Featuring the Smooth Groove of Today's Jazz!
This Week at CaféJazz.ca

July 24, 2004
Edition #332 PreviouslyThis Week at Café Jazz.ca - Edition #331 Next


Highlights !
Welcome to the radio program that is unique by design! On this edition, we're checking out the latest from Joyce Cooling. It's called This Girl's Got to Play. We'll tell you a bit about Joyce & her career and we'll spin a few tracks from the album on the showcase cd feature. Then, in hour 2 it's time again for FT. This installment Includes Doc Powell & something from his new one. We also have brand new music from a pair of promising young sax players. We'll be hearing from Floridian Eric Darius and James Vargas out of the UK. Also appearing will be Toronto's Matt Dusk. Add to that a track from Jonathan Cain and his new one & we have just the right stuff for an amazing show. There's more! We have another superb piece from Theo Bishop as we explore his latest. Current favourites on this show include tracks from Marc Antoine & Eric Marienthal.


In This Issue:

SHOWCASE CD:
This Girl's Got to Play - Joyce Cooling

FRESH TRAX:
Lasting Impression - James Vargas
Guilty Pleasures - Jonathan Cain
Push - Doc Powell
Miracle - Matt Dusk
Let's Stay Together - Eric Darius

SPINLIST: Spinlist Ed#332
Plus we have Pamela Williams, Alan Hewitt; and the customary collection of classics from artists such as Billy Joe Walker Jr., 3rd Force, and Maurice Gordon. Discover the difference, Café Jazz, your escape from ordinary radio!

Showcase CD
This Girl 's Got To Play - Joyce Cooling:
It's frequently true, that all it takes is one song for a performer to become an overnight sensation. Such was the case with Joyce Cooling. Joyce grew up in the New Jersey and New York areas. Through her family and friends she was exposed to a wide variety of music. Her developing tastes ranged from diverse to eclectic as she amassed a huge record collection that included everything from folk and R&B to punk, metal and rap. One day she inherited a large number of Jazz albums which spurred her love of that musical style.

When Joyce moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 80s she began dabbling in keyboards and percussion. Music had long been the most passionate part of her life, but an actual career as a musician started taking shape only after she began hanging around an African drumming class. It all crystallized when she heard a solo by guitar legend Wes Montgomery. According to Joyce, " From then on, it was as if the guitar had chosen me". Teaching herself how to play the instrument, Joyce developed a style of finger picking that has given her playing its unique sound.


Cooling performed straight-ahead jazz on many of her gigs and gained credibility as a player by appearing with jazz giants such as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Airto and Charlie Byrd. She met her partner in music and in life, Jay Wagner in the mid-eighties and the two instantly discovered their songwriting compatibility and have been working together consistently ever since. Bay Area jazz fans had long known Joyce as one of the region's most dynamic and popular performers. It wasn't until 1996 however, when South of Market, her San Francisco inspired hit, and Playing It Cool, her sophomore cd, both took the contemporary jazz world by storm. Both soared to #1 and Joyce was named the best new Smooth jazz artist of the year. Although her appealing approach to record making continued through to her next two projects, it was the latter of these, which was released on the fateful date of September 11, 2001. For Cooling, the cd & her music became irrelevant in the context of the catastrophic events of that day.

It caused Joyce to reexamine her entire music career and decide if that was in fact what she wanted to be doing.Finally coming full circle, Cooling determined and I quote ".., this girl has got to play", and that prompted the title of her latest album. This effort contains some of the best work that Cooling & Wagner have recorded to date and so it's with great pleasure we present for your listening enjoyment Camelback, The Wizard, & Expression.

