Jacqui Naylor - The Long Game (2021 Ruby Star Records)

CELEBRATED JAZZ VOCALIST & COMPOSER JACQUI NAYLOR’S 11TH AND LONG-AWAITED ALBUM THE LONG GAME

Released on Ruby Star Records

Acclaimed jazz vocalist and songwriter JACQUI NAYLOR’s 11th album, THE LONG GAME, is filled with both original and timeless love songs. The recording highlights the singer’s magnificent songwriting and deeply rich and soulful voice on thoughtfully arranged songs, all selected by Naylor’s fans via ballots distributed at her performances, a process she used for her prior four albums.

The title of the album was born from one of Naylor’s philosophies of life: “Keep going, stay hopeful and enjoy your life. If you continue to make positive efforts, happiness is sure to emerge. We have to play life for the long game, never give up, and win in life and in love.” This sentiment rings especially true today as the country deals with the global pandemic.

Naylor is best known for her ability to interpret a diverse repertoire, bringing together music from different genres and generations. THE LONG GAME features ethereal jazz arrangements of rock classics from David Bowie (“Space Oddity”), Peter Gabriel ("Don't Give Up") and Coldplay ("Fix You") that pair well with Latin treatments of standards from Kurt Weill (“Speak Low”) and Charlie Chaplin (“Smile”). Interwoven throughout are the singer’s own compositions, co-written with long-time pianist, guitarist, and arranger (and Naylor’s husband), ART KHU. “Her songs are Joni Mitchell good,” writes JazzTimes.

“Love Look What You’ve Done” is an original, personal, and hopeful song about finally finding love after a long journey. Naylor officiated at her sister’s wedding in November and sang this song to the couple from afar during a recent Livestreamed concert. Naylor wrote “All My Life” for her partner, Art Khu. The song celebrates the difficulties of maintaining relationships and how important it is to truly appreciate one another. “When my days are over, I’ll be happy that I spent all my life with you.” She placed this song at the end of the album to serve as the celebration of a great journey.

Naylor gained attention with an arranging technique she coined “acoustic smashing,” where she sings the lyrics and melody of a jazz standard over the groove of a well-known rock anthem or vice versa. “Acoustic Smashing marks a turning point in her career,” writes The Wall Street Journal. On THE LONG GAME, she uses the technique on “Fix You” from Coldplay while the band plays a Miles Davis-inspired “It Never Entered My Mind.” “Naylor has the chops and sensitivity to pull this off,” writes New York Magazine.

The musicianship and camaraderie of Naylor and her longtime bandmates, JON EVANS, bass (Tori Amos, Paula Cole, Sarah McLachlan), JOSH JONES, drums and percussion (Don Cherry, Omar Sosa, Steve Coleman), and ART KHU, piano, organ and guitar (arranger and producer for multiple artists and composer of “The Symphony of Souls” for The Oakland Symphony), shine brightly throughout this thoughtfully produced album.

When describing the synergy of these talented players, Khu says, “Each member of this band is an accomplished musician and storyteller, sensitive to Jacqui’s mission and lyrics, supportive, intuitive and compassionate. Decades of work culminate in THE LONG GAME as each band member uses their individual talents to contribute, shine and support each other. Jacqui’s interpretations are deep, thoughtful but also human and unpretentious.”

Most of the songs were captured in the studio in just one take, including the vocals. Naylor explains that “Like Someone in Love,” the first track on the album was also the first song we recorded in the studio, and we used the first take. I knew in that moment we would create something special.”

To support the album, Jacqui and Art have been inviting fans into their home as part of their monthly Livestream concert series they call Home2Home (no mask required). They created the concert series after an extensive tour that started with six shows at the SF Jazz Center and ended after a multi-city European tour was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. The concerts are available for 48 hours following the broadcast for ticket holders.

Naylor tours regularly throughout the world with her quartet, headlining esteemed venues and festivals, including the Monterey Jazz Festival, Germany’s Women In Jazz Festival, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, The Vancouver Jazz Festival, London’s Ronnie Scott’s, Berlin’s Quasimodo, New York and Hamburg’s Birdland, and the Blue Note Jazz Clubs worldwide in New York, Milan and Tokyo.

Naylor’s original music has been featured in national advertising campaigns and her signature song “Celebrate Early and Often” was named by Martha Stewart Weddings as one of the best new wedding songs. The singer’s music has also been featured in television and film including a full-length documentary about her called Lucky Girl. Her version of REM’s “Losing My Religion” was featured in the hit reality series “So You Think You Can Dance” and the artist’s many albums have been named in the “Top 10” lists of USA Today, Jazziz Magazine, and The Washington Post, among others.

1. Like Someone in Love 03:03

2. Give Me One More Chance 03:50

3. Fix You 05:25

4. I'll Be Loving You 03:20

5. Love Look What You've Done 03:29

6. Walkin' out the Door 04:18

7. Smile 04:35

8. The Thrill is Gone 05:47

9. Space Oddity 04:19

10. The Long Game 04:55

11. Don't Give Up 05:43

12. Speak Low 03:32

13. It's the Right Time 03:17

14. All My Life 03:34

Jacqui Naylor, vocals

Art Khu, piano

Jon Evans, bass

Josh Jones, drums, percussion

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Benny Green - Then and Now (SUNNYSIDE RECORDS November 2, 2018)

Throughout his career as one of the world’s premier living Jazz musicians, legendary bebopper Benny Green has established himself as a powerhouse pianist and bandleader, boasting concert appearances and recording credits with giants of the industry over the past 35 years. But prior to his forthcoming record Then And Now (his 20th album as leader), Green has never featured either vocals or flute on any of his albums. Painting with rich aural colors and textures, Green boldly steps into new musical space for Then And Now, featuring both vocal sensation Veronica Swift and flautist Anne Drummond. 

