SOZO Instrumental – Jazz Christmas Instrumental (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:37 minutes | 560 MB | Genre: Christmas
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sparrow (SPR)
Capitol/Sparrow Records release the new compilation Jazz Christmas Instrumental. The production music collection features holiday classics presented in an easy, jazzy aesthetic. With over 2 million fans across streaming services, SOZO Playlists is a trusted brand and market-leader specializing in expertly curated playlist collections safe for the whole family.
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Sabine Goetz – Samuel Adler: A Celebration of Sam @ 95: Piano Music and Songs (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:17:20 minutes | 715 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
The youthful agility of Samuel Adler – born in Mannheim in 1928 but long since regarded as the dean of American music – would appear to contradict the fact that he reached his 95th birthday in March 2023. This celebration of his productive life – as composer, teacher, writer and conductor – testifies to his ongoing vigour with a programme of songs and piano works composed, for the large part, after his 90th birthday, many of them tributes to musician friends. His music has its roots in the Neo-Classical clarity of composers like Copland and Hindemith, who were among his teachers, but has a raunchy energy entirely Adler’s own – and which would be remarkable in a composer half his age.
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Salvatore Accardo, Bruno Canino – W.A.MOZART KV 454, 301, 306 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:08 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © fonè Records
Salvatore Accardo was born in Turin in a family coming from the South of Italy: his father Vincenzo, artist engraver of cameos was passionate with music and his mother was a primary school teacher.
At 3 he asked for a violin and began to play to ear, at 5 he began his studies in Naples with the musician and pedagogue Luigi D’Ambrosio, later he entered the Naples Conservatorio of San Pietro a Majella where at 13 he graduated full marks playing for the first time Paganini’s Capricios.
Admitted ad honorem at the Accademia Chigiana of Siena, Accardo studied there with Yvonne Astruc, former pupil and assistent of George Enescu, starting to be friends with his classmates: Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, Maurizio Pollini, etc.
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S.G. Goodman – Teeth Marks (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:03 minutes | 956 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Verve Forecast
S.G. Goodman feels the lingering impression of someone who didn’t return her love in “Teeth Marks,” the first preview and title track of the Kentucky singer-songwriter and activist‘s follow-up to 2020’s Old Time Feeling. Teeth Marks will be released June 3 via Verve Forecast.
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Saffire – Taming The Hurricane (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 48:22 minutes | 599 MB | Genre: Metal, Hard Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rock Of Angels Records
Saffire was born in Gothenburg in 2005, the idea was to form a band based on Melodic hard rock and heavy metal of the old school, but giving it a modern touch. In 2013, the debut album “From Ashes To Fire” was released, Rocknytt. Net, one of Sweden’s biggest rock websites, put the album on their top 10 list of the best albums of 2013. Two more albums; “For The Greater Good” (2015) and “Where The Monsters Dwell” (2018) were released, Where The Monsters Dwell” received a place in Sweden Rock Magazine’s annual Top 20 Albums of the Year list. Tobias Jansson and Victor Olsson were selected in 2018 for the big Swedish AOR project Gathering Of Kings, so they met Efraim Larsson. The new album marks a turning point with the entry of Efraim Larsson, a groovy powerhouse of a drummer, with even more raw power than before. His sound and style greatly influenced this album and the focus was on exactly this raw power. Saffire are inspired by rock and metal bands of the 70s and 80s such as Rainbow, Dio, Whitesnake, Van Halen and Black Sabbath. The sound can be described as a mixture of these bands with a progressive twist. Saffire manages to keep alive the Swedish heritage of great rock bands in mid-tempo and hard-hitting melodic Hard/ Heavy Rock.
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Song Yi Jeon, Vinicius Gomes – Home (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:26 minutes | 835 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Greenleaf Music
A collaboration between vocalist Song Yi Jeon and guitarist Vinicius Gomes, 2022’s Home showcases the duo’s gorgeously enveloping blend of Brazilian, classical, and ECM-style jazz. Born in South Korea, Jeon has made her home in Switzerland for much of her career. That’s where she first met the Brazilian-born, New York-based Gomes while both were members of Wolfgang Muthspiel’s Focusyear ensemble in 2018. Together, they struck up a creative partnership, communing over their shared love for artful and intimately rendered chamber jazz. With her pristine tone and agile sense of harmony, Jeon is known for her distinctive, wordless vocal style, a sound often more akin to an instrumentalist than a singer. It’s a sound that evokes the work of icons like Ella Fitzgerald and Norma Winstone, one that makes her as much of a collaborative improviser as Gomes. Similarly, Gomes has a fluid style that finds him bridging traditional Brazilian sounds, classical, and more far-reaching contemporary jazz idioms. Think Ralph Towner crossed with Carlos Barbosa-Liam and you’ll get a sense of the guitarist’s broad virtuosity. The duo combine all of their passions here, often blurring the genre lines. They also move freely between songs that have a more compositional sound and ones built largely around improvisation. Particularly redolent of all of this is the opening “Eleven Houses,” in which Jeon glides over Gomes’ nylon-stringed Latin groove, occasionally locking melodic arms with him as they dance along their bright harmonic stairways. Interestingly, the one song that does not have any improvisation is their languid reading of Keith Jarrett’s ballad “Prism,” the pianist’s meditative style a perfect match for the pair’s deeply introspective aesthetic. Equally entrancing are cuts like Jeon’s spiraling take on Steve Reichian’s “Dancing Stars” and their kinetic bossa nova-meets-classical tango rendition of Carlos Aguirre’s “Milonga Gris.” While Jeon’s primary focus is wordless vocalese, there are two songs that do have lyrics here, including a gorgeous version of the Jimmy Rowles and Norma Winstone number “A Timeless Place” and Jeon’s own “Expecting Spring,” the latter of which features Korean lyrics written by her mother, adding yet another texture to the duo’s endlessly layered sound. With Home, Jeon and Gomes have crafted an album of nuanced beauty whose melodic textures shift delicately like shadows on a cloudy summer day. – Matt Collar
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