Lizzie Thomas Easy To Love (2013)

Jacqui Dankworth’s latest CD offers a contrast with It Happens Quietly, her previous disc, inasmuch as the standards she sang there have been replaced, for the most part, by material originating from Jacqui herself and from the musicians surrounding her. These include her husband, the Memphis-born singer and keyboard player, Charlie Wood, her bassist Geoff Gascoyne, who arranged many of the tracks, plus the multi-talented Malcolm Edmonstone, who has worked with Jacqui as her Musical Director on other occasions.

The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. More than a half-century after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing. Billie Holiday's highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band…

Eri Ohno is a Japanese pop, funk and jazz singer.
Eri Ohno recorded her debut album Feeling Your Love and the single "Trad Man" (Better Days) in 1979, followed by several albums on the Denon and Nippon Columbia record labels. She recorded the album Eri My Dear (1982) with Toshiyuki Daitoku (keyboards), Cecil McBee (bass) and Billy Hart (drums). With Hank Jones, Eddie Gomez and Jimmy Cobb, an album with songs by Cole Porter like "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Love for Sale" or "Night and Day" was released in Tokyo in 1984.

Renowned, “Bayou Soul” singer-songwriter, Marc Broussard announces his new studio album, Easy To Love, to be released on September 15th.

Renowned, “Bayou Soul” singer-songwriter, Marc Broussard announces his new studio album, Easy To Love, to be released on September 15th.

Renowned, “Bayou Soul” singer-songwriter, Marc Broussard announces his new studio album, Easy To Love, to be released on September 15th.

It's easy to love the piano of Steve Kuhn — even without the album's cover image of a model exposing herself by the side of a freeway! Kuhn's keys have a lot more class than warrants the cover — and from the very first note of the set, you'll be transported away from thinking about that image, and caught in rapt attention to Steve's warm tones on the piano. The album's got a more inside, more lyrical approach than some of his other albums of the past decade or so — but that's the charm of Kuhn on the Venus label — as they've really managed to capture the softer, sensitive side of Steve's talents. Bass is by David Finck and drums are by Billy Drummond — on titles that include "Morning Dew", "Emily", "Dear Old Stockholm", "Super Jet", "Two For The Road", and "Be My Love."