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Jonathan Widran

Jun 29, 2022

HOLLYWOOD BOWL JAZZ FESTIVAL, Day 1

Though it’s got a new name and is now organized by the LA Philharmonic, make no mistake, the “first annual” Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival is every bit the magical, soulful, fiery and above all stylistically eclectic event its processor, the legendary Playboy Jazz Festival was for over 40 years. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the term “jazz” is that it can be many things to different people, incorporating vibes and rhythmic styles that make trying to define exactly what j

Jonathan Widran

Jun 17, 2022

DAVE BASS, The Trio, Vol. 2

True to its bare bones, direct as it could get about its intentions title, when veteran pianist Dave Bass released The Trio, Vol. 1 in 2021, it was all about showcasing his, as I put it “whimsy and wonder” filled camaraderie with kindred spirits, Kerry Kashiwagi (bass) and Scott Gordon (drums), who had only officially joined forces a year or so earlier. Yet in a career filled with extraordinary musical comebacks (first from a bad wrist fracture, then from a successful legal c

DRUMMER MICHAEL MESEY HONORS CHUCK BERRY WITH 'CHUCK ROCKS LIVE,' MASTERED AT ABBEY ROAD

Jonathan Widran

Jun 16, 2022

DRUMMER MICHAEL MESEY HONORS CHUCK BERRY WITH 'CHUCK ROCKS LIVE,' MASTERED AT ABBEY ROAD

photo by Mark Gilliland As the drummer and founder of the indie rock band American Greed, Michael Mesey wrote and performed on the power ballad “Together,” which hit #1 on two major global charts and was submitted for a Grammy in 2021. Back in the 90s, he recorded and toured with the St. Louis classic rock band Head East, performing with with Sammy Hagar, Boston, ZZ Top, REO Speedwagon, Heart, Cheap Trick and many others. And as the go-to special show and traveling drummer fo

Jonathan Widran

Jun 14, 2022

SHARON FENDRICH, Sapphire Oak

In new age music, there is no shortage of artists who love to celebrate nature and our deep connections to sacred lands. Generally this manifests in thematic recordings dedicated to different types of landscapes, regions of the country or National Parks – but Sharon Fendrich is perhaps the first genre artist ever to focus so powerfully and singularly on the majestic history and inspiring symbolism of a single type of tree. On her epic, truly transcendent and lovingly and intr

MICHAEL J THOMAS featuring RANDY BRECKER, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World"

Jonathan Widran

Jun 10, 2022

MICHAEL J THOMAS featuring RANDY BRECKER, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World"

Capturing the sociopolitical Zeitgeist of a time when Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia were at a fever pitch, Tears For Fears #1 1985 smash “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” – a song about the thirst for control and power and its consequences – became something of an anthem among young people growing up under the austerity of the Margaret Thatcher and Reagan era. Curt Smith, the song’s lead singer, said the themes were “quite serious – it’s about everybody want

Jonathan Widran

Jun 9, 2022

LYNN TREDEAU, Reflection

Considering the incredibly creative and prolific roll Lynn Tredeau has been on since releasing her popular and emotionally impactful debut album Echoes of Life in 2015 – a span in which she’s released eight albums and received a stream of inspiring accolades from the new age community – it would be easy to experience Reflection, her latest masterful solo piano collection, as a thoughtful and gratitude filled look back on this time. The multi-talented composer and performer’s

Jonathan Widran

Jun 7, 2022

BEVERLEY CHURCH HOGAN, Sweet Invitation

In my rave review of Can’t Get Out of This Mood, Beverley Church Hogan’s delightful 2019 debut album which she recorded at the tender age of 84, I covered all the inspiring parts of her “never too late to pursue those jazz dreams” background – including the fact that since first headlining at L.A.’s Catalina Jazz Club in 2002, she’s been a perennial performer, drawing enthusiastic sellout crowds that inspired her to launch her recording career at the right time. Three years o

Jonathan Widran

Jun 7, 2022

DAN OLIVO, Day By Day

For eminently versatile, warmly soulful veteran jazz singer Dan Olivo, a great advantage of being one of Southern California’s busiest high end hotel, resort, lounge and club singers is the opportunity to gather a cadre of the region’s top session and touring musicians to create his long awaited debut album Day By Day – a stunning, sometimes intimate, often playfully swinging and coolly bluesy crooner’s paradise. Leading us on a dynamic emotional sojourn from the feisty hipst

DANA FITZSIMONS WITH BILL GRAHAM AND BRANDON BOONE, Fault Lines

Jonathan Widran

Jun 6, 2022

DANA FITZSIMONS WITH BILL GRAHAM AND BRANDON BOONE, Fault Lines

No doubt, every working jazz musician and fan sidelined from the music they love during the pandemic breathed great sighs of relief once the lockdown restrictions lifted. Few recorded albums in this almost post-pandemic era capture the unleashing of pent up energy as powerfully and freewheelingly as Fault Lines, the offbeat, free jazz improvisation driven debut by the trio of drummer Dana Fitzsimons and two of the brightest lights on the Atlanta jazz scene, pianist Bill Graha

Jonathan Widran

Jun 6, 2022

SIDNEY JACOBS, If I Were Your Woman

From his first pro gig at 18 as a principal vocalist with the internationally touring Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers through his recent tours with The 5th Dimension, Sidney Jacobs has spent a lifetime, like one of his chief influences Al Jarreau, artfully transcending the boundaries between jazz, pop and R&B. Considering his expansive vocal range, effortlessly supple shifts from otherworldly jazz scat to straightforward emotional soul singing, it seems limiting that his new al

LELAND AND THE SILVER WELLS, Straight to Your Town

Jonathan Widran

Jun 4, 2022

LELAND AND THE SILVER WELLS, Straight to Your Town

When I last had the pleasure of visiting the sonically, rhythmically, poetically and thematically eclectic musical headspace of Leland Ettinger on her self-titled 2018 opus, the big story was her passion for, connection to and literary commonalities with her idol Joan Didion – plus the maddening fact that the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was blissfully recording again after an 11 year hiatus. Like on that collection, the experience of immersing in her gripping

ANAYA MUSIC: How a Woman With a Post-Doctorate in Technology Became An International New Age Icon

Jonathan Widran

Jun 3, 2022

ANAYA MUSIC: How a Woman With a Post-Doctorate in Technology Became An International New Age Icon

A timeless composer and ethereal vocalist passionate about elevating the human spirit through the power of music and universal vibration, Brazilian recording artist Anaya Music has, since launching her recording career in 1998, captured the soothing yet spiritually and emotionally energizing essence of the music of her native country via a dynamic synthesis of orchestral new age, electronic and melodic trance influences and textures. Her expansive, globally distributed body o

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