Photo by Andrea Canter

Just about a year ago, Carole Martin marched out of semi-retirement with the release of Pieces of Dreams, her first recording in 36 years. Fortunately she did not wait another three decades for her next recording, which will be released this weekend (November 11-12) at the Artists Quarter in downtown St. Paul. On hand will be her compatriots from the recording session, New York pianist (and AQ frequent guest) Rick Germanson, along with master bassist Terry Burns and AQ owner/ veteran drummer (and producer) Kenny Horst.

Songs From My Heart will entice, seduce, and perhaps surprise listeners expecting a playlist of standards and familiar torch songs, for there is nothing “standard” about the way this chanteuse wraps herself around a lyric and explores a melody from a deep well of passion and experience. With the Artists Quarter stage serving as sound studio, the recording has the intimacy of a small bar, a place where you can sit back and listen as the storyteller weaves her tales of love lost and found. In a world of young up-and-comers, this work of a veteran performer is a refreshing interlude. Carole Martin brings a long career to this moment, a career marked early by years of club dates, put on hold for family, and rekindled when she released Pieces of Dreams.

I'm With the Band

Recorded live at Birdland in March of this year, "I'm With the Band" captures the excitement of a live performance with the band and the crowd feed off each other's energy. But unlike many live recordings, the sound is excellent, equal to studio quality and there is no background chatter or glass clinking. The only evidence of an audience's presence is the applause at the end of songs or after a solo, but you don't hear anything distracting.

The tunes are all standards but with fresh arrangements expertly executed by a very tight band. Like much of Sutton's work, this CD is very upbeat and infused with her enthusiasm. Even the ballads sound upbeat. Sutton sings with superlative clarity and scats with authority and aplomb. In a bit of role reversal, She pushes the rhythm as she sings "Surrey with the Fringe on top" as a duet with drummer Ray Brinker who brilliantly and melodically supports the vocals with a bass-like sound on the tom tom and bass drum.

Photo by Andrea Canter

A year ago, when he recorded a live session at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, it seemed unlikely that pianist Geoffrey Keezer could top Geoffrey Keezer. Serving as Art Blakely’s last pianist at age 18, joining veteran keyboard masters Harold Mabern, James Williams, and Mulgrew Miller a few years later as the Contemporary Piano Ensemble, and now holding a resumé including work with the great late Ray Brown and (currently) David Sanborn and ten recordings, Keezer has more than lived up to the predictions of his prodigious youth in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Well established (though barely into his mid 30s) as a performer and composer, Keezer’s Dakota session of September 2004 still stands out in memory as one of the most compelling performances on the stage of this gem of Midwestern jazz venues. Having first played the Dakota as a high schooler in the late 1980s, it seems that each return “home” brings out the best in Geoffrey Keezer and his trio, and this week’s two-night stand in celebration of Wildcrafted: Live at the Dakota (MaxJazz) affirmed this trend.

Through four sets, Geoffrey Keezer, Mike Pope (replacing bassist Matt Clohesy), and Terreon Gully treated enthusiastic audiences to sophisticated reworkings of Ellington and Strayhorn, modern jazz translations of Bjork, Bowie, Lennon and Hendrix, a turn on Maria Schneider and Harold Mabern, and some hauntingly beautiful, “wildcrafted” originals. And while the dates were billed as “CD Release” celebrations, only about half the tunes in any one set were drawn from the new recording. As usual at a Keezer gig, his material combined new explorations of previously recorded tunes as well as new territory. The results ranged from sublime to electrifying, with energy building across the two nights to an explosive and scintillating final set.

Photo by Andrea Canter

Last winter, area vocalist Carole Martin released her first recording in 30 years. Thankfully, Vicky Mountain only waited a decade. Don’t Go to Strangers, released in early 2005, came eleven years after Birds of a Feather. Noted Vicky, “I wanted this CD to be as eclectic as my performing career; the happy swing and scat, the beautiful ballads, the avant-garde, and a taste of the soulful R&B.” This diverse description aptly reflects the content of Don’t Go to Strangers, and the wide ranging talent of Vicky Mountain.