Along with his brother Larry, trumpeter Les Elgart led one of the more popular swing orchestras of the '50s. His smooth, tightly arranged sound helped keep the declining big band style alive on the charts for a little while longer, and his later reunions with Larry often produced stylistic detours into contemporary easy listening trends…
Girl Of My Dreams is an album of New Orleans Style Jazz featuring the Fone Jazz Makers…
It is commonly perceived that the essence of the New York Dolls was never satisfactorily captured by their two albums for the Mercury label, both of which many believe suffered from unsympathetic production. Fortunately for us all, the band's untutored rawness, unencumbered strength of purpose and unique vision is better served by the recordings that are gathered together for the first time on Personality Crisis: Live Recordings & Studio Demos 1972-1975. A trio of pre-Mercury demo sessions - arguably as close as the Dolls ever got to nailing their sound in the cold austerity of the recording studio - are joined by a collection of incendiary live shows (including two American radio broadcasts) that, despite the variable sound quality, capture their unfettered outrageousness and life-affirming vitality.
The Isley Brothers are back. The legendary R&B group has released their new album, Make Me Say It Again, Girl via RI Top Ten. The album includes the lead single “Friends and Family” featuring Snoop Dogg and its follow-up, “Make Me Say It Again, Girl” featuring Beyoncé. The latter tune, which is a reimagined version of their 1975 classic, recently peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart.
Maneuvering between grandiose retro motifs and a surprising sincerity, Michelle Gurevich’s songs are tragicomic, melody-driven, sentimental and suspended in shadowy glamour. Having released 3 albums under the moniker of Chinawoman, she now continues as Michelle Gurevich. She combines dark realism with humour in smoky and intimate ballads delivered with cutting and fatalistic lyrics. Her story began when her bedroom-produced debut album Party Girl, by some fateful unknown hand was delivered to the land of her forefathers, and soon made its way blaring from the yachts of Russian billionaires and as the ringtones of mothers all over the Ukraine. Her music has drawn comparisons to Nico and Leonard Cohen, with a voice akin to Tanita Tikaram. Decadent, dramatic and earnest, vintage keyboards and synth strings offer the solitary rendition of a grand experience, and a voice always upfront delivers motifs familiar yet impossible to pinpoint from the great soup of European chanson.