Mike Renzi with Jim Porcella offer fine jazz holiday album, Christmas Is: December Duets
Mike Renzi with Jim Porcella have recorded a solid jazz Christmas album, December Is: Christmas Duets. Sure to become a holiday favorite with all who purchase it, this album offers lively, warm, and time tested standards and one likable original co-written by Renzi. These tunes have been arranged here as accessible jazz, classy as well […]
Michael Cleary accomplishes much on Last Man Standing with pared down, singer-songwriter approach
It is difficult to pigeonhole New Haven’s Michael Cleary’s new album Last Man Standing. Stripped of his Michael Cleary Band, Cleary shoots for a singer-songwriter approach with some rock and roll edge. Yet, that attempt at definition falls short. His appeal might also cross over into adult contemporary listening. Backed by a danceable beat, opening […]
Molly Pinto Madigan impresses with stunning folk art masterpiece, The Ballad Of Tam Lin
Molly Pinto Madigan’s new folk opera The Ballad Of Tam Lin feels as epic in each track as it does as a whole. Each number has its own story arc, playing out lyrically, musically, and vocally like a story within itself. Yet, each manages to piece together one epic tale, a legend love encounter. Listeners […]
Singer-songwriter Linda Marks achieves greater heights on The Piano
Linda Marks offers her best CD yet with The Piano. While Marks’s previous discs were pleasantly breezy, unwieldy in a good way, her song craft sharpens here, becomes more structured with a plentitude of snappy instrumental parts, lilting vocals, and a considerate layering of voice, piano, and many other instruments. Additionally, Marks offers all originals […]
Sado Domestics do things their own special way on Hey, Oaxaca
Boston- based Sado Domestics have a new CD called Hey, Oaxaca, and it thrives and flourishes on the strength of a number nice touches, interesting contrasts, and some fine harmony. Opening track “Across” delivers an old-fashioned, jaunty folk feel in its brisk chord progression and in its lilting groove. Chris Gleason and Lucy Martinez follow […]
Barbara Cassidy Band shine like a star on A Winter Frame Of Mind
Released this month, Barbara Cassidy Band serve up a tasteful eight song post card with A Winter Frame Of Mind. Heading toward the cold season, this collection is arriving right on time. With a knack for nailing down traditional folk and Celtic idioms, Cassidy and her friends have come up with a dandy to return […]
Lisa Bastoni uses subtle grace to achieve grand feeling on How We Want To Live
Lisa Bastoni’s latest CD How We Want To Live is a study on how to say a lot by keeping a message direct and simple. It is also a study in how to make a listener feel a lot about a song without having a lot of busy instruments or rippling notes. Rather, Bastoni, a […]
Dave Bailin & The Bailouts are all aces on Music In My Head
Dave Bailin & The Bailouts are at it again, releasing another Americana flavored album. Their new Music In My Head disc is available in many and sundry different formats, including a USB flash drive that looks like a cassette tape. As usual, this band has elements of everything from oldies rock and roll, classic rock, […]
Cardboard Dream House rock hard, prove their worth with Perspective
Cardboard Dream House has just released their latest disc of hard charging, action packed music. Their new CD, Perspective, on Connecticut’s Neurotronix Records, reveals a band with kaleidoscopic talents, a band that can, within one shift, turn a song into a louder, more colorful work, a band that does all that while remaining true to […]
Passing Strange pass gracefully through The Water And The Woods
Passing Strange is the enigmatic Connecticut-based duo of pianist-vocalist Kate Mirabella and drummer Anthony Paolucci. From their opening track to their concluding 11th song on their new The Water And The Woods album, this pair manage to create tones, atmospheres, and vibes that color each of their songs with its own personality. Opening cut “Weather […]
