Dianne Reeves has deservedly been hoisted on high as one of the top five jazz voices in the decade of the 2000s. Her four Grammy Awards and her music from the movie soundtrack Good Night, and Good Luck solidified Reeves’ upper-echelon placement. When You Know showcases material going off…

With the meteoric success of Norah Jones’ debut in the early 2000s, the message was clear: there’s a real hunger for straightforward tunes with minimal froufrou. Jones’ producer, Arif Mardin, has assembled another likely hit with A Little Moonlight, a collection of appealing standards. Empathically supported by Dianne Reeves’…

After two solid jazz recordings, this effort by Dianne Reeves finds her returning a bit to her eclectic ways. She sounds joyous and swinging on “Exactly Like You,” and making one wonder why she still spends so much time singing R&B and pop. Other highlights include the sexy and…

This is a memorable set. When pianist Junko Onishi performs songs from the likes of Charles Mingus(“So Long Eric”), John Lewis (“Concorde”), and Ornette Coleman (“Congeniality”), she interprets each of the tunes as much as possible within the intent and style of its composer. “So Long Eric,” although performed by her trio, gives one the impression…

Pianist Junko Onishi’s CD has the feel of a Charles Mingus date, a condition helped out by the inclusion of two Mingus tunes, Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” (here attributed mistakenly to Duke Ellington) and the episodic “Piano Quintet Suite.” Onishi is a strong pianist who retains tight…

Onishi gets into a classic rock groove on this disc, rendering Hendrix‘s “Hey Joe,” Cream‘s “Sunshine of Your Love” and even the Righteous Brothers‘”You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” into exciting jazz workouts, while keeping the gritty sprit of the originals. Her fervent piano attack in particular keeps the disc consistently interesting. 01 Phaethon…

When Willie Nelson took the unexpected step of releasing Stardust in 1978, many predicted that the album of popular standards would severely derail the outlaw country singer’s career. Confounding the critics, the disc became Nelson’s best-selling effort, and spawned a whole subgenre of modern singers covering the classics. Nelson…

History has proven that Willie Nelson will duet with pretty much anybody who comes along, and while this open-hearted open mind sometimes backfires, more often than not it results in some of his most sublime recordings. Two Men with the Blues, his album with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis recorded over a two-night stand at Jazz at…

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis first worked together at The Allen Room at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center for two nights in 2007, and while at first it would seem to be an odd pairing, it really isn’t: Nelson‘s singing and guitar playing have always fallen well to the jazz side of…

Wynton Marsalis, ever the protagonist and explorer, brings his love of the spoken word and the adolescent relations of the male and female persuasion during He and She, a collection of instrumental mainstream jazz pieces with poetry as preludes. Inspired by the tone of the Jon Hendricks epic Evolution…