Jazz sensibility comes naturally to Green, the NYC-born son of a jazz saxophonist and a Berkeley, California native. At a young age Green’s ear became fine-tuned to the art form, and he soon found himself invited to perform alongside Jazz icons like Betty Carter, Freddie Hubbard and Ray Brown. Art Blakey found Green’s swinging musicality to be the right ingredient and invited Green to join the ranks of his elite Jazz Messengers – this relationship would prove deeply influential to Green, who has since dedicated his career to straight-ahead hard bop. 

Although featured in a wide variety of performance arenas, Green is in his element and shines as the leader of the Benny Green Trio. With drumming master Kenny Washington and revered bassist David Wong completing the piano trio, Green commands the stage, delighting international audiences in his 38th year as a bandleader. It was only natural that this trio would become the springboard for Green’s recent new musical adventures.

A recording session led by prodigy vocalist Veronica Swift made such an impact on Green that he expanded his own generally instrumental traditions and began collaborating with both Swift and his trio. Green’s authoritative skill at the keyboard and hard-swinging ensemble were the perfect sonic landscape for Swift’s masterful musicianship and organic approach to scat singing, with Swift proving her voice was the perfect soloing instrument to complement Green’s stylistic swing. 

Swift, like Green, grew up in a musical family – her father a world-renowned bebop jazz pianist Hod O’Brien, along with her mother, vocalist Stephanie Nakasian, had made Swift’s young life rich with Jazz tradition. Swift and Green were a well-matched pair, each dedicated to bebop and swinging Jazz styles. When Swift began performing together with the Benny Green Trio, they discovered a dynamic element of interactive group synergy and interplay. They regularly perform together still, celebrating the musical vision they share. 

With Then And Now, Green explores yet more new ideas and soundscapes, delving into the rich sounds of a Rhodes electric piano on a few tracks. The vintage Rhodes, with Green at the helm, becomes a new and darker sonic foundation for Swift’s voice. Flautist extraordinaire Anne Drummond joins Green on the new record as well, after having previously performed some of Green’s own original music on her recording Revolving. 

Green’s compositions for Then And Now exemplify the album’s title: this record is musically distinct from any of his previous records. Longtime fans of Green’s will immediately recognize his unparalleled mastery and swing, but will also hear him stretching out comfortably in these new colors. The juxtaposition of Green’s familiar trio format and the new voices and textures on Then And Now create a heartfelt program, anchored in the swinging tradition that’s always been so central to Green’s heart. The new album is definitively, authentically Benny Green – but it conveys a side of Benny Green you haven’t heard before. 

Then And Now begins with Green’s salute to revered soul singer, pianist, composer Donny Hathaway which quotes both the singer’s “Valdez in The Country” and his duet with Roberta Flack, “The Closer I Get to You; Green’s “Donny Hath A Way” is a hard-grooving tune featuring flute, percussion and Green on Rhodes. 

Swift joins Green on Dexter Gordon’s “For Regulars Only,” a childhood favorite of hers, and performs her own stunning vocal transcription of Freddie Hubbard and Dexter Gordon’s original trumpet and tenor saxophone parts. For Cedar Walton’s “Latin America,” Green explores the duality of the keyboard itself, playfully balancing the Rhodes and acoustic piano as two characters: the Latin character and the gringo character, respectively. 

Swift’s touching lyrics about life lessons, set to Green’s “Naturally,” feature Swift exploring her own sonic comfort zone, with her voice eventually layered over itself in delicious triple texture. Driven by Washington and Wong, Green and the trio lay down a hard-hitting arrangement of Hank Jones’s “Minor Contention”, followed by a meditative dedication to California wildlife, Green’s calming “Enchanted Forest” as chamber trio of flute, piano and bass. 

Washington plays a classic Art Blakey-style 4-bar introduction out front on Horace Silver’s “Split Kick,” for which Swift rejoins the trio, covering the original trumpet and alto saxophone parts as played by Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson with her voice. Green pays tribute to Duke Pearson, one of his favorite composers, with “Say You’re Mine”, and along with Swift recalls his mentor Walter Davis, Jr. with “Humphrey”, first recorded by Green in 1991 on his album Testifyin’. Swift’s vocals follow the trio’s opening chorus on “Something I Dreamed Last Night,” harkening Anita O’Day’s classic ballad style. 

But the crowning moments of the album are the “then” and the “now.” With “Hipsippy Blues” Green calls to mind his greatest musical influence, Art Blakey, and the time they’d spent playing together: a mindful musical glace back to “then.” Then Green turns to the “now”, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the release his own composition “Wiggin” (first recorded in 1993 on Green’s That’s Right. Green stands firmly in the present, surrounded by fascinating musical colors, textures, collaborators, and ideas. 

With the release of Then and Now, listeners get a rare glimpse of Benny Green, a giant of Jazz in his own right, both then and now.

Anne Drummond - flute & alto flute

Benny Green - piano & electric piano

David Wong - bass

Josh Jones - percussion

Kenny Washington - drums

1. Donny Hath A Way

2. For Regulars Only

3. Latin America

4. Naturally

5. Minor Contention

6. Enchanted Forest

7. Split Kick

8. Say You're Mine

9. Humphrey

10. Hipsippy Blues

11. Something I Dreamed Last Night

12. Wiggin'