Blue Rendezvous

Editorial Reviews
Eric Myers, Time Out NY
Cynthia Crane deserves to be better known. Standards and lesser known songs, her style is real, heartfelt and deeply affecting.

Chuck Berg, JazzTimes
Emotionally charged, shimmering. Impressive storyteller. In this world of ordinary singers, extraordinary singers, I’m glad there is Cynthia Crane.

Album Description
Like being in a club after hours. A wistful rendezvous with gauzy blue memories, a catharsis in champagne, featuring smoky-voiced Cynthia Crane along with accompanist-to-the-stars, Mike Renzi, backed up by some of New York’s finest musicians: Jay Leonhart, Bass; Ronnie Zito, Drums; Warren Chiasson, Vibes; Wayne André, Trombone and 1992 Grammy-Award-Winning prodigy, Michael Leonhart on Trumpet.

Blue Rendezvous

Average customer rating:

Specutacular Jazz Musician
consistently entertaining
a mix of traditional and contemporary jazz.
Acoustically Sonorous - Rich Textural Arrangements.

Paris Blue
Kyle Eastwood
Manufacturer: Rendezvous
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

Cool Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Now
From There to Here
Eastwood After Hours: Live At Carnegie Hall
Body and Soul Sessions
Ready to Play

ASIN: B000AQ68YG
Release Date: 2005-09-20

Tracks:

Big Noise (From Winnetka)
Marrakech
Muse
Le Pont Royal
Solferino
Cosmo
Paris Blue
Big Noise (Remix)
Marrakech (Remix)

Customer Reviews:

Specutacular Jazz Musician.......2007-03-23

Kyle Eastwood is amazing. I can see he gets his Miles Davis influence from his father. I am very please with this CD.

consistently entertaining.......2006-02-09

The more I listen the more I like it! It is NOT contempoary Jazz if that means Jazz Lite, if it means created now then yes.

Very much based, thank goodness, on mainstream Jazz, despite a number of new tunes by the artist, in traditional modes.
Starts off with a spirited version Big Noise (and father Clint whistling) which repeats in a remixed version at the end which is even more compelling. Marrakesh is exotic, with a sensuous soprano sax like a charmed cobra and again it's a tossup whether the original or remix at the end are better.

Tunes range from funk to late night moody. Always thought provoking, never out of control. All are compelling, especially the title track.

Equalization mix on bass is humpy in upper register.

a mix of traditional and contemporary jazz........2005-10-12

Kyle Eastwood could rest on the laurels of his famous last name. After all, he is the son of actor | director Clint Eastwood. But Kyle is an accomplished jazz bassist with a following all his own.

1998's From There To Here was Kyle's debut that paid respect to the jazz he was raised on. Joni Mitchell did a memorable cover of Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man. The cd gained Eastwood plenty of fans because it was an impressive effort of classic jazz.

Paris Blue is the latest release from Kyle Eastwood. He charts new territory with a mix of traditional and contemporary jazz. His roots remain in jazz but this time Kyle experiments with different flavors.

Le Pont Royal and Solferino recall early Blue Note. There's a hint of smooth jazz with the hip-bop Muse and funk-heavy Cosmo. Marrakech, inspired by a trip to Morocco, has an ambient world music vibe to it.

Father Clint makes a cameo appearance whistling on Big Noise From Winnetka, a dance floor remake of the old Bob Crosby | Bob Haggart swing hit. Clint suggested Kyle record a new version after playing him the original 78 rpm recording. The result is a hip, retro feeling tune that remains true to the original.

There are two remixes included on Paris Blue that are sure to make some jazz purists cringe. Big Noise From Winnetka is remixed into an upbeat house track. There's also an urban flavored remix of Marrakech.

Acoustically Sonorous - Rich Textural Arrangements........2005-09-25

This guy is an excellent bassist standing on his with own two feet. If you gravitate towards modal Kind of Blue jazz with an injection of high energy, then this CD will fulfill your intellectual fancy whilst tapping your conservative toe. Beautifully recorded with a great acoustic overall tone with that 'live off the floor' sound. No slouches on this record, top self musicianship and even a tasteful yet brief cameo appearance from a whistling tough guy.

Average customer rating:

A Long Awaited "Gem"
Bette Davis in a musical...yes, you heard right

Two's Company

Manufacturer: Sepia Recordings
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Movie Soundtracks | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

General | Musicals | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Make a Wish (1951 Original Broadway Cast)
A Family Affair
Seventeen & High Button Shoes (Original Broadway Cast)
Baker Street, A Musical Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (1965 Original Broadway Cast)
Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)

ASIN: B0007X9URY
Release Date: 2005-04-11

Tracks:

