JAZZTIMES – For this annual companion poll to last issue’s Top 50 Critics’ Picks, our regular contributors and critics participated in this survey based on our yearly Readers’ Poll. Voters were asked to focus on artists’ achievements during 2017 rather than assessing entire careers.

Charles Lloyd won Best Acoustic Small Group/Artist, and was nominated for Best Tenor Saxophonist as well as Best Flutist.

Cécile McLorin Salvant won Best Female Vocalist, and was nominated for Artist of the Year.

Read the full list of winners and nominees on JazzTimes

Charles Lloyd on TKA

Cécile McLorin Salvant on TKA

Scott Bernstein for JAMBASE – Instrumental quartet TAUK has been hard at work in the studio with longtime producer Robert Carranza and have unveiled the first taste of their new music. TAUK debuted the track “Premises” yesterday on SiriusXM’s Jam On, a song which is part of a new EP due on April 6.

Shapeshifter I: Construct is the first installment of new music from the Long Island-bred band and will be followed by an upcoming full-length album this fall. TAUK recorded both the EP and LP in one concentrated period inside an old house. “Everything just happened so naturally this time around,” said guitarist Matt Jalbert in a press release announcing the EP. “I can’t think of one moment where it felt like anything was forced. We were all just completely focused and in the same mindset, which made this an incredibly fun and smooth experience.”

Close But No Cigar: #1 Contemporary Jazz Album & #3 Jazz Album

The DELVON LAMARR ORGAN TRIO is a Unique 60’s & 70’s vintage soul trio with the sounds of the Hammond B3 mixed with tasty guitar lines & old school style pocket drumming.  With a deep soul backbone augmented by jazz, rhythm & blues and rock ‘n’ roll, the Seattle trio – Lamarr on B-3 organ, Jimmy James on guitar and David McGraw on drums – evokes a classic instrumental sound with a fresh, virtuosic sensibility on debut LP Close But No Cigar on Colemine Records.

2018 Festivals include:  High Sierra Music Festival, Joshua Tree Music Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Wichita Riverfest, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival and San Jose Jazz Festival.

Stream Close But No Cigar here

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio on TKA

Rachel George for BILLBOARD – Three-time Grammy-nominated piano prodigy Joey Alexander is premiering the title track from his upcoming Eclipse album exclusively on Billboard.

The young artist’s musicianship and knowledge of jazz and classical fundamentals are embraced on this free, peaceful 10-minute track. He approached “Eclipse” with subtle sounds and delicate harmonies.

“After seeing the eclipse, I was inspired to compose something new,” the 14-year-old told Billboard. “It was a little intimidating to play those first notes, knowing it would be the only take. I was relieved after listening back in the control room. It’s what I really love, composing freely in the moment, listening and reacting to the band, creating something new and moving to another place.”

The Eclipse album was recorded during and inspired by the solar eclipse in August 2017. Its multi-dimensional sound ranges from classical jazz music to gospel, reinventing the popular 1875 hymn “Draw Me Nearer.”

Recorded in just over three days, the album includes features from saxophonist Joshua Redman and contributions from bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Erick Harland.

At age 14, Alexander’s growth and elevation as a remarkable composer and artist truly shine through on his album. “This new album represents who I am, and I’m looking forward to bringing people on the journey,” Alexander said.

Eclipse will be available May 4 on Motéma Music.

Read Full Article and listen to Eclipse here

Joey Alexander on TKA

Rodney Carmichael for NPR: In the canon of R&B, the ’80s are frequently dismissed as the genre’s most soulless decade. Nelson George called it “the death of rhythm and blues” in his book of the same name, citing the now infamous Harvard Report on marketing black music (commissioned by then-CBS Records exec Clive Davis) as the impetus for the industry’s switch from indifference to a vested interest in R&B. By 1980, he writes, CBS’ roster of black artists had jumped from two to 125 — and as the decade progressed, that sonic integration led to a watered-down R&B sound. Synthesizers replaced live bands. Commercial radio quelled the funk with the Quiet Storm. “Crossover” became the profit motive for packaging black artists for white consumption.

But if you were coming of age in the ’80s, like a teenaged Michelle Lynn Johnson — who took on the name Meshell Ndegeocello around the same time Prince began musing over the woman in the raspberry beret — all those behind-the-scenes industry machinations are incidental to a period whose output soundtracked your adolescence with some of the most emotionally indulgent R&B and pop of the latter 20th century. Meshell Ndegeocello has always been a soul conjurer of sorts, bent but never bound by tradition. With her latest body of work, Ventriloquism, out March 16, she splits the difference — stitching together a wide swath of songs that reflect what we remember, and even regret, of the era in which her own artistic sensibilities were taking root, distilling its clichés into a rootsy, bluesy folk romp.

As with most cover sets, the story is in the song selection. What may at first seem like a random mix of one-off hits from beloved-but-unsung artists (Force MDs, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Surface, Al B. Sure!) and influential megastars (George Clinton, Tina Turner, Janet Jackson, Sade) is actually a carefully curated homage to some of the era’s definitive sonic innovators. It’s a perfect collection for an artist whose genre-bending fusion of rock, soul, funk and R&B befuddled an industry still beholden to racially-coded designations (i.e. “urban”) when she entered the scene.

Listen to Ventriloquism on NPR

Meshell Ndegeocello on TKA