William Shatner, Ben Folds, National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center, Steven Reineke – So Fragile, So Blue (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 39:25 minutes | 724 MB | Genre: Classical, Spoken Word
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © National Symphony Orchestra
This album is about something we all have in common; this beautiful planet Earth that we all call home.
Ben Folds brought new friends to the project, the wonderful composer and orchestrator Jherek Bischoff and bluegrass violin virtuoso and composer Gabe Witcher. They wrote original underscoring for our lyrics to create these new orchestral works. All of these friends together with conductor Steven Reineke and the musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra made this project a reality.
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Malene Mortensen – Can’t Help It (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:31 minutes | 919 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Stunt Records
Singer Malene Mortensen has been around on the Danish scene for a decade-and-a-half gradually getting better known beyond her native land as a singer with a memorable pure-toned voice displaying a good deal of range and one who can combine Great American Songbook material with more recent repertoire in a contemporary modern-jazz style without being remotely cheesy.
But she can be a little bit too middle of the road sometimes, despite her strong technical and interpretative skills. Here with a strong empathetic core band featuring Christian McBride pianist Christian Sands, bassist Burniss Earl Travis II and, again another Christian McBride connection, Terreon ‘Tank’ Gulley on drums, the album gradually moves away from the Great American Songbook at the beginning via ‘Honeysuckle Rose,’ ‘Alone Together,’ and Bacharach/David song ‘Alfie’ to some of her own co-written songs before returning with a flourish to standards fare and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘My Favorite Things.’ Recorded in New York in March 2014 Can’t Help It could do with more of an edge and a few more risks here and there to really shift Mortensen out of her comfort zone however tasteful and polished an artist she continues to be.
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