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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
In a society like the one where we are living in, where often music gets created and consumed too much in a hurry and disposed with equal velocity, it is incredibly heartwarming to still be able to find someone able to connect with music at 360 degrees, through building her own instrument herself and later becoming one body and one soul with it, where no one is able to spot where one ends and the other begins.
This is the case of the Denmark-based harpist and singer/songwriter Aurelia, who has just released her debut album called Rays Of Light, a record of extraordinary beauty and great mysticism, an album where the young artist was able to release her love for people, nature and life in general in such effortless style, revealing enormous talent in all aspect of Aurelia's artistry.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
Scandinavia has constantly proven, through the years, to be one of the leading countries in Europe for Jazz artists, artists able to embrace the sounds and the styles of the Masters of the genre and transporting them in a more modern dimension, in a space where they are free to explore their own musicianship and still being able to homage their music heroes.
One of those many creative and very talented artists, it is the Danish saxophonist Jeppe Zacho, someone that loves to define his playing style, as Zacho also highlighted in the liner notes of his debut album just released and called Introducing Jeppe Zacho, as "Modern Jazz In The Old Fashioned Way".
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
There is hope, in the future of music and as an art form, especially when there are record labels willing to invest on albums of a certain quality that, either for budgetarian reasons or for contractual ones, they would never see the light of the day otherwise.
It is therefore a true blessing that the American label Quarto Valley Records has strongly believed on a Blues and Rock record that celebrates the trademark sound of such a pivotal state for American Music like Texas, an album that was initially recorded back in 2009 and, rather incomprehensibly, no record label had decided to pick up and release, up until now.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
There is no doubt at all that 2023 has seen, yet again, the release of some outstanding records, records where there have been some remarkable statements of artistry at 360 degrees, an aspect that, rather sadly and in the contemporary music climate, doesn't often get necessarily (and rather unfairly) recognized with the deserved amount of albums sold, either online or in stores.
One of those outstanding albums, released just few weeks ago, is the brand new record of the Italian Blues/Rock band Bud Spencer Blues Explosion (often identified with the acronym BSBE) called Next Big Niente, an album that sees band members Adriano Viterbini (guitars and vocals) and Cesare Petulicchio (drums) moving into completely different sonic directions, more specifically, towards a highly interesting avant-garde, sonic pastiche that tinkers with Desert Blues, Electronica, 70's Disco, Rock, Folk and Trip-Hop, resulting in a rather entertaining melting pot where music becomes fragmented, melodic and distorted at the same times, perhaps with the purpose to consciously detach themselves from the common perception of what music may mean for many, in these days and age.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
Throughout the whole career of the American Blues/Rock Guitar Supremo and singer/songwriter Kenny Wayne Shepherd, this must be the very first time that the Louisiana-born artist has left a stop gap time of 4 years between his last studio album and his brand new one.
Obviously, there were very justified reasons behind this time gap. Given the 2020's worldwide pandemic that forced to immobilise live performances to any musician, it was very much understandable that Shepherd and his band would instead release a live album, on the back of the success of the tour that followed the release of the 2019's The Traveler album, perhaps one of the very best of Shepherd's remarkable career to date. Adding to all this the fact that the 25th anniversary of the release of Trouble Is.., Shepherd's most successful record to date was due back in 2022, it makes complete sense that Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his band would release a new studio record just this year.
Read more: Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Dirt On My Diamonds, Vol.1
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
Contemporary Jazz, especially in the last ten years, has seen numerous exciting artists worldwide bringing to "the game" fresh ideas and hugely entertaining new sonic combustions, enriching and expanding, in this way, the definition of Contemporary Jazz to a more cosmopolitan level.
A collective that has certainly made a solid contribution to the growth of Contemporary Jazz, since their 2013's debut album Das Taxibat, is the Swedish group called Daniel Karlsson Trio, a hugely talented ensemble of musicians whose artistic path has been followed closely by our website, through the last few years and that includes the band leader Daniel Karlsson on piano, Fredrik Rundqvist on drums and Christian Spering on double bass.
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- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato