After winning the 2008 International Massimo Urbani Award, Philology Records offered Italian pianist Francesco Marziani the opportunity of recording his debut. So here it is, the first album from one of the new italian jazz talents, Francesco Marziani. In My Own Sweet Way was recorded with bassist Massimo Moriconi and drummer Massimo Manzi.Besides being an excellent pianist with great knowlege of the jazz language, and flawless technique, Francesco is an accomplished composer. His compositions a

The new project by Italian musician Claudio Scolari is a fascinating mix of acoustic and electronic sounds creating an almost cinematic atmosphere. For this album Claudio has the collaboration of Daniele Cavalca on drums, bass and vibraphone and Simone Scolari on trumpet.Scolari music, like the tracks Electric light over water and Emotion appearance can be described as improvised as avant-garde jazz but it is so much more. It has elements of classical music, and other jazz styles. For example Va

Besides having a beautiful, sexy voice, and a nice phrasing influenced by jazz, pop and Bossa Nova, Kristine Mills is a wonderful composer. Her new album Bossanovafied is wonderful collection of original, romantic songs, heavily influenced by brazilian music. She even recorded most of the CD in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil with a group of talented musicians. The brazilian feel may be heard all over the album, like the Bossa harmonies on I Wish or the flute intro on That was yesterday. Jose Carlos Bigo

The music on Matt Garrison new album Familiar Places is as impressive as the group of musicians playing on it. Besides Garrison, this album features Claudio Roditi on trumpet and Mark Whitfield on guitar among other amazing musicians. The opening track Try another day starts with amazing harmonies by Matt Garrison on sax and Bruce Harris on trumpet. Garrison, Harris and Zaccai Curtis take turns with good improvisations before getting back to the starting harmonies.A thoughtful attempt has a boss

CD Review: Alva Nelson - Soul EyesAlva Nelson new album, Soul Eyes is a combination of mostly original compositions with some jazz classics. Nelson is a pianist with great technique equally good playing the fast tunes like Synonymous Dichotomy or the slow ballads like Soul Eyes, Some other time and Song for Keisha.Gemini Baby has sort of a slow samba feeling, a track with rhythms that invites you to dance. In contrast, Sanctified blues like the title suggests is a classic blues. Both are great c