Manchester trio GoGo Penguin are hotly tipped as the rising stars of
the UK Jazz scene. Featuring pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick
Blacka and drummer Rob Turner, GoGo Penguin are an exhilarating live
act, drawing on a heady brew of influences from Aphex Twin to Brian Eno,
Debussy to Shostakovich and Massive Attack to EST.
Their debut album Fanfares (Gondwana Records) has won rave reviews from the Guardian to BBC Music and support from the
likes of Mike Chadwick and Gilles Peterson and was nominated for best
jazz album at the World Wide Awards. It is the band’s unique ability to
synthesis and develop each others melodic and harmonic ideas while
drawing on music from classical to electronica that makes GoGo Penguin’s
music so enthralling and their debut album such a powerful opening
salvo from a powerful new voice in UK music. GOGO PENGUIN
Here’s what you ought to know about me. First off, I love songs. I love pop songs, folk songs, jazz, soul, and rock songs. I write whatever kind of song gets my point across most clearly. My point, usually, is about the miraculous, ridiculous, confusing joy of being alive.I love American pop music from every decade (Louis Armstrong to Beyonce), any folk music with guts (Nick Lowe, Patty Griffin), and just about anything that swings, grooves, or rocks (Billie Holiday, The Band, Donny Hathaway, Elvis Costello). Contenders for my favorite song of all time include "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?", "Suzanne", and "F**k You".I believe that music is magic, and everybody needs it. That’s why I give mine away.I live in a pink house in New Orleans. I’ve got two dogs and a studio out back called The Watermelon. I grew up on a defunct cattle farm in Luray, Virginia. At sixteen I fled the coop to Eugene, Oregon. I cut my musical teeth in Philadelphia. I’ve played shows in most of North America and Europe, and soon, Australia. I’ve toured with Paul Simon, The Wood Brothers, and The Weepies. I ran a crazy-successful Kickstarter campaign. I’m an unschooler, a sex blogger, and a Lindy Hopper. I find four-leaf-clovers.If I died, and somebody came up to me in the afterlife and said, “What were the best parts?”, I’d have to say songs, sex, creativity, raw oysters, bravery, small children, and the feeling you get when somebody is utterly in tune with you, like the same spirit is kissing both your faces. CARSIE BLANTON
Born in Ponferrada, northwest of Spain, studies Jazz Guitar at ESMAE
(Porto-Portugal) with teachers Nuno Ferreira, Michael Lauren, Abe
Rábade, Mario Santos, Carlos Azevedo among others. Previously he studies
with galician jazz guitarist Marcos Pin. Also with Paco Charlín for a
year and with teachers Manuel Gutiérrez, Javier Constenla and Suso
Atanes. Attends to several master classes and courses and have played in
festivals both in Spain and Portugal. Last year he toured with chilean
master, trumpeter Cristian Cuturrufo.When you have a big musical appetite and listen a lot, a gem like this
is immediately recognized. Highly original, great musicians and superb
recording.Favorite track: here´s the wheel that kills the will. GIO YANEZ
"Flautist Jef Kearns steps forward with a very appealing R&B/hip
hop/jazz release that packs a lot of intensity and soul-stirring
melodies throughout the album.
What you will find most pleasant is how Kearns weaves his flute into the
fabric of this very focused album. It floats, it sings, and it pushes
the melodies forward with muscle and charm."
The Smooth Jazz Ride
"When in 2009 I reviewed ‘On The Level’ from flautist Jef Kearns I
described it as dispelling the myth that flute players can’t do urban
jazz. In fact it was a hip, up to the minute, collection that oozed
class and consequently it is pleasing to report that Jef is back with
the equally good ‘Soulfisticated’. In fact it finds Kearns displaying a
whole new musical maturity that is evidenced by the sophistication of
the production, the selection of guest vocalists and, above all, the
quality of the eleven songs that he either writes or co-writes."
Smooth Jazz Therapy JEF KEARNS
Waylon Speed was created by Noah Crowther, Reverend Chad Hammaker, Kelly
Ravin and Justin Crowther after playing together at a local honky-tonk
in Burlington, Vermont. Three days and one practice later, Waylon Speed
was born. While Waylon Speed is not influenced by mainstream music, they
integrate each members individual influences to achieve a truly unique
genre all of it’s own. They have won awards
from both the New England Music Awards for "Vermont's Best Band", and
Seven Days newspaper's annual Daisy Award for "Best Americana Band".They
write, release and distribute their music independently. Named after the guitarist Rev. Chad
Hammaker’s son, Waylon, the band has become a family owned and operated
enterprise. Waylon Speed released their second full-length record Kin on
April 29th, 2014, followed by a national tour. They have offered
support for large-name outfits, and are slated for a tour supporting
Lynyrd Skynyrd in November, 14'. WAYLON SPEED
Dubbed a "guitar-slinging poet" by Music News Nashville. A voice that
No Depression says "sounds like a '57 Chevy with glass mufflers..."
