Jazz Pop

When most jazz singers do standards, they come from the "classic" American songbook, the one that includes show tunes and pop songs from a bygone era, one that was powered by names such as Gershwin, Lerner & Loewe, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sammy Kahn, Johnny Mercer, and so many others. That said, Cassandra Wilson is not just any jazz vocalist, and her Blue Note catalog – the label she's been with since 1993 – proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wilson has explored her deep love of jazz and blues to be sure, covering everyone from Robert Johnson to Miles Davis, but along the way she's also covered tunes by modern composers, those who have stormed the pop charts in the last 30 years or so, and those who are still on them. Closer to You: The Pop Side is a retrospective collection that looks at this side of Wilson's complex musical persona, and offers a selection of 11 tunes from her Blue Note albums, all of them focusing on songs from the rock, pop, and soul genres, and all executed in her own idiosyncratic manner.

Something of a smooth jazz oriented answer to the label's 2003 straight-ahead compilation Jazz After Dark, this highly engaging two-disc set features oft-played radio hits that have helped define the genre's generally easy grooves and colorful melodies. For diehard fans, smooth jazz has always been as about much about lifestyle as music, and these tracks will no doubt remind them just why they became devotees. All the early classics (circa mid-'70s to mid-'80s) are here, from Kenny G.'s "Songbird" and Dave Grusin's "Mountain Dance" to George Benson's "Breezin'" and Grover Washington, Jr.'s "Just the Two of Us." These are supplemented by later hits like Boney James & Rick Braun's "Grazin' in the Grass" and Dave Koz's "You Make Me Smile." But it's not simply an objective survey of smoothness at its best. The collection also seems designed to promote artists in the Concord Jazz stable – David Benoit and Russ Freeman, the Rippingtons, the Braxton Brothers, Gato Barbieri, Eric Marienthal, and Cassandra Reed, among others.

Quattro dischi all’attivo, premi vinti di qua e di là, partecipazioni a kermesse importanti: Térez Montcalm non avrebbe proprio bisogno di presentazioni. La cantante canadese, originaria del Quebec, anche conosciuta come la Janis Joplin del jazz, ha tale e tanta grinta da non risparmiarla per niente affatto nella sua espressività vocale. Che è dolce, nervosa, increspata e mai soverchiante. Sa passare dai momenti più intimistici (“Love”, “Growing Sronger”, “Parce que y a toi”, “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest World” di Elton John) a quelli più rock (la versione “unplugged” di “Voodoo Child” di Jimi Hendrix, e “Sweet Dreams” degli Eurytmichs), questa gentile Tom Waits in gonnella si diletta con la chitarra, ma anche col contrabbasso.