Overture - Orchestra
Theatre Is A Lady - Bill Callahan
Turn Me Loose On Broadway - Bette Davis
It Just Occurred To Me - Peter Kelley
A Man's Home - Hiram Sherman
Roundabout - Ellen Hanley
Roll Along, Sadie - Betty Davis
Out Of The Clear Blue Sky - Peter Kelley
Esther - David Burns
Haunted Hot Spot - Ellen Hanley
Purple Rose - Bette Davis
Just Like A Man - Bette Davis
Finale - Bette Davis And The Company
Bonus Track: A Like The Likes Of You/What Is There To Say/I Can't Get Started With You/Who's To Blame - Vernon Duke
Cabin In The Sky/Honey In The Honeycomb/Taking A Chance On Love/The Love I Longed For - Vernon Duke
Out Of The Clear Blue Sky/Roundabout/Autumn In New York/Island In The West Indies - Vernon Duke
Introduction/April In Paris/Rendevous Sans Addresse/Summer Is A-Comin' In/La Musique Avant Toutes Choses/April In Paris - Vernon Duke
I Can't Get Started - Vernon Duke
I'm Gonna Ring The Bell Tonight - Vernon Duke

Album Description

The 1952 original Broadway cast recording, on CD for the first time! Features Oscar winner Bette Davis in her only musical stage appearance. Bonus tracks include a song by Nancy Walker and material composed & performed by composer Vernon Duke.

Customer Reviews:

A Long Awaited "Gem".......2007-07-09

My LP of this show was totally worn out, so I'm absolutely delighted to have this on such a great sounding CD. Davis is right up there with other musical luminaries such as Hepburn in COCO and Bacall in WOMAN OF THE YEAR and APPLAUSE. All three were non-singers who acted, and their recordings are really just a joy to have to offset soprani like Cook, Chenowith, and Lukker.

This really is a must have recording for any true musical comedy lover who wants the unusual and historical. Davis's "Turn Me Loose on Broadway" is wonderful from her "Mistah conductah, iff You Pleeees" to her slightly off tempo "hey" in the dance break. Davis did try to sing several times through her career. Frank Loesser's "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" has been on a few collections, and there was that failed musical version of THE CORN IS GREEN entitled MISS MOFFAT that closed in Philadelphia. Betty Davis wasn't a good singer, but she tried!

The supporting cast is excellent, and I think it's just a joy to hear an old-school musical by one of the forgotten greats, Vernon Duke. That's why I'm really pleased to have the Duke bonus tracks on the CD as well. It's a great value with Davis, Duke, and Lawrence Welk and his orchestra as well. The album was coveted for years, and it's just wonderful to have it in better sound than it ever was.

Bette Davis in a musical...yes, you heard right.......2006-10-05

Bette Davis in a musical? In 1952, when her film career started on yet another downward spiral and she was unceremoniously labelled as "box office poison", the legendary Ms Davis decided to do the unthinkable, and made her Broadway musical debut in TWO'S COMPANY, a fluffy little revue that would have certainly folded a lot quicker if a mega-watt star like Davis was not in the starring role.

TWO'S COMPANY ran on the box office power of Davis, and the moment she became ill and started missing performances, the closing notices were posted (the show limped along for 90 performances). Nevertheless, this curious jewel of a show was recorded, and now gets it's CD premiere thanks to British boutique label Sepia.

Apparently, Davis was so embarrased by her performance, that she attempted to buy every single copy of the original LP in order to destroy them. One can just imagine Davis (in full Margo Channing mode) swaggering into a record store and slamming a pile of TWO'S COMPANY albums onto the sales counter ("don't bother to wrap `em!").

While Davis was never a singer, she croaks out her songs quite well, and what she lacks in musicality she compensates with comedy and sheer brio.

Performing the more demanding material is Ellen Hanley, known to musical fans for her Tony-winning role as Thea in "Fiorello!"; as well as Adrianna in the 1963 Off-Broadway revival of "The Boys from Syracuse", and replacing Polly Bergen in "First Impressions" (the Jane Austen/'Pride & Prejudice' musical of 1959).

Sepia's remaster of the TWO'S COMPANY album (taken from original 78's) is quite crisp and clean, with some slight hiss and sonic wobble in certain areas (like towards the end of "Haunted Hot Spot"), although we are lucky to have this title on disc in the first place.

Known for their copious bonus tracks, Sepia do not disappoint, and the TWO'S COMPANY disc is filled out with extensive supplementaries (Nancy Walker singing "I Can't Get Started" and Jack Smith with "I'm Gonna Ring the Bell Tonight"); and a whole "Vernon Duke plays Vernon Duke" section.

Now that TWO'S COMPANY has been released on compact disc, we can finally hear what all the fuss was about.