Lyrics that 3rd Coast Music Magazine deemed "unusually
literate...unusually honest." And a style that Peeples proclaims
Leftneck. “I'm a vegetarian that watches NASCAR, a tree-hugger that
keeps a gun under the seat," he says. His latest release, Punishing
the Myth, the third in a trilogy produced by Americana icon Gurf Morlix,
debuted at #1 on the Freeform American Roots Chart. Grant's gigs have
included a cross-country tour appearing as a feature performer slot at
The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okema, OK, and shows at The Blue Door
in Oklahoma City, The Living Room in NYC, Sam Bond's in Eugene, OR, and
The Triple Door in Seattle. He has toured both east and west coasts,
Texas, and every shore in his home state of Florida, playing at venues
that range from concert halls to biker bars to Unitarian church
services. The Americana Gazette says his songs are "real as hell, and
beautiful to boot…” GRANT PEEPLES
Jeff Cascaro und die hr-Bigband. Dieses Treffen der Spitzenklasse gilt
einem der bedeutendsten Komponisten des Great American Songbook: Harold
Arlen (1905-1986). Er schrieb Klassiker wie „Over The Rainbow“, „Stormy
Weather“, „It’s Only A Papermoon“, „Let’s Fall In Love“ oder “One For My
Baby“, zu denen Größen wie Johnny Mercer, Truman Capote, E.Y. Harburg
und Ted Koehler die Texte beisteuerten. Ella Fitzgerald, Nat ‚King’
Cole, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland und viele andere Stars
sangen einzigartige Interpretationen. Bis heute inspirieren Arlens
Kompositionen Musiker unterschiedlicher Stilrichtungen. Besonders
Jazzmusiker spricht die subtile Verknüpfung von Blues und amerikanischem
Folk immer wieder an. JEFF CASCARO....
Nancy’s live performances are legendary. She has earned many awards and enlisted
fans from around the globe. In a market place where wispy voices and shallow
emotions abound, Ms. Kelly is a breath of fresh air…or should we say, smoky air; she
takes us back to the time when jazz – and that includes vocal jazz -- was an authentic
expression of real emotion. Kelly’s refined stage presence, style, and the ability to quickly capture the emotions of
her audience isn’t the only thing that places Nancy in a league of her own--the lady
was “Born to Swing”, and she means business. Nancy Kelly’s vocal style is a study in phrasing, style and swing. She’s both old
school and new. She’s experienced, yet her delivery and ideas are fresh. She can take
a song and turn it up or down, and leave you believing that it was meant to be exactly
that way. It takes great jazz chops to do that, and Kelly’s are superb. Starting at age four in her hometown of Rochester, New York, Nancy studied piano,
clarinet, drama and dance with private instructors, and voice at the Eastman School of
Music. During her thirty-plus year career she has honed her trademark swing/bop take
no prisoner’s back-to-the-roots swinging style in front of audiences across the U.S.
and abroad--from Singapore to Switzerland, France, and Turkey to her 3 tours of
Japan. Nancy appears regularly in New York City including performances at The
Blue Note, Birdland and The Rainbow Room and Dizzy’s Jazz club, Lincoln Center.
She works frequently in Los Angeles and Miami, as well as countless jazz clubs,
festivals, and symphony orchestra engagements across the country. NANCY KELLY
How many active bluesmen today can claim to stock a homemade, single
string cigar box guitar in their arsenal and play it while wearing a
priest’s collar, all while being backed by a percussionist and washboard
player who prefers to use his hands over drumsticks and spoons? There’s
only one, and his name is Reverend K. M. Williams.Born in 1956 in Clarksville, Williams grew up in Red River County in
Northeast Texas, where he soaked in the sounds of blues and R&B
music broadcast from WLAC radio out of Nashville. Artists like John Lee
Hooker, Blind Willie Johnson, and R. L. Burnside all made strong
impressions on Williams as he was coming up, and one of his first
introductions to guitar came in the early sixties at the hands of an
itinerant blues player believed to be Elmore James. It would be almost
two decades before Williams’ career started to take off, but that long
journey has led him to open shows for legends like the Holmes Brothers,
Little Milton, and Robert Jr. Lockwood, and he shared a bill with Mavis
Staples in Europe, where he has returned three times and performed in
front of thousands.The Reverend is a bona fide ordained minister in the Holiness Church and
has been performing his unique brand of earthy gospel blues regularly
in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area since the nineties. He calls himself the
Texas Country Blues Preacher, and for good reason. I tell people all the
time that gospel music and blues are basically the same. I always said
that with the blues, you’re asking questions about life, or you’re just
expressing how you feel about what you’re going through. And gospel is
the answer to those questions. But it’s still the same feeling. I play
gospel music the same way I play blues—honest and funky, just real. REV.KM WILLIAMS
