Here's another not-yet-even-rated artist, American vocalist HALIE LOREN (b. 1984) who started writing songs at the age of 13, being impressed by e.g. Joni Mitchell, Sarah Mclachlan and Annie Lennox. After five years of performing she released her debut album Full Circle (2006). Overall she is perhaps a bit closer being a pop/rock artist than a jazz artist per se.

Some sources say this live album is actually from 2010. As a newcomer to her output I have a feeling that Stages is a rewarding place to start. First, the backing band (piano, trumpet and rhythm section) is excellent -- and notably jazzier than how Halie Loren's studio albums averagely sound like, I believe. The live atmosphere is warm and happy, and also the sonic quality is good, so one can imagine being there in a supposedly intimate club. Second, this set features nicely chosen covers easy for newcomers to relate -- although so do her studio albums as well.

'Danger in Loving You' is co-written by Loren herself. It's an elegant, bluesy ballad. Thee other own songs are scattered across the 13-song set. The scale of cover tunes is pretty broad. The Kinks classic 'Sunny Afternoon' is followed by U2's 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For', the latter succesfully turned into a piano-centred, slow jazz ballad.

Heartaching 'Cry Me a River' is best remembered as Julie London's trademark song, while 'Girl from Ipanema' (the song that introduced Astrud Gilberto) brings a lovely Brazilian ingredient to this show. Loren even sings in Portuguese, too. Usually I'm not much delighted by oldies such as 'Is You Or Is You Ain't My Baby' but I have to say Loren and the musicians give it an enjoyable, laid-back interpretation. Among my favourites is the serenely moody and passionate 'Love Me Like A River Does'(Melody Gardot).

Tuck & Patti's 'High Heel Blues' Loren sings a cappella, which must have been a nice number for the live audience. Even Gershwin's endlessly interpreted 'Summertime' is a delight due to the Eva Cassidy reminding stretching of notes and the luxurious piano work of Matt Treder. The closing track 'Rainbow Race' is a Pete Seeger song.

Jazz is one of those genres that suit extremely well for live settings, and I'm sure I would have greatly enjoyed seeing this gig. Also as the audio-only listening it functions very well.

Nu jazz is a subgenre I haven't much explored yet, even though it really seems to please me. In short it's jazz with electronic music ingredients, a step further from its cousin 'acid jazz'. Amusingly named Njet Njet 9 is a Finnish instrumental group founded in 2015 and led by keyboardist-composer Ville Kyttälä. Toivo (=Hope) is their fourth album released a few months ago. I haven't listened to the previous albums, because in fact I just found the band by shuffling through the JMA database. I won't let that bother me, I'm only glad to introdude them here. Great stuff!

Toivo has seven tracks mostly around 5-6 minute length, which feels exactly suitable for the compositions; there's enough space to weave fascinating and hypnotically flowing soundscapes with a feel of progression, and at the same time things are kept compact enough not to lose focus or freshness. 'Pöllö' (=Owl) is an excellent opener. The atmosphere is at first very soft and nocturnal, but the playing gets more intense in an awesome way. Kyttälä's otherworldly synths offer the coolest details, harmonically accompanied by richly nuanced woodwinds. Markus Pajakkala, also remembered as the frontman of UTOPIANISTI, has beautiful flute parts here.

'Maa' (=Earth/Country) is also pretty dynamic and contains important contributions from bass clarinet and bass trombone. The band's overall sound is deliciously juicy. The summery jazz groove and the [space/progressive] rock aspect are in a happy harmony, and that's naturally also due to the gifted rhythm section and guitarist Veikki Virkajärvi.

The fourth piece 'Pieni pilvi' (=Little cloud) is a dreamy slow-tempo tune that brings me -- guided by the title, of course -- associations to the Gil Evans /Sting interpretation of the Jimi Hendrix ballad, whether it's deliberate or not. It doesn't citate the song anyhow but the mood is a bit similar. The longest track 'The Messenger' (8:17) takes a couple of minutes to start properly. The length is used for both deepening the hypnotic beat and bringing variety in the arrangement. The album closes with the romantically peaceful title track.

A very enjoyable, detailed and dynamic nu jazz album indeed. A pity that this time the band didn't invite any guest vocalists as they occasionally have done, but the whole surely works well as an all-instrumental album, too. Warmly recommended.

Sadly there aren't even ratings here for British artist Katie Melua (b. 1984 in Kutaisi, Georgia). The mellow, relaxed nature of her jazz & blues flavoured adult pop makes it easy to see similarities with American Norah Jones, and also her quick rise to a wide popularity resembles the other well-received young female newcomer of the early 2000's. Melua may not be quite as accomplished as a musician and composer as Jones, but she's not a mere singer either.

Katie Melua's debut album Call Off the Search (2003) was an enormous success, selling 1,8 million copies in the first five months. It was produced, and half written, by the long-term songwriter, arranger, director and producer Mike Batt who continued as Melua's right hand on subsequent releases. It was easy for this safely done second album to faithfully follow the succesful path. It reached the top of the charts and sold platinum on several countries.

The nice, small-scale opener 'Shy Boy' leans on the blues. The album's lead single, fresh & sweet ballad 'Nine Million Bicycles' (also by Batt) remains deservedly as one of Melua's best-loved songs. Melua's own composition 'Piece by Piece' is enjoyable as a moodier ballad inspired by the break-up from her boy friend. 'Halfway Up the Hindu Kush' (Melua/Batt) has a joyful jazzy feel but isn't among my faves.

