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Willie "Big Eyes" Smith
Frank Wildhorn Unveils 'Frank Wildhorn & Friends: Live In Las Vegas With Jane Monheit And Clint Holmes' A Dynamic Return To His Jazz Roots Recorded Live At The Smith Center Inside Cabaret Jazz

Source:
Jill Siegel
Frank & Friends: Live in Las Vegas with Jane Monheit and Clint Holmes, a captivating live album recorded at the Smith Center inside Cabaret Jazz is now available on all streaming platforms featuring 17 tracks lovingly selected by the renowned multi-Grammy, Tony, and Emmy Award-nominated composer and producer Frank Wildhorn for Jane Monheit and Clint Holmes. This album, produced by Frank Wildhorn and Myron Martin, features songs from Wildhorn musicals “Jekyll & Hyde”, “The Scarlet Pimpernel”, “ Wonderland,”” Camille Claudel” ...
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Perfection: Paul Smith - Under My Skin (1957)

Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Last weekend, I posted a video clip that included pianist Paul Smith accompanying Frank Sinatra. Smith belonged to a small group of superb West Coast jazz studio pianists that included Lou Levy, Jimmy Rowles and Pete Jolly. In the late 1950s, Smith recorded four albums for Capitol that became known as the Liquid Sound sessions. One of them was Delicate Jazz, recorded in November 1957. For this week's Perfection clip, I've chosen I've Got You Under My Skin. I'm not ...
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Yuchtet’s Debut Album 'Earworm' Is A Modern Big Band Jazz Statement Worth Hearing

Source:
Chris Bush
Brooklyn-based composer, drummer, and bandleader Leo Yucht released earworm, the debut album from his jazz group YUCHTET. The six-track, 45-minute record is now available for streaming everywhere and on limited edition translucent blue swirl vinyl pressed by PMP in Nashville, TN. Blending influences from classic big band jazz to modern trap, earworm invites listeners on imaginative journeys across time and genre – evoking a jazzy, cool ride around New York City in Citi Bike Anthem" or a frantic cannon battle ...
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Perfection: Keely Smith - The Song Is You (1958)

Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Few pop singers in the 1950s could swing like Keely Smith. Anita O'Day was certainly one of them, but Smith was the finer vocalist and surely knew more songs and required fewer takes in the studio. In some respects, Smith was the female Frank Sinatra, able to move ahead of the beat, behind it and go a different way on song lines and pull them off. So many of her albums are excellent with a different feeling on each one. ...
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Eliot King Smith Teams Up With Audrey Martells (Chic) To Bring To Life The Story Of Josephine Baker

Source:
Glass Onyon PR - Keith James
In the 1920s, faced with the grinding poverty and segregation of East St. Louis, Josephine Baker took her dancing and musical talents first to New York, and then, at 19, arrived in Paris to perform with the Folies Bergère. Entranced by her reception and treatment by French society, she rose to stardom almost immediately at the Folies. She starred in multiple films, and scored a big hit song that summed up her reverence for the freedom she experienced as a ...
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Elio Villafranca Big Band Tres Aguas At Dizzy's Club on March 7, 8, 9, 2025

Source:
Scott Thompson Public Relations
Elio Villafranca's latest outstanding project is entitled Tres Aguas. This exciting performance will be held at Dizzy's Club on March 7, 8, 9 with sets at 7:00pm and 9:00pm. Commissioned by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Tres Aguas is an exhilarating celebration of rhythm and movement. Drawing from flamenco, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Peruvian, jazz, and New Orleans traditions, this suite brings together vibrant musical styles from across the Americas, the Afro-Diaspora, and Spain. Through the universal language of ...
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Trumpeter/Producer Volker Goetze Teams With Accordion Legend Guy Klucevsek On Quartet Debut: Little Big Top

Source:
GoMedia PR
Echoes of the ballroom, barroom, bordello, circus, concert hall, and jazz club intermingle with folk traditions from around the world to create a new hybrid form. Step right up! Step right in… to Little Big Top, the charming debut album from a new quartet led by accordion legend Guy Klucevsek (kloo-SEH-vik) with visionary trumpeter Volker Goetze. This fine compendium of engaging Klucevsek creations that were written over two decades is produced by Goetze, arranged by Klucevsek, and is filled with ...
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Perfection: Jimmy Smith - 'Too Old to Dream'

Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In April 1960, organist Jimmy Smith joined forces with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and recorded Back at the Chicken Shack for Blue Note. One of the tracks was When I Grow Too Old to Dream," by Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg. The song was introduced in The Night Is Young (1935) and was given a gospel-soul shove on the 1963 album by Smith, Turrentine and Donald Bailey on drums. (Guitarist Kenny Burrell appears on two tracks but not this one.) ...
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Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (1936-2011): An Appreciation

Source:
Something Else!
Willie Big Eyes" Smith, a former sideman with Muddy Waters who became a Grammy-winning performer in his own right, has died. A new message on his Web site reads: We are deeply saddened to report that Willie Big Eyes" Smith passed away early the morning of September 16, 2011 at his home in Chicago from a stroke. All arrangements are pending and information will be forthcoming." Smith, born in Helena, Ark, on January 19, 1936, was raised by sharecropper grandparents. ...
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