Jazz Night in America is a radio and video documentary series that goes deep on stories across the jazz diaspora. On the List shakes loose our staff's favorite new releases every month. These songs represent just a small sampling of the music released by jazz artists around the world
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Yotam Silberstein ‘Beija Flor’ - March 2024 favorites

On avait adoré son dernier album, "Universos". Yotam Silberstein est de retour avec sa guitare toujours aussi élégante. Dans "Standards", il joue quelques grandes ballades du répertoire américain, invite le saxophoniste George Coleman et fait étape au Brésil dans le très beau "Beija Flor" à découvrir aujourd'hui.

Album of the day, March 5th 2024 - TSFJAZZ

Un petit bijou et une belle leçon de swing jubilatoire et de mélodies ludiques !

Couleurs Jazz Hit

‘Being Guided By The Light’, is her fifth and her most personal, perhaps even spiritual, recording to date. From the opening title track, Watanabe exerts a certain authority in leading this outfit as her own trio. This leadership is a sign of maturity,
further confirmed by Watanabe’s consistency in choice
between originals, seldom-played standards and pearls.

Kirk Lightsey — I Will Never Stop Loving You
Featured Albums: The Top 7 Albums Out On Sept. 3

Israeli saxophonist Asaf Yuria’s Exorcisms is an old school album, or mostly a vintage hard bop excursion. One can tell Yuria grew up on the great Blue Note era of the 1960s with artists such as Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers.

So, in that case, the “spell” is clearly jazz, and the “magical formulas” are made of swing, grooves, and rocking rhythms, performed by an ensemble of New York’s finest musicians, ready to free listeners from every negativity.

While Lightsey stays to the familiar niche of quaint jazz, he brightens it with a rainbow of emotional colors. Fittingly enough for his first solo recording in 35 years, the artist refers to it as "a lesson in patience." Deceptively tricky chords sound smooth and downright leisurely; there's a subtle streak of swing in the grooving, but of course it makes the warm mood no less buoyant. Playfully gliding through his favorite Wayne Shorter repertoire or turning "Giant Steps" sedate enough for some pretty evocative shades, Lightsey molds each complex piece so that there's nothing in the way of the simple heart.

At 84-years-old, Kirk Lightsey makes his return to solo piano for the first time in decades on a new full-length titled I Will Never Stop Loving You. This intimate recording showcases the renowned pianist’s characteristic sophisticated improvisations and nuanced delivery, as he revisits some of the most cherished compositions in his repertoire.

Lightsey’s playing is always distinctive and he sounds right on the top of his game. His version of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps has a wonderful lightness of touch about it, as does Nicholas Brodsky’s title track which album Jojo Records owner/producer and guitarist Simon Belelty requested after hearing Lightsey perform it live. It went down in one take and is gorgeous. The remaining two tracks are Tony Williams’ Pee Wee from Miles Davis’ Sorcerer and Phil Woods’ poignant Goodbye Mr Evans.

“I Will Never Stop Loving You ” (Jojo Records), a solo piano outing of idiosyncratic lyricism.

Lightsey has an innate ability to extract the beauty and sensitivity from this song and it is just an unhurried approach that is so rare
to hear in today’s frenetic times.

Lightsey takes the tune at a strolling tempo, unhurried but with purpose, and extemporizes with a master's flair.

Remarkable piano jazz Kirk Lightsey
"Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" - I Will Never Stop Loving You (Podcast timing 25:03)

Lightsey has an innate ability to extract beauty and sensitivity from the songs he covers, endowing them with a leisurely approach and spectacular sensitivity.

Sounds like a classic from the Great American Songbook.