Katie Melua is competent enough as an interpreter to feel at home on standards like 'Blues in the Night' in which Paul Jones plays harmonica. 'On the Road Again' happily isn't the worn-out country song but a Canned Heat song from 1967. 'Just like Heaven' is originally a 1987 piece of The Cure and suits Katie Melua surprisingly well.

Within a couple of years Melua had progressed as a songwriter. 'Spider's Web' is a fine, dark-toned ballad. 'I Cried for You' is a tender and slow-tempo love song with a pretty arrangement balanced between acoustic simplicity and orchestral colours. The shamelessly romantic arrangement on the innocently naiive 'I Do Believe in Love' is perhaps a bit too zaccharine. One can of course blame the whole album for staying too safely on the soft side, but admittedly that's where Katie Melua shines the brightest. For the 12-piece song set containing so many beauties, Piece by Piece is undoubtedly among the essential Melua albums and a fine place to start.

My knowledge on the British musician JOE JACKSON (b. 1954) were very limited before now. I had heard the early 80's hit 'Steppin' Out' and perhaps a late 80's weak pop album. I had a vague idea of him as a New Wave artist often compared to Elvis Costello, but I didn't really know about his musical versatility that stretches to jazz and even to classical or "serious" music. Will Power, his first foray into the latter, is cruelly bashed in All Music Guide as "a good exercise in self-indulgence but little of anything else" while the user reviews there are encouragingly positive.

Even the legendary prog or fusion musicians such as TONY BANKS, MIKE OLDFIELD or PEKKA POHJOLA (who wrote an actual symphony) usually haven't received much kudos from their orchestral works, although it feels pretty natural they should extend their already eclectic and ambitious oeuvre into that field. All the more harsh it feels to see it judged as mere self-indulgence when someone initially less oriented to classically inspired music makes an album like this one. In fact I'm indeed positively surprised by Will Power -- which I wasn't by Oldfield's orchestral albums. Perhaps it even would deserve to be performed live by a philharmonic orchestra, today. (Sadly the compositions of Contemporary Music are often forgotten after their premieres, or if they're originally albums they may never enter the concert halls, as it probably was the case with Jackson's work. Nowadays orchestral works composed by pop/rock musicians are hopefully ignored by fewer people than earlier.)

Will Power contains four shorter pieces plus a 16-minute 'Symphony in One Movement'. 'No Pasaran' is a sharp-toned and very urban-sounding 6-minute piece with hypnotical repetitive patterns slightly reminiscent of some Vangelis compositions of the 70's. Good use of percussion! The nearly 10-minute 'Solitude' has a moody atmosphere, slow tempo and lots of flute in the nuanced soundscape. Some human voices are added later. I find Jackson's arranging skills to be notable. Traditional orchestral instruments are joined by guitars, saxophones and synthesizers.

Also the title track has a colourful, vivant soundscape. All in all, one can sense some stylistic relation to the minimalism of PHILIP GLASS. The orchestral suite "Hjuvi" (1992) by the Dutch art-pop band NITS -- in practise it was an effort of their keyboardist Robert Jan Stips -- comes to my mind, too. The tender, ballad-like 'Nocturne' focusses on the acoustic piano. I like its introspective and emotionally deep melodies.

In the winter of 1985 Jackson was commissioned to write a 20-minute score for a Japanese film, "Shijin No Ie" (House of the Poet), and the orchestral piece was recorded with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. He adapted the music into 'Symphony in One Movement' to start this album project. His symphonic vocabulary is quite clearly of the 20th century. I like the way various instruments come to the fore in this dynamic and yet thoughtful composition.

Definitely one of the best orchestral works, if not the best, I've ever heard from an artist with a popular music background.

Here's the first review for the vocalist and organist who was born and raised in New Zealand and moved to USA in 2008. Her surname has changed twice. The first two albums were released as Adrienne Hindmarsh, then the next two as Adrienne Fenemor. Nowadays, I found out, she's Adrienne McKay. Don't know if she has continued her discography since 2016, though.

Blue Skies is her self-released debut album, recorded as a trio with guitarist Josh Hindmarsh and drummer Jim Rupp, Adrienne herself playing Hammond organ. It's a lighthearted set of mostly pretty well known standard pieces. Let's start with Adrienne's voice. It's charmingly a bit girlish and innocent (without being too naiive), with a resemblance to Suzanne Vega or the vocalist in The Sundays.

Songs like 'Blue Skies', 'Love Me Or Leave Me', 'Fly Me to the Moon' or 'Route 66' hardly need an introduction. Adrienne's trio doesn't attempt to bring anything radically new to the evergreens, but perhaps these versions in general are slightly more instrumentally oriented than the versions recorded by the numerous famous vocalists; for example 'Fly Me to the Moon' begins with a minute-long organ solo. But otherwise the listener won't be surprised by the interprertations.

The Brazilian song 'Agua de Beber' is remembered from Astrud Gilberto's repertoire, and 'My Baby Just Cares for Me' from Nina Simone's. Adrienne stays sincerely herself all the way, without trying to bring anyone in mind. What I find a weakness of this album is the rather narrow stylistic approach. All is very light-hearted, happy and groovy, which is fairly enjoyable, admittedly. But some slow ballads or more dramatic emotional substance in the compositions along the way would have brought some variety.