Close Your Eyes

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.

Life is horribly dark right now. And yet, it is not unfunny. That’s the sentiment that animates Water From Your Eyes on their new album, and first for Matador, ‘Everyone’s Crushed,’ out May 26. On the follow-up to the Brooklyn duo’s 2021 breakthrough, ‘Structure,’Rachel Brown (they/them) and Nate Amos (he/him) find silliness and fatalism dancing in a frantic lockstep, using heart palpitating rhythms and absurdist, deadpan lyrics to convey stories of personal and societal unease. Described by Brown as Water From Your Eyes’ most collaborative record ever, it’s a swollen contusion of an album: experimental pop music that’s pretty and violent, raw and indelible.

Lionel Loueke, one of the jazz world’s most searingly original and sought-after guitarists, has devoted the bulk of his output to original music. But Close Your Eyes, originally released on vinyl by Newvelle in 2018, found the Benin-born Loueke focusing entirely on standards and canonical jazz classics.