothers featured on one track), Montgomery swings with blistering abandon on a program of burners and ballads. Included here are renditions of Shorty Rogers’ “Diablo’s Dance,” Erroll Garner’s “Misty” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train” as well as jazz standards “Darn That Dream” and “Body and Soul.” Montgomery also reveals some bluesy roots with an earthy improvised “After Hours Blues,” which has him playing with Guitar Slim-like nastiness. Elsewhere on Echoes of Indiana Avenue there’s a stirring duet between Wes and organist Rhyne on a moody rendition of Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight” and a faithful rendition of Horace Silver’s Latin-tinged “Nica’s Dream.” Montgomery and his brothers also tackle Thelonious Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser” with bop-ish authority.

How these long lost tapes from the early stage of Montgomery’s solo career finally emerged after being on the shelf for more than 50 years is a tale of intrigue that will enthrall collectors and aficionados. Although the identity of the person who made the original recordings remains unknown, the tapes may have passed through several hands before they were eventually acquired in 1990 by a guitarist and Montgomery fan Jim Greeninger. Due to their fragile condition, he immediately made digital transfers of the original tapes and set out to make a deal with a record company. It wasn’t until 2008 that Greeninger, who had tried selling the tapes on eBay, contacted Michael Cuscuna, the respected veteran producer who has had a long track record with Blue Note Records and is also the co-founder of Mosaic Records. In the summer of 2010, Cuscuna contacted Zev Feldman of Resonance Records, who served as a producer on the project.


 “We had no idea when we got the tapes what they were exactly,” Feldman says in a news release. “All we knew was that Wes was on them. So between 2010 and 2011, I made three trips to Indianapolis where I interviewed and discussed the recordings with scholars, musicians and friends of Wes. It was a big mystery and we had to act like gumshoes in piecing it all together. It was actually in part because of label founder and president George Klabin’s support that we were able to make this project possible.”

In addition to its release via physical CD and digital formats, Resonance has created a hand-numbered, hand-assembled LP edition pressed by audiophile embraced Record Technology, Inc. (RTI) and with a deluxe gatefold LP jacket by Stoughton Press. The two 12″ LP’s were mastered by the legendary Bernie Grundman at 45 RPM for the best sound. Resonance is also offering a free digital booklet with purchase where available (which will contain all of the content in the physical editions).

“I’m thrilled that this music will finally see the light of day,” wrote Cuscuna in the liner notes. “And even more delighted that it is all being done in the best possible way.”

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Trumpet/flugelhorn player Claudio Roditi releases “Simpatico” on Feb. 9

Grammy-nominated trumpet/flugelhorn player Claudio Roditi is set to offer his latest release “Simpatico” on the Resonance record label in February.
According to a news release, “Simpatico” showcases Roditi’s playing and composing talents. Accompanying him on several songs are drummer Duduka Da Fonseca, pianist Helio Alves, electric bass guitarist John Lee, trombonist Michael Dease and guitarist Romero Lubambo. 
“To me,” Roditi says in the release, “the main difference of this album from everything else I have done is that for the very first time these are all my compositions, all twelve of them. There are some new pieces, some a little older, but these are mostly things I haven’t recorded, and some of them I haven’t played live.”
Roditi is best known for his patented blend of Brazilian samba and bossa nova with straight-ahead jazz. In 1989, Roditi became a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra, and since then he has toured and recorded with The JazzMasters and The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, Gillespie tribute groups led by musical director Slide Hampton. He has received a Grammy nomination for his 2009 release “Brazilliance x 4.”