Pink Martini - Hey Eugene [2007]

Artist

Pink Martini

Album

Hey Eugene!

Year

2007

Genre

Jazz, Latin, Lounge

After a seven-year gap between their first and second albums, Pink Martini have brought forth their third long-player just over two and a half years later. Based in Portland, Oregon, this dazzling 12-piece ensemble are led by pianist Thomas Lauderdale and fronted by vocalist China Forbes. Their rich musical journeys carry listeners everywhere from a ballroom in Havana to a cabaret in Paris. This set even includes a number in Japanese and another in Arabic. With their strings, horns, and sultry rhythms, Pink Martini find the common denominators in these musics from around the globe. Hey Eugene! is perfectly bookended with a pair of decidedly American numbers: their original "Everywhere" evokes musicals from Hollywood's golden era, while "Tea for Two" finds guest duet partner Jimmy Scott adding his emotionally riveting singing. While Lauderdale and his cohorts draw from past times and styles, they never come off as museum curators; rather, they celebrate the vibrancy that makes music timeless. (Amazon.com)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Taya Tan

EarFodder Rating: 4 of 5

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Pink Martini - Hang On Little Tomato [2004]

Artist

Pink Martini

Album

Hang On Little Tomato

Year

2004

Genre

Jazz, Latin, Lounge

Pink Martini should be known as the little orchestra that walks a fine line in its music. The Portland, Oregon, outfit is deeply influenced by Latin music, jazz, cabaret, cinema scores, and a smattering of other styles. But rather than simply aping legendary artists in their prime--and fooling only a few dim bulbs in the process--band shakes things up by writing its own material, or at least creating tasteful new arrangements that fit within the band’s unique post-lounge framework. 

The band keeps the playful musical vibe on Hang On Little Tomato, but jettisons what kitsch factor it had, choosing to focus wholly on original material or stuff that isn’t recognizable to the average music fan. It’s been a seven-year wait for fans since the band’s fun debut, Symphatique, and while the blush is now off the rose, the band’s creative ambitions and talent are never better displayed than here on their second effort. (Amazon.com).

If you liked the first album, don't miss out on this album!

EarFodder Recommended Track: Hang On Little Tomato

EarFodder Rating: 3.5 of 5

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Pink Martini - Symphatique [1997]

Artist

Pink Martini

Album

Symphatique

Year

1997

Genre

Jazz, Latin, Lounge

Pink Martini are a 14-piece band formed in Portland, Oregon in 1994 by Thomas M. Lauderdale. The group incorporates a number of different styles into their music including lounge, classical and jazz.

The debut album Sympathique, released in 1997, is a mix of original works and covers of classics, such as "Que Sera Sera". The album has gone on to sell over three quarters of a million copies.(Amazon.com)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Sympathique

EarFodder Rating: 4 of 5

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Lavern Baker - Rock n Roll

Artist

Lavern Baker

Album

Rock n Roll

Year

1954

Genre

Rock and Roll

LaVern Baker (November 11, 1929 – March 10, 1997) was an American Rhythm & Blues singer, originally billed as “Little Miss Sharecropper”, then “Bea Baker”. She had taken the first name “LaVern” by 1952, when she began recording with Todd Rhodes and his band.

Born Delores Baker (she is occasionally known as Delores Williams because of an early marriage to a Eugene Williams) in Chicago, Illinois; by 1953 Baker had signed with Atlantic Records, and immediately began releasing hits, such as “Soul on Fire” and “Tweedlee Dee”. Georgia Gibbs scored the bigger hit with her version of “Tweedlee Dee”, for which Baker unsuccessfully attempted to sue her. 

In 1991, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her song “Jim Dandy” was named one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. (Last fm)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Tweedlee-Dee

EarFodder Rating: 4.25 of 5

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Benny Benassi - Hypnotica

Artist

Benny Benassi

Album

Hypnotica

Year

2003

Genre

Electro, Dance

Marco (Benny) Benassi is an Italian disc jockey and producer of eurodance/electronic music born in 1967.

