Songwriting is a very personal experience for an artist. Oftentimes, it exposes the artist’s vulnerabilities to everyone in the room during the recording process. How else can a belter like the late Roy Orbison be able to give people chills up and down their spines when they listen to his recording of "Crying," or feel the wounds in country legend Johnny Cash’s voice when he sang, "Ring of Fire?" Stevie Holland’s voice emotes a similar passionate elegance only with female timbres. Luckily for …

Like the way the captain of a ship transports passengers from one place to the next, flutist Jamie Baum does the same creating a sonic journey that transports listeners through the multiple frames of her travels. Her melodic doodles and improvisations are made with a purpose in mind, documenting the different ways in which instruments can change in midstream, make contact with each other, blending and entwining. Her latest release Solace from Sunnyside Records delivers her most recent …

The piano is a extension of Markus Gottschlich’s personality as truly as the trumpet was a conduit for Dizzy Gillespie’s voice, and the guitar is another appendage that Eric Clapton was born with so natural in his hands. Nobody could imagine either Gillespie or Clapton without their instruments, which is something that both men have in common with Gottschlich. The piano became Gottschlich’s voice when he was a little boy and his connection with the piano continues to grow stron …

Gail Jhonson is a lady who knows what she likes and how she wants it done. As a solo R&B/funk keyboardist, such abilities have served her well to establish herself as a neo-soul artist and enable her to release her latest CD Pearls, which features collaborations with Marion Meadows, Paul Brown, and Norman Brown. Jhonson has also established herself as the Music Director for Norman Brown’s SummerStorm concert series and for a number of gospel musicals and stage prod …

Jazz guitarist/composer Jeff Barone hits his stride on his second release Open Up, the follow up to his critically acclaimed debut album Crazy Talk. Barone found his voice early on, not as a turquoise gem in a strand of white pearls, but as a link that unifies the strand and aids and abets in making the piece into a harmonious collective. Barone views his role as a guitarist from the standpoint of being every musician’s colleague. Even when it came to recording his solo albums, he …