Atm 2002 07 (armadni Technicky Magazin)

Mighty Mo Rodgers (real name Maurice Rodgers) was born in Indiana where his father owned a club that featured blues performers. When Rodgers wasn't studying classical piano he was checking out the blues artists that played there. Growing up, Rodgers was deeply affected by the mid-'60s soul music from the Memphis-based Stax label. Using Stax as an influence, Rodgers started his first band while in high school called the Rocketeers. Upon entering Indiana State College, Rodgers fronted another band, the Maurice Rodgers Combo, playing Wurlitzer piano and incorporating originals with cover versions of popular songs from the era. He finally decided to quit college, move to L.A., and give music his full-time attention…

Rootsier than Robert Cray, more soulful than Jimmie Vaughan, and boasting a gospel background similar to the great Sam Cooke, Joe Louis Walker is a contemporary soul/bluesman who flawlessly and effortlessly mixes his diverse influences. On his first album in three years (and Telarc label debut), Walker proves he's an artist capable of terse, searing guitar solos, as on the R&B "Do You Wanna' Be With Me?"; mid-tempo, jazzy soul such as "Leave that Girl Alone"; or rugged acoustic Delta blues like the appropriate album-closing "Strangers in Our House." Walker - who began his career playing religious music - not surprisingly proves himself a more than adequate soul/gospel vocalist in the Al Green vein on the spiritual "Where Jesus Leads"…

The band that eventually became the Children began life as a pair of competing garage combos on the often-overlooked San Antonio rock circuit in 1965. The Stoics came together in the spring of that year. Guitarists William Ash and Rufus Quillian were upper-middle-class kids while singer Al Acosta, drummer Sam Allen, and bass player Michel Marechal all came from the city's predominantly Hispanic northeast side…

Based in Luleå, Sweden, a town roughly 160 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, the Norrbotten Big Band (NBB) is living proof that jazz is truly a universal music with a remarkable ability to transcend geographical boundaries and cultural differences in its diffusion and appeal.
In this unlikely setting, a vast Nordic region where the nomadic Sami people have been tending their reindeer herds for centuries, the NBB - which since 1996 has been under the artistic direction of the imaginative American trumpeter and composer Tim Hagans - has established itself as Sweden’s representative within the ranks of European ensembles like Germany’s WDR Big Band that have adapted the classic American jazz big band tradition of the Swing and Post-War eras…

Ambra: Honour & Glory, Fascination of sound and nature. Awesome production of nature film with music and lyrics which involves you in the myths of the middle ages. Truely out of this world.
Essentially, it is a collaboration between two composer/producer brothers, Giorgio and Martin Koppehele (or Cope to use their English-speaking alias). Their musical style is drawn from many diverse influences and classical training, but in a nutshell could best be described as intelligent electronica with depth and complexity, meets world music.
"Ambra, Honour and Glory" offers up a fascinating mixture of elements from many different cultures; Middle Eastern, Far Eastern, European and Native American to name but four. It is intended to be a musical journey around the world - India, the Antarctic, America, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand…

Culled from various live recordings Junior Wells made in his final year or so, Live Around the World: The Best Of is not a "best-of." Instead, it intends to present the legendary Chicago bluesman in a late-career renaissance - or, as Donald E. Wilcock says in his affectionate liner notes, "This album is not the last gasps of a dying legend." To a certain extent that's true, because Wells does not sound tired, weary, or disengaged. He turns in spirited, energetic performances throughout and his harp playing remains a marvel, never following expected routes, always melodic and invigorating. That doesn't mean the album itself is invigorating, something that is a worthy bookend to Hoodoo Man Blues, since it suffers from the problem that plagues so many contemporary blues albums - clean, precise production with perfectly separated instruments, plus the band's tendency to veer into funk vamps instead of dirty grooves…

Although Karin Krog was born in Oslo and grew up in a country where Norwegian is the primary language, she is a shining example of how effectively a Scandinavian vocalist can sing English-language jazz. Raindrops, Raindrops, a best-of CD that spans 1966-1985, paints a consistently attractive picture of Krog's artistry. Assembled by a German label called Crippled Dick Hot Wax, this collection shows Krog to be an adventurous, risk-taking improviser who brings an intriguing variety of influences to the table - Sheila Jordan, Betty Carter, and Jeanne Lee have affected her work, but so have less abstract vocalists like Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. Krog favors an inside/outside approach (usually more inside than outside), and the Norwegian improviser is as convincing on Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" as she is on Michel Legrand's "I'll Wait for You" and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight"…

Although Karin Krog was born in Oslo and grew up in a country where Norwegian is the primary language, she is a shining example of how effectively a Scandinavian vocalist can sing English-language jazz. Raindrops, Raindrops, a best-of CD that spans 1966-1985, paints a consistently attractive picture of Krog's artistry. Assembled by a German label called Crippled Dick Hot Wax, this collection shows Krog to be an adventurous, risk-taking improviser who brings an intriguing variety of influences to the table - Sheila Jordan, Betty Carter, and Jeanne Lee have affected her work, but so have less abstract vocalists like Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. Krog favors an inside/outside approach (usually more inside than outside), and the Norwegian improviser is as convincing on Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" as she is on Michel Legrand's "I'll Wait for You" and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight"…

Govinda start their activities in 1994, when original members of Keshava (Satya Mana, Pandit Ananda and Yasodanandana), that had some of their new age tracks released on Klaus Schulze label Innovative Сommunication” decided to change. Everything started when the three Keshava members met DJ Om, who was quite well known in the Los Angeles area, Balearic Islands and Barcelona, so they decided to start a new project, Govinda, along with the support of Indian and Sri Lankan singers, plus the singer/dancer "Chandra". The new project gets immediate interest, and Govinda release their first album "Selling India by the pound" and their first 12" single "Trascendental Ecstasy" which also includes a long and uptempo version of "Awaken"…