Tamia | Love Life
Def Jam Recordings
by Darnell Meyers-Johnson
Tamia was literally picked from obscurity 20 years ago when Quincy Jones auditioned her for his 1995 album Q’s JOOK JOINT. Her solo feature, “You Put A Move On My Heart” became the set’s lead single and earned Tamia the first of her six Grammy nominations. The rest, as they say, is history.
Playboy Jazz Festival – Day 2 – Sunday June 14, 2015
A Concert Reflection by A. Scott Galloway
Photos: Mathew Imaging
Brown Bunnies of Playboy
An afternoon of tradition and roots gave way to an evening of mash-ups and fusions for the second day of the 37th Annual Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
Playboy Jazz Festival – Saturday June 13, 2015
Concert Reflection by A. Scott Galloway
Photos: Mathew Imaging
June gloom morphed into jazz-soul glory for Saturday June 13, 2015 – the first day of the 37th annual Playboy Jazz Festival – a day of great music that found the heat slowly and consistently escalating to the very end.
Honeys at Playboy
Maysa | Back 2 Love
(Shanachie)
by Brent Faulkner
It has been argued that R&B has been suffering an identity crisis for some years. Questions arise like ‘should R&B musicians mold themselves into pop artists for relevancy and commercial lucrativeness,’ and ‘should they embrace the explicit, salacious conformity that has become part of seemingly every genre?’
Saun & Starr | Look Closer
By Peggy Oliver
Call it coincidence or better yet, call it destiny when two or more people immediately connect with each other while managing to continue their circle of life through various spaces of time. Sandra ‘Saun’ Williams and Starr Duncan-Lowe grew up a short distance from each other in The Bronx, New York. Yet it was their meeting at a local talent show that began their journey of a much respected friendship – musically and personally – and the rest is more than history.
Con Funk Shun | More Than Love
By Peggy Oliver
When someone speaks of ‘absence making the heart grow fonder,’ it could take on a number of scenarios, especially a reuniting of a musical group that once broke their bonds and then returns again for old time music making sake. Con Funk Shun, one of the influential seventies and eighties R&B-funk ensembles, emphatically brought their audiences to the dance floor and oozed the best in romance.
Lalah Hathaway – Troubadour – Tuesday April 21, 2015 (10PM show)
A Concert Reflection by A. Scott Galloway
Show Photography: Arnold Turner
Jazz composer/saxophonist Wayne Shorter wrote a piece entitled “Footprints” that within its original instrumental structure conveyed volumes about the dual weight and gravity of upholding lineage and legacy. On a cool Tuesday evening in West Hollywood over the course of two shows, singer/songwriter Lalah Hathaway proudly upheld her end of the genealogical bargain in highly anticipated concerts steeped in the Black Pool of music history. Not only was she performing at The Troubadour nightclub – ground zero for where her father Donny Hathaway recorded the most thrilling half of a “Live” LP 43 years prior in August of `71 – she was recording her shows for CD and DVD, too. This is high hallowed territory for not only is Donny Hathaway Live (Atco 33-386 – 1972) arguably the greatest live album of all time, it is the greatest album of all time. A second volume titled In Performance was released 8 years later containing as many gems as the first.
The Troubadour marquee (Photo: Wendy Smith-Brune’)
Charlie Wilson | Forever Charlie (RCA)
by Brent Faulkner
Some veteran artists eschew the spotlight past their career’s prime, while others embrace it, continuing to share, preserve, and flex their artistry. For Charlie Wilson, he is the latter, remaining active in his early sixties after a brilliant musical career as the front man of The Gap Band. The 00s have been extremely kind to Wilson, as he has issued six solo albums, with his last five notably sporting his first name in their title.
Phil Perry | A Better Man
by Peggy Oliver
Phil Perry’s new CD is called A Better Man. This is more than a suitable title considering while some musical voices decline with age, Perry’s creamy tenor still glides through the elegant romantic ballads and almost anything that is handed to him or writes about.
Jazmine Sullivan | Reality Show (RCA)
by Brent Faulkner
Prior to the release of her third album Reality Show, it had been nearly five years since Philly R&B artist Jazmine Sullivan had released a new studio album. It seemed after another critical home-run in sophomore album Love Me Back that Sullivan simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Gone were the commanding pipes of one of contemporary R&B’s most impressive new voices.