Vic Carmen Sonne

Carmen Lundy is a world-renowned musical polymath: She is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer (with over 100 songs to her credit, she even has her own songbook), actor, visual artist, and instructor. She is also the sister of bassist Curtis Lundy. A Miami native, Lundy began singing early, inspired by her mother, the lead vocalist in the gospel group the Apostolic Singers. She studied music in high school and took vocal lessons, initially concentrating on classical music, although blues, jazz, and gospel remained passionate pursuits in her spare time. She signed to Arabesque where she recorded 1992's Moment to Moment and enlisted Gumbs, Chico Freeman, and Kevin Eubanks as some of her sidemen.

Interconnectedness is the name of Carmen Souza's 10th album. Interconnectedness is about humanity and the way we are all Interconnected. The pandemic challenged and questioned values, morals, humanity, and everything is still so uncertain and vulnerable, this music exposes exactly that vulnerability. Interconnectedness was recorded and produced by Carmen Souza and Theo Pascal between Lisbon and London with different formations, morphing into another chapter of this duo musical partnership. "As with every album that we have made throughout all these years, the music always evolves to other perspectives and meanings as it is performed in the many stages of the world, so I look forward to seeing what this music has in store and to accompanying its evolution."

Carmen McRae, a good friend of Thelonious Monk, sang 13 of his songs (two of which are also heard in different live versions) on this memorable project. Half of the lyrics are by Jon Hendricks, while the remainder were written by Abbey Lincoln ("Blue Monk"), Bernie Hanighen, Sally Swisher, or Mike Ferro. On all but the two concert performances, McRae is assisted by tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianist Eric Gunnison, bassist George Mraz, and drummer Al Foster; Mraz's solos are particularly impressive, although everyone is in sensitive form. The live recordings give listeners two more chances to acknowledge the uniqueness of tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse's tone. As for McRae, her phrasing has rarely sounded better than on this classic set, and it is a particular pleasure to hear her interpret the intelligent lyrics and unusual melodies…

The idea behind Carmen Stefanescu's latest double album starts with the piano. The Voice of Piano focuses primarily on the vocal qualities of the instrument. But it is also about the diverse interrelationships between the singing voice, between orchestral or piano song and the piano. This new double CD contains the artist's favorite pieces, almost exclusively song transcriptions of works by composers such as Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius and Strauss.

In the early seventies, the British-American group Carmen broke new ground in rock music, combining the British flair for progressive rock with traditional Spanish folk themes into a very fresh, energetic and powerful new mix. The sound is centered around guitar, keyboards are used subtly but to good effect. On the whole, they are a rather hard band to describe… Some vague comparisons could be made to Jethro Tull, Mezquita (some of the Spanish themes), and Triana (the flamenco/prog combination).