CD:This Girl's Got to Play
Label: Narada Jazz
Site:Joyce Cooling

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Fresh Trax: Part One
Lasting Impression - James Vargas:
James Vargas actually made his record debut a couple of years ago. The British sax player had taken part in various gigs around London before hooking up with keyboardist Oliver Silk. Silk & bassist Danny Sugar were about to release a compact disc as what else but Sugar & Silk and asked Vargas to take part. You may recall tracks that we've played from that album in the past. In any event, working with the pair gained Vargas additional exposure, enabling him to now release his own self-titled debut. On the effort, Oliver Silk returns the favour. He appears on all the tracks, shares in the writing credits, and produced the project. The result is a highly impressive debut for Vargas, groove laden and loaded with catchy melodies. From that effort, we present one of the finest, Lasting Impression. Suffice it to say that Vargas & his music did indeed make a lasting impression with yours truly.

CD: James Vargas
Label: Trippin' 'N Rhythm Records

Guilty Pleasures - Jonathan Cain:
From the late 70s thru until the early 90s, Cain fashioned a highly successful career as a member several rock & pop groups. Although he started out as a solo performer in his native Chicago, Cain joined the British band The Babys in about 1979. A couple or so years later, that was followed by a 5-year stint with Journey which spanned their most popular period. Then finally, he united with a couple of members from each of his former bands to form Bad English. Along the way, each group enjoyed chart-topping success. Although Cain continues to perform with Journey on reunion tours, a few years back, he established a recording studio and also resumed his solo career. Beginning with Back to Innocence in 1995 and continuing through to the present, Jonathan has issued 6 releases that range from new age to smooth. Bare Bones is the most recent of these. From that effort we have the incredible Guilty Pleasures.

CD: Bare Bones
Label: AAO Music
Site: Jonathan Cain


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Fresh Trax: Part Two
Push - Doc Powell:
Powell is NY native who discovered his love for music early on. By the age of 6 he was already playing guitar and in his teens he began recording and performing live. His first big break occurred when Wilson Pickett chose "The Doctor" as his musical director. This led to a stint with Luther Vandross and an affiliation that lasted 15 years. In turn, this raised Doc's profile considerably. It paved the way for him to work with a lengthy list of top artists and to develop a solo career that now includes Cool Like That, his latest. From that effort we chose Push. That's the cool opening track and one that features Kirk Whalum on sax.

CD: Cool Like That
Label: Heads Up International
Site:Doc Powell
Miracle - Matt Dusk:
Recapturing much of the style & sound of the legendary rat pack, the Toronto born singer seemed destined for a career in classical music or perhaps in opera. He was accepted into the St. Michael's Choir School and underwent 11 years of intensive musical study. It wasn't until Matt was eighteen that he began listening to performers such as Tony Bennett & Sarah Vaughan. Dusk was immediately hooked. In 1998, he won the Rising Star, a prestigious talent contest in Toronto. He enrolled in York University to study for a BFA in music with an emphasis on jazz music. Dusk studied theory & vocals and attended master-classes with the great Oscar Peterson. Subsequently Matt was awarded that university's Oscar Peterson Scholarship. He had 4 independent cds before he landed the record deal that yielded Two Shots. This effort however, is more than just return to the sound of yesteryear. It's clearly a case of the style & sophistication of a golden era being projected into the 21st century.

CD: Two Shots
Label: Decca
Site: Matt Dusk
Let's Stay Together - Eric Darius:
At 21 years of age, Eric Darius is a student at the University of Southern Florida. He first became interested in playing sax when he was 10. Inspired by the music at his church, he took a few lessons & was performing publicly soon after. He excelled in high school in academics, athletics & in music. As a member of the Jazz Ensemble Darius performed at a festival in New York City and while there, he was asked to jam with Wynton Marsalis and Paquito D'Rivera; all of this by the age of 17. Following a tour with the same ensemble to Japan, Eric set about to record his solo debut. He'd been dreaming about a project since the age of 14 when he wrote Crusin' in anticipation of getting his driver's license. That turned out to be the title track for the album which garnered a fair bit of attention for a debut effort from a young player. As good as it was, Eric has definitely kicked things up a notch with his latest release, enlisting the talents of Ken Navarro who among other things, produced the record. Although we're not partial to covers and there are a total of 8 originals on the disc, on this occasion we chose Eric's superb cover of the Al Green classic.

CD: Night on the Town
Label: Higher Octave Music
Site: Eric Darius

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