Nicole Just

Recordings that include strings quartets by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern are common, but an album that includes music for quartet and voice by each of them is a rarity. Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, with a part for soprano in its third and fourth movements, is standard repertoire, but the version of Berg's Lyric Suite with a vocal part in the final movement is highly unusual, and Webern's bagatelle with voice, an unpublished movement apparently once intended to be part of the Six Bagatelles, Op. 9, receives what is probably its first recording. Novelty aside, the high standards of these performances make this a formidable release. Founded just before the turn of the millennium, Quatuor Diotima plays with the assurance and mutual understanding of a seasoned ensemble. The quartet has a lean, clean sound and the ensemble is immaculate, playing with exquisite expressiveness, an ideal combination for this repertoire.

The latest album from Nicole Atkins, Italian Ice, was recorded in the greatly respected Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and features members of the Bad Seeds, Dap-Kings, the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and more. Genre-hopping is a feature on this album and its influences range from soul to Roy Orbison. Speaking of soul, Nicole Atkins’ voice is full of it. That is the immediate feeling that hits you as you dive headfirst into the sweeping landscape of the first track on this musically moving album. AM Gold has all the throaty soulfulness of an Aretha Franklin track with the atmospheric beachcomber feel of a Morcheeba album. Nicole describes Italian Ice as “an acid trip through my record collection” and she couldn’t be more right. This is the sound of the perfect summer spent on beautiful deserted beaches with the waves lapping at your toes and the sun caressing your skin. This album is just divine and listening to Nicole’s voice is like diving into cool, clear sound waves.

Nicole Glover has been getting some well-deserved exposure recently in the context of groups like the Artemis sextet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. But this tenor saxophonist is best appreciated on her own albums, where she fronts a saxophone-bass-drums trio. While not a common jazz format, this instrumentation has sired some classic recordings, beginning with a 1945 Commodore record by Don Byas and Slam Stewart (whose foot-tapping qualifies as "drumming"), through classics by Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson and Ornette Coleman, to contemporary trios led by Branford Marsalis and Glover's label mate, JD Allen.

'Cry No More' takes Danielle Nicole into fresh new creative territory, delivering fourteen emotion-charged new songs whose rootsy musical edge is matched by their air of hard-won personal experience. Luther Dickenson, Sonny Landreth, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Walter Trout guest on guitar. With seasoned veteran Tony Braunagel (Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Burdon) producing, such heartfelt, groove-intensive new tunes as "Crawl," "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore," the Bill Withers-penned "Hot Spell" and the heart-tugging title track, find Danielle cutting loose and focusing on the storytelling and character-development aspects of her songwriting.