Rising Stars: Halie Loren brings on soothing holiday favorites with Many Times, Many Ways

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Part Diana Krall, part Ana Leuzinger of Torcuato Mariano fame, part Lori Mechem, and a range that would make Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas, Baby” rendition be treated like giving to your pets an old fruitcake–Halie Loren’s simply calm and soothing vocals teamed up with Matt Treder’s excellent piano renditions make this album a true holiday keeper.

Whether it is one of your soundtracks of choice this holiday season, this album is very sweet, simple, and not real busy.

For those of you have not caught up on this budding Oregon soloist, you can read up on her debut jazz album here:

Rising Stars: Halie Loren brings soulful passion and catchy melodies on After Dark

Released in 2012 by Justin Time Records (get it, a football reference?), the entire album only clocks in a little over 38 minutes.  But there are many gems hidden inside this pearl of cool classics:

• Track 2, “Winder Wonderland”…Halie picks up a few octaves on the “To face unafraid/The plans that we made”
• Track 3, an old jazz standard given the late night, pull-up-alongside-your-lover with some blankets by the fireside treatment in “Blue Holiday”
• Track 4, titled “Sugar Cookies” is a great instrumental song for you bakers out there (got to make that run to Party City and your favorite grocery store to make that next favorite holiday baked delight).
• Halie picks up the pace on “Let It Snow”.  At times, her voice appears to be fading in and out for brief seconds at a time–but it does not interfere with the rendition.  But she thankfully reverts back to the slower, melodic pace with Track 6, Amy Grant’s beloved 1992 classic carol, “Grown Up Christmas List”.
• Madonna would be thinking to herself about Track 9.  I wonder how her rendition of “Santa Baby” gets about 17 RPM–nearly half of your typical vinyl record speed, factually speaking.  Just wait until you hear the line about “Santa Cutie”…I would leave it at that.
• “From the Mouths of Babes” and a song great for people like Glaucia Nasser of Talisman fame (watch this blog space for a really cool interview, fully translated from her native Portuguese sometime after the New Year) and others who spend the holidays in farm communities, “Nature Boy.”

Similar to most artists in mainstream jazz and regular/independent pop rock, the album is in a cardboard case for very easy storage.

I rate this holiday album five stars.  Excellent album to keep around when you are decorating your holiday tree.

Next week, we will go retro as I will feature the only Christmas carol that Lani Hall, Karen Phillip, and the rest of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 ever did.

Stay warm, and hopefully you have begun to check off things from your holiday list for friends and family.  I am getting close–but the way people are buying online, there is only so much money to throw around if you want your packages shipped quicker via Priority Mail.

But the domestic shipping deadlines are approaching fast.  Sure hope people are more understanding, where more impatient types would get very irate if they didn’t wrap their exact wishes come Christmas morning.  But if all else fails, a simple note would suffice like, “I ordered the package from the link you told me to purchase from, but there was a problem in shipping last week and it will be here soon.”

Take care, everybody.

Final blog for 2013 as Mo Jazz is the way to groove for every December holiday

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The 1994 artwork features a neatly decorated wreath.

On this Motown Record Company label straight out of Los Angeles, some smooth jazz artists that were new to the scene at that time included Ronee Martin and Frank McComb.  Eric Reed and Norman Brown also contribute with some timely carols, as does the Wayne Johnson Trio and J. Spencer.

But it is the last two songs that are worth displaying here as I close out 2013 in the blogging world.

Pete Escovedo doing his take on Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” and the same song that Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 did, here is Terra Sul’s version of “The Christmas Song” are not to be missed.

Copies of this CD should be available online, but sorry–no YouTube clips of each carol were found.

I would like to give very special and huge thanks to all of my fans for enjoying the blogs and giving their comments each and every week when situations were timely and proper to call for such cool commentary.

I plan to do the same for 2014–with hopefully the chance to profile new and upcoming artists which was sadly missing in 2013.  I am also in the planning stages of putting together a very special surprise come World Cup soccer/futbol time for those frantically preparing for the world’s most popular sporting event this summer (outside of the United States, where a true winter wonderland will be seen for the first time come Super Bowl week in New Jersey of all places come early February).

More details on that as we get closer.

As a timely yuletide bonus, I included some liner notes from a holiday album that I profiled in December 2012.  Enjoy:

Artists Worth Checking Out: Franco Sattamini provides some cool holiday cheer

Season’s Greetings to you and yours, or cumprimentos da estação para você e os seus.

A Brasilian Christmas is a rare yuletide gem if you can find it

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This 1996 Astor Place Recordings/Chalon Road holiday release out of New York City features plenty of jingle bells and lots of drums with cool percussion that we have come to expect from Brazilian jazz:

Dori Caymmi leads off with a non-lyrical version of the Nat King Cole classic, “The Christmas Song”.  Joyce lends her voice on a number of carols, from “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” on Track 4 to “O Velhinho” (or translated to “The Old Man”).

Perhaps Santa Claus himself was she singing about on Track 8, hmmmmm?  Who knows?  But she does do the timely hit on Track 9 with a string version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”.  Another hit that is not normally on Brazilian jazz Christmas albums is Track 7 with the samba version of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance Natahl” (“Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy”).  Fittingly, I close with that song because the key arrangements were done so beautifully by the recently deceased Oscar Castro-Neves (yes, I will profile his illustrious career in a special blog come May, when he would have been celebrating his birthday).

Copies of this holiday album are available, but just like the album that I profiled earlier in 2013:

Artists Worth Checking Out: Closing Out Spring Break With A Compilation from France

this album is very rare to find online.
Next week, I definitely plan on reviewing a CD which is not too difficult this time of year.  I plan on reviewing the 1994 Mo Jazz Christmas Album.  It is very easy to recognize, with a neatly decorated wreath planted right on the middle of the cover.

And if there is time left in-between wrapping the final presents, who knows–maybe I will try to dig up one final little surprise for my very special blog fans, whether you were a first timer when my blog started up in November 2012 or you are new to the genre itself.

Please try your best to stay warm, as the one classic jazz song plays over in my head often this time of year,

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”: