With her emotional and lyrical interpretation of verses by the poet Manuel Alcantara, the Spanish flamenco singer Mayte Martin has produced one of the recordings of the year. Born in Barcelona, Martin has established herself in Europe as a passionate singer and musical adventurer. She has accompanied flamenco dancer Belen Maya internationally and collaborated with her fellow Catalan, the late jazz pianist Tete Montolieu, and more recently with the popular French pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque on disc and on tour, but her intense and beautiful performance on this disc deserves to establish her worldwide.

Accompanied by a quintet of two violins, guitar, double bass and percussion, she has composed music for a dozen poems by the Malagan poet and writer. These are verses which speak intimately of Spanish life and history.  Born in 1928, Manuel Alacantara writes of the sea, his childhood, Pablo Picasso, and the poet Miguel Hernandez who died in prison in 1942. Martin acknowledges her flamenco origins but sublimates her vocal power to harmonize with her acoustic instrumental backing, particularly the wash of sweet violins of Olvida Lana and Biel Graella. Whether she sings of the port in ‘Por La Mar Chica Del Puerto’ where the ‘divers are searching for my memories’, a love affair in ‘En Aquel Tiempo’ or the Malagan countryside in ‘Al Sur De Los Limones’, Martin’s arrangements move beyond language, resonating with universal voice. –Michael Rofe

Music Australia Guide, August
5 stars

The Spanish singer has used 12 poems by Manuel Alcantra (b. Malaga, 1928) as the basis for these flamenco songs. Using a small ensemble (two guitars, two violins, bass and percussion) she creates an intimate atmosphere that suits his poems perfectly. Martin has a finely tuned ear for the subtleties of Alcantra’s poetry and her vividly expressive voice enhances this exquisite music. Add to this superb guitar playing (Martin and Jose Luis Monton), delicately wrought violins (Biel Graells and Olvido Lanza) and an elegant rhythm section (Chico Fargas and Guillermo Prats) and this is a winner.

Catherine Russell has gone back to her roots. Her late father, Luis Russell, who moved from Panama to New Orleans, was Louis Armstrong's musical director. Her bassist and vocalist mother, Carline Ray, performed with Mary Lou Williams and Wynton Marsalis. For her part, Russell has worked with artists such as Paul Simon, David Bowie, Steely Dan, Cyndi Lauper and Jackson Browne. Here, she is doing very much a big band approach to pieces from a more traditional setting, going back to the 1930s and 1940s.

The title track, a Fats Waller classic, opens the album and sets the scene. Listen to her take songs such as Duke Ellington's ‘Long, Strong and Consecutive’, Willie Dixon's ‘Spoonful’, Harold Arlen's ‘As Long as I Live’ and Andy Razaf's ‘We the People’ (one of Waller's many signature pieces) and it sends you back in time. Still, it's no simple trip down memory lane. As you hear when she sings the dearly beloved Louis Armstrong theme, ‘Struttin with Some Barbecue’, one of the standout tracks here, she remains true to the tradition but adds a bit more. Her phrasing plays with the familiar melody, putting in inflections and allusions that weren't there before, making them sound fresh and new.

Apart from the likes of Curtis Stigers, few jazz artists have done interpretations of Bob Dylan. Enter keyboardist Ben Sidran, one of the more inventive players around. Many rusted-on Dylan fans will hate this album but its appeal lies in the way the pieces are transformed with jazz colours. What makes it work is Sidran's voice, which is full of imperfections not dissimilar to Dylan's. While the album is dedicated to Dylan, Sidran makes it feel like it comes from Mose Allison, with its folksy laid-back quality. Some parts work better than others. ‘Tangled up in Blue’ doesn't capture the original's impact but ‘Rainy Day Woman’ is a sublime jazz stroll. Bob Malach's bass clarinet has the same effect on ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’. You can't help but smile listening to Sidran singing. The challenge: convincing Dylan purists that this album is actually a lot of fun.

Wishing to return to the house where she can recuperate from the pain of love, Ana Moura sets the tone for this wonderful exposition of contemporary fado in the title song. Fado means fate in Portuguese. This music’s sad but tender themes of the heart originate in sea songs from Portugal’s past as a maritime power, when its sailors left for colonies and new worlds. These are love songs, confessions of regret, but also the expression of hope for a better future.

Leva-Me Aos Fados is Ana Moura’s fourth recording and her best. It confirms her status as one of the best new-generation fadistas, along with her compatriots Joana Amendoeira and the more celebrated Mariza. Although the latter is now exploring a more contemporary fusion sound, Moura keeps the traditional trio group format of acoustic guitar and bass and the sweet-sounding, teardrop-shaped 12-string Portuguese guitar, but adds an extra acoustic guitar.

She started her career as a pop singer, but a chance meeting with friends led to a visit to a fado house, and an invitation to sing. Accompanied by her producer and principal songwriter Jorge Fernando, she has crafted a delightful mix of songs, with the highlight being the tender ballad Rumo ao Sul, where she sings of her departure at the end of an affair. Even without the accompanying translations, the universality of her message shines through. –Michael Rofe

American-born, France-based musician Steve Shehan has established himself as one of the world’s most in-demand percussionists. He has worked with luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, Jon Hassell and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and is one-third of French world jazz outfit Hadouk Trio, with Loy Erlich and former Gong reedsman Didier Malherbe. Shehan has also released more than a dozen finely crafted recordings documenting his musical adventures in Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East. He creates finely woven backgrounds, textures and loops for his songs, using musicians and instruments sourced on his travels.

One of the first to take an interest in the music of the Tuareg nomads, Shehan recorded three discs with Algerian musician Baly Othmani. Awalin fulfils a promise to his friend to collaborate with Othmani’s son Nabil, who sings and plays the oud. Shehan adds layers of his own percussion, guitars, a collection of exotic reeds played by versatile Siberian musician Vladiswar Nadishana, and the quarter-tone trumpet of Ibrahim Maalouf.

Shehan’s bandmate Malherbe plays the Indian bamboo bansuri flute and the duduk, the breathy Armenian reed flute. A highlight is Ta Hidjem (What Did They Do To Me?) with its vibrant flamenco guitar from Spanish collective Radio Tarifa. Awalin’s rich tapestry is another threat in Shehan’s evocative adventure.

This is the best Wynton Marsalis album since the 1980s. In taking on French accordionist Richard Galliano as co-captain and tying his band's sails to the twin masts of the music of Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf, Marsalis has shed some ballast. The proselytising, backward-looking obsessions give way to real music-making.

Galliano's accordion has been on all sorts of jazz and jazz-fusion voyages throughout the years. You expect it to sound at home on such Piaf material as ‘Padam ... Padam’ and ‘La Vie en Rose’ but its ease sliding into the Holiday-associated songs raises the question of why some instruments are typecast as jazzy and others not.

While Galliano is brilliant throughout this live album, Marsalis is best on the Piaf material. This obliges him to react with unsullied improvising instincts and his perfect articulation combines with glorious melodic ideas. Elsewhere the stainless-steel tone and antiseptic lines still sometimes prevail. A highlight is Walter Blanding's lush, expansive tenor on a delightful reading of ‘Them There Eyes’.

This is magnificent music, whatever the era. The band is completed by pianist Dan Nimmer (who, the DVD reveals, is a dead-ringer for Bill Evans), bassist Carlos Henriquez and deft, minimalist drummer Ali Jackson.