Average customer rating:

This is Fabulous!
Rhythm-less, slow, dull
A Neglected Gem
Female tenor with attitude.
MAGIC DUET

Rendezvous
Jacky Terrasson & Cassandra Wilson
Manufacturer: Blue Note Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Bebop General | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Modern Postbebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

Vocal Jazz General | Vocal Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Bebop & Post-Bop | Compilations | Jazz | Styles | Music

Blue Note Records | Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music

General | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Modern Post Bop | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Vocal Jazz | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

New Moon Daughter
Blue Skies
Blue Light Til Dawn
A Paris...
Sings Standards

ASIN: B000005H8Q
Release Date: 1997-09-23

Tracks:

Old Devil Moon
Chan's Song
Tennesee Waltz
Little Boy Lost
Autumn Leaves
It Might As Well Be Spring
My Ship
I Remember You
Tea For Two
If I Ever Would Leave You
Chicago 1987

Amazon.com essential recording

Throughout Cassandra Wilson's career, jazz critics have been presuming to tell her what to do. Instead, she maintains her own impressive balance among jazz standards, other popular songs, and originals, and among a "jazz" approach, a guitar-based country blues spareness, and art-pop inspired by one of her greatest influences, Joni Mitchell. Here she reminds us that she can bring tremendous freshness to standards. Star pianist Jacky Terrasson makes it almost easy for her. His standout contribution, though, is a tinkling, decidedly late-autumnal solo "Autumn Leaves." Bassist Lonnie Plaxico and percussionist Mino Cinelu contribute impressively on a trap-setless disc, on such numbers as a sad-soul "Tea for Two," and a slowed, bluesy rendition of "Tennessee Waltz." --Peter Monaghan

Customer Reviews:

This is Fabulous!.......2007-01-01

Cassandra Wilson's voice and phrasing are as interesting and lovely as ever. The surprise is the interplay between instrument and vocals - the subtle conversation between the players. These are great muscians making music together. Don't buy this if you want to swing - buy it if you are going to sit and listen to what they are saying. This is one of my favorite all time CDs. The instrumentation is gorgeous.

Rhythm-less, slow, dull.......2006-05-22

I have just been listening to this album in a shuffle play with songs by Sarah Vaughan, Karrin Allyson and Johnny Hartman. Cassandra Wilson's performances are so much duller, slower and less alive than the other three that I keep skipping to the end of her songs when they come on.

I am a tenor myself, and I find it strange that Wilson is singing in my range, but I would never sing these songs the way she sings them. They don't swing.

I bought this album originally because I liked another album (Reach) by Jacky Terrasson, but this one isn't worth listening to.

Do yourself a favor, listen to a Sarah Vaughan record, or listen to a different album by Jacky Terrasson.

A Neglected Gem.......2005-06-15

Have you ever had the experience where you've listened or read something and liked it, then put it down and didn't pick it up until years later, and then you really dug it?

I had that experience last year with Shirley Horn's 1992 "Here's to Life". And this year, I'm having that experience with 1997's "Rendezvous", a brilliant, creative work by the French pianist, Jacky Terrasson, and the world-class jazz singer, Cassandra Wilson.

This album is about standards, done in truly unique ways, generally in dreamscape-type of settings. "Old Devil Moon" is a sensual dreamscape; "It Might as Well Be Spring" is a pointillistic, jangly dreamscape (perfect for a "modern dance troupe"); "If Ever I Would Leave You" is a dream where time stands still; "Tea For Two" has a strange funky backbeat with a "c-a-b" riff played or implied throughout, and the song's intro sung as a coda; "I Remember You" is a swinging background with Ms. Wilson wrapping the melody in a completely different rhythm around the song's chord structure; and "Autumn Leaves" is other-worldly. Imagine fall foliage flittering down on the moon, and you have the idea.

Special note to Terrasson: besides being a terrific keyboardist, he wrote these arrangements, picking the perfect instrumentation throughout for the musical coloration. And perhaps because of that, Ms. Wilson's smoky, insinuating contralto fits each song like a glove.

This is not only a neglected gem generally, I think it's a neglected gem within the Cassandra Wilson catalogue. For me, other than "Blue Light 'Til Dawn", it's my favorite Cassandra Wilson album. Recommended--and if you're like me, you'll like it even more, eight years later. RC

Female tenor with attitude........2002-03-25

There's more jazz on this album than on "New Moon Daughter," but Wilson still favors a studied, theatrical approach to the music. Whereas on the former album she goes out of her way to select non-standard instrumentation and genres, on "Rendezvous" she's less eclectic but no less iconoclastic in her approach to the material. She's a striking presence, and she uses her tenor-baritone range to create an aura, a spell, a dramatic image.

The main lineage of jazz singers--Billie, Ella, Sarah, Carmen, Nancy, Etta Jones and Shirley Horn--all approach the song as the primary end, using their individual voices and musicianship to bring it to life. Cassandra's image-conscious approach will appeal to those listeners who see the song as a mere starting point, as a vehicle for the artist's manipulations. She executes her chosen repertory with undeniable flare, imagination, and style, but she's as much "performance artist" as jazz artist.

MAGIC DUET.......2001-09-26

This is one of the best standard's albums that you can find today. Cassandra Wilson gives us her point of view about classic songs like Tea for Two or Tennesse Waltz. The arragments by Jacky Terrason are perfect for Cassandra Wilson. For those who are getting bored about vocal jazz, will be happy to hear that some people are trying to do something different...This is another cassandra hit. BUY IT.