Giacomo Gates

Giacomo Gates approaches jazz singing with a showman's poise and an aficionado's zeal. With his deep, cognac baritone and his vintage-hipster lexicon, his phrasing and his bearing, he upholds a distinctly masculine ideal of deceptively easy nonchalance. Gates is known as the modern day heir to Eddie Jefferson, the godfather of vocalese. Here he uses the style sparingly, but to great advantage, never showboating by using the challenging technique.

Jazz vocalist Giacomo Gates is blessed with a smooth and supremely expressive baritone voice and an all-inclusive musicality which encompasses a hipster-like coolness, a smattering of vocalese, an Eckstine-like seductiveness, the story telling ability of a griot, a firm footing in the blues and a sense of swing which is second-to-none.

Bassist Jim Ferguson does something on Deep Summer Music and his 1999 debut, Not Just Another Pretty Bass, that few on his instrument can muster. And it's so simple, so dynamic. He sings. Well, he not only sings, but he offers up a pliable voice that can wrap around a lyric like a hug (try the lovely title tune here), and then morph into a playful, sardonic, jab-rich vehicle that shows off how much style he has. A most important follow-up to Ferguson's auspicious debut.

Bassist Jim Ferguson does something on Deep Summer Music and his 1999 debut, Not Just Another Pretty Bass, that few on his instrument can muster. And it's so simple, so dynamic. He sings. Well, he not only sings, but he offers up a pliable voice that can wrap around a lyric like a hug (try the lovely title tune here), and then morph into a playful, sardonic, jab-rich vehicle that shows off how much style he has. A most important follow-up to Ferguson's auspicious debut.