He started to DJ in the 1980s and by the 1990s he was helping to create music for other artists, including Whigfield, in the Off Limits production studio. His first solo project success under the name KMC came with "I Feel So Fine" which featured Dhany on vocals and was a hit in Europe in 2001. He followed this in 2002 with "Satisfaction" which was a great success helped, no doubt, by the accompanying video featuring models using power tools.
In 2003 he released his debut album Hypnotica which proved to sell the most copies of an Italian album outside Italy. After this solo success he formed a group with his brother Alle Benassi called Benassi Bros. and together they produced Pumphonia (2004) and Phobia (2005). Also during 2005 he founded a record label called Pump-Kin Music whose primary purpose was to nurture the talents of unsigned DJs and producers. (Amazon.com)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Time

EarFodder Rating: 4 of 5

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Billy Taylor - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

Artist

Billy Taylor

Album

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

Year

Unknown

Genre

Jazz

Taylor is famous for bringing jazz to a wider audience and retaining a recognisable musical personality with his wide ranging piano wizadry. 'I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free' is the theme from the BBC TV Series 'Film 80'. It is arranged for piano, vocals and guitar. (Music Room)

EarFodder Recommended Track: I Wish I Knew..

EarFodder Rating: 4.25 of 5

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Mirwais - Production

Artist

Mirwais

Album

Production

Year

2001

Genre

Electronic, Trip-Hop

Mirwais Ahmadzaï, more commonly known simply as Mirwais, is a Paris-based record producer and songwriter. He was born in Switzerland with the Afghan lastname ‘Ahmad-zai’

Mirwais is a leader in the French style of progressive electronic dance music / Progressive electronica. A former member of the defunct 1980s group Taxi Girl, he was re-discovered by Madonna in the late 1990s when he submitted a demo to her then record label Maverick Records.

He signed to Sony for his US album release Production which spawned two club hits, “Disco Science” and “Naïve Song”. “Disco Science” appeared in the Guy Ritchie film Snatch. (Last fm)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Naive Song

EarFodder Rating: 3.5 of 5

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Digitalism - Idealism

Artist

Digitalism

Album

Idealism

Year

2007

Genre

Electro

Digitalism is a German dance duo, founded in 2004 in Hamburg, Germany, consisting of Jens “Jence” Moelle and İsmail “Isi” Tüfekçi. They are signed to French label Kitsuné Music and have released four singles to date: “Idealistic”, “Zdarlight”, “Jupiter Room”, and “Pogo”. Jens likens Digitalism’s songs to simple chapters in a complex novel about social interaction and attraction, with distorted bass lines and thumping rhythms comprising the punctuation. (Last fm)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Idealistic

EarFodder Rating: 3 of 5

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First Class Jazz - Louis Armstrong

Artist

Louis Armstrong

Album

First Class Jazz

Year

1998

Genre

Jazz

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was a trumpet player, singer, and bandleader, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists in the history of jazz.

Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn’t travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver’s band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong’s role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise. (Last fm)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Intro+Basin St Blues

EarFodder Rating: 4.5 of 5

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Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious

Artist

Infected Mushroom

Album

Vicious Delicious

Year

2007

Genre

Psychedelic

An impressively varied collection from the Israeli duo Infected Mushroom, Vicous Delicious [2007] adds a more vocals and instruments than is their usual wont and massages ...    Full Descriptionthe tempos more than some of their earlier albums, but is otherwise entirely of a piece. Erez Aizen and Amit Duvdevani are masters at subsuming listeners inside great throbbing walls of beats, with snatches of melody weaving through the arrangements merely for decoration. Yet there's not the bludgeoning quality of many trance records (even some of Infected Mushroom's early works); this is music that envelops -- rather than overwhelms -- the listener. Psychedelic in a way that dance music rarely has been since the heyday of the Madchester scene. (cd universe)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Becoming Insane

EarFodder Rating: 4.25 of 5

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Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Artist

Massive Attack

Album

Mezzanine

Year

2002

Genre

Trip-Hop

The pioneering force behind the rise of trip-hop, Massive Attack were among the most innovative and influential groups of their generation; their hypnotic sound — a darkly sensual and cinematic fusion of hip-hop rhythms, soulful melodies, dub grooves, and choice samples — set the pace for much of the dance music to emerge throughout the 1990s. (Last fm)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Teardrop

EarFodder Rating: 3.75 of 5

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Indigo Swing - Indigo Swing

Artist

Indigo Swing

Album

Indigo Swing

Year

1998

Genre

Swing

This self-titled Indigo Swing masterpiece catapulted the band to fame in the late 1990's. On it, the boys swoop and dive through fourteen standard and original tracks, combining their signature driving, piano-based rhythms with Johnny Boyd's bright and earnest vocals. Think authentic postwar, pre-rock n' roll. The album captures all the energy and fun of a raucous Indigo Swing live show, full of jumpin' blues, countrified swing and infectious boogie-woogie wonder.After seven years, 1,100 shows worldwide and 100,000+ albums sold, Indigo Swing disbanded in 2000. (cd Universe)

EarFodder Recommended Track: Swing Lover

EarFodder Rating: 3.75 of 5

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