Queens OF Vocal Jazz

Vocalist Alexis Cole is an accomplished jazz performer with a sophisticated, urbane style and warm, resonant voice, well suited to traditional standards and swing. Cole has performed with the likes of Rufus Reid, Slide Hampton, Ron Affif, John Hébert, and Norma Winstone. Although based in N.Y.C., she has played and taught in locales worldwide, including teaching at an affiliate of the Berklee College of Music in Ecuador and as a faculty member in the jazz voice program at SUNY Purchase. Born in Queens, New York in 1976, Cole grew up in a family with a long history of musical endeavors. Her grandmother on her mother's side, who was a pianist and singer of jazz standards, initially taught Alexis "Pennies from Heaven" and other American popular songs.

Tony Bennett's career has enjoyed three distinct phases, each of them very successful. In the early '50s, he scored a series of major hits that made him one of the most popular recording artists of the time. In the early '60s, he mounted a comeback as more of an adult-album seller. And from the mid-'80s on, he achieved renewed popularity with generations of listeners who hadn't been born when he first appeared.

Noir jazz meets midnight blues in the music of Twin Danger an intriguing new group formed by Vanessa Bley and Stuart Matthewman, whose self titled, co-produced and co-written debut album is set for June 2015 release by Decca/Universal Music Classics. Twin Danger updates a classic sound in a contemporary style with such captivating Bley/Matthewman originals as Pointless Satisfaction, Just Because, Sailor, and Coldest Kind of Heart. The album sessions also yielded one surprising cover song, a distinctively different interpretation of the hard rock track No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. The core of Twin Danger is Bley and Matthewman, however on-stage for their sultry live performances the band expands with a tight-knit outfit of five musicians.

Guitarist Nicola Conte's sixth recording as a leader is a vocal tour de force, as five different singers split up duties on select tracks. With a substantial horn section pulled from the jazz ranks, Conte takes on the role of producer more than instrumentalist, while exploring various strains of Latin jazz backings for his words and music that are mostly from his personal book of tunes.