CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Christmas Songs

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Diana Krall

Release Date August 18, 2008
Diana Krall has come up with a perfect Christmas album. The selection of material is flawless and loaded with classics - which, let's face it, is a key element in a Christmas record. Most of the songs on the album were recorded with a big band, which brings out the best in Krall; the result is slick, flawless and will perfectly suit your holiday season. When she turns down the tempo for piano-and-vocals ballads, it's intimate enough to make you feel as though she's sitting in the room with you. The highlights are "Jingle bells", "Winter wonderland", "What are you doing New Year's eve", "Christmas time is here", "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" and "I'll be home for Christmas"; however, every track is a keeper. It's all a grown-up affair, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Blue

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Joni Mitchell

Release Date April 24, 1990
Although it's almost forty years old, this album sounds so fresh. Mitchell's guitar and piano is wonderfully fluid. And then there's her voice. An instrument so fine, the notes send shivers down the spine. Part of the mystique of this album is the honesty, even fragility of emotions. But there's just as much artistry in Joni Mitchell's Blue. A melancholy beauty. A well-worked gem of an album. The kind of music I remember hearing in kitchens with granola in the cupboard. Or at dawn just as the first birds start to sing. Frost on the grass.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Both Sides Now

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Joni Mitchell

Release Date March 21, 2000
This is a mature confident Joni at her best. She takes a relationship from beginning to end singing the appropriate songs for each phase of the relationship. I much prefer her newer renditions of her older songs, such as, Both Sides Now and A Case of You. There is a sexy smokey quality to her voice that gives the music emotion and depth. I play this CD frequently and never tire of it.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Plays The Cole Porter Songbook

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Oscar Peterson

Release Date January 01, 1990
This re-release by Verve preserves, in my opinion, one of the best trio performances. 'In the Still of the Night',
Peterson's subtle single melody nuances and left hand chords are complimented by Ray Brown's wonderful bass. Ed Thigpen maintains the tempo with his stylish brush technique. The rest of the CD is hampered only slightly by the 'volme' inconsistencies from one number to the next, created by the studio. This is a great CD.

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Holly Cole

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Holly Cole

Release Date March 13, 2007
Holly Cole in her 9th Studio album, this self titled CD Holly Cole is absolutely stunning.

This is her first studio recording since 2004 and it is more than worth the wait. The album on first listen is both haunting and familiar. Cole has tapped the best sounds of her previous, she parades us through the ranges of her voice and style, she draws us in and tosses us out.

This album classified as Jazz is a mix of all that is good in vocal jazz; rowdy honky-tonk, to smoky smoldering songs that burn your heart.

One of the most stunning tracks is Cole's own 'Larger Than Life' a song that reveals that Cole is not only a student of the Jazz Masters but destined to become one herself.

'The House is Haunted by the Echo' is deep, dark ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

The Very Best Of (Deluxe Edition)

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Diana Krall

Release Date September 18, 2007
Compilations are always a tricky business. When the task is as simple as putting together songs that reached the top of the charts, it's not too difficult to figure out; but when it comes to putting together an overview of an artist who isn't aimed at the charts, it's quite another story. "The Very Best of Diana Krall" succeeds nonetheless.

Given Diana Krall's reputation as one of our era's most prominent jazz vocalists, and given the fact that she has released quite a lot of studio albums ever since her recording career started in the 90s, there was a lot of ground to cover. "The Very Best" offers a generous serving of Krall's lush jazz sounds; there are fifteen tracks (plus the gorgeous "Narrow daylight" included as a bonus on the Canadian edition), for a running ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Make Someone Happy

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Sophie Milman

Release Date June 19, 2007
Discovered at an amateur jazz outing in Toronto when she was 20, Sophie Milman is now 24 and a hot ticket with a new album, "Make Someone Happy".
Having been born in Russia, Sophie spent most of her early years living in Israel, moving at the age of 16 to Canada, which is now her "home", and where she made the unlikely transition from bookish teenager to glamorous jazz ingénue.
She still has an aunt and uncle, and some more distant family living in Israel, whilst the rest of her close family are in Moscow.
Since the release of her debut album "Sophie Milman", Milman has matured somewhat.
"Make Someone Happy" was recorded in Toronto with producer Steve MacKinnon (Molly Johnson, Serena Ryder), and features a very eclectic mix of songs, ranging from classic ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Ladies of the Canyon

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Joni Mitchell

Release Date February 28, 1990
Apart from BLUE, most of the people who know the music of Joni Mitchell appreciate, above all, COURT AND SPARK (1974) and HEJIRA (1976). I won't blame it on them - those are beautiful, elegant albums. Nevertheless, I consider the trilogy formed by LADIES OF THE CANYON (1970), BLUE (1971) and FOR THE ROSES (1972), one of the finest works in pop music. The first chapter, released in April of 1970, is a group of songs written between 1966 and 1969. It is for this reason that the LP is like a summary, a compound of the best pieces she has written up to then. The lyrics go from the intimistic tone to protest and accuse, to just simply storytelling. "Willy" forewarns the tones of BLUE - it's a beautiful song about inadequacy in a relationship, in which is clearly perceptible a sense ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Hits

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Joni Mitchell

Release Date October 29, 1996
joni is the blonde in the bleachers to graham nash..that interesting circle of talented artists that hung around laurel canyon....sharing and inspiring the great american music that followed the Byrds breakthrough...joni was one of the matriarchs, along with cass elliot, of that important movement...its repeated, crosby stills and nash sang their first official harmonies together at joni's house...and joni could easily hang with the boys...she could write and chord with the best of them...buy this "Hits" album to sample joni, understanding you omit so much when you deny yourself the opportunity to play her stand alone albums and grow your mitchell ear organically...joni said recently "once people awaited me like the rain,now the janitors of shadowland flick their brooms at ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Quiet Nights

CD-Charts > Music > Jazz
by: Diana Krall

Release Date March 31, 2009
joni is the blonde in the bleachers to graham nash..that interesting circle of talented artists that hung around laurel canyon....sharing and inspiring the great american music that followed the Byrds breakthrough...joni was one of the matriarchs, along with cass elliot, of that important movement...its repeated, crosby stills and nash sang their first official harmonies together at joni's house...and joni could easily hang with the boys...she could write and chord with the best of them...buy this "Hits" album to sample joni, understanding you omit so much when you deny yourself the opportunity to play her stand alone albums and grow your mitchell ear organically...joni said recently "once people awaited me like the rain,now the janitors of shadowland flick their brooms at ... Read More: