Noah Gaspar Love

Pedro Soler & Gaspar Claus new album “Al viento” was sketched out in Icelandic territory, with Valgeir Sigurösson in his Greenhouse studio, then later completed in Spain with Didier Richard, drives the nail home.

Over the past year, Grammy Best New Artist-nominated Vermont singer and songwriter Noah Kahan has exploded from his New England roots into the global mainstream and has been touted as one of this year’s biggest and best new artists. The global sensation is back with a deluxe version of Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever). The Deluxe showcases seven additional tracks from Kahan’s Platinum-Certified Stick Season album as well as his Double Platinum-Certified and first career top 10 hit “Stick Season” and Platinum-Certified top 40 hit “Dial Drunk”.

Rising star pianist/composer Noah Haidu’s resplendently expressive Standards (June 23, 2023, Sunnyside Records) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the release that launched Keith Jarrett’s great Standards Trio and arrives on the heels of Haidu’s two recent acclaimed Sunnyside albums, most notably 2021’s SLOWLY: Song for Keith Jarrett. Featuring Haidu with bassists Buster Williams and Peter Washington, drummer Lewis Nash and guest saxophonist Steve Wilson, Standards is, in part, the soulmate to SLOWLY, which DownBeat called “a stunning and heartfelt tribute.” After Haidu, Buster Williams and Billy Hart recorded its last two songs – “But Beautiful” and “Georgia on My Mind” – Williams said, “Those two standards were beautiful, got any more?”

Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of the greatest Portuguese composers of the 20th century. He composed songs in many genres, including folk-song arrangements, modernist settings of Portuguese poetry, and songs connected to political and historical events, all of which are represented here in this second volume (Volume 1 is on 8.579039). Early songs reveal the harmonic influence of Debussy, while Lopes-Graça’s utopian vision of international fraternity can be heard in his harmonisations of Greek, Czech and Slovak songs, which range from lament and defiance to pastoral sentiment.

Pianist Noah Haidu sees a certain irony in his current recorded output. “I love composing but improvisation has always been my greatest passion. When I started releasing music in 2011 I relied on my songwriting to make a unique artistic statement, but I’ve come full circle and realized that finding my own voice on a simple, unadorned standard is a rare and necessary endeavor.” Haidu embraced that endeavor on his 2023 release Standards, and on Standards II, due out April 12, 2024 on Sunnyside Records. The new album is a breathtaking masterpiece featuring Haidu with two of the music’s most esteemed players, Buster Williams on bass and Billy Hart on drums.