Neither much Chopin, nor much blues, but plenty of great swinging jazz. Peter Beets is an acclaimed Dutch jazz pianist who has already done a program around Bach's music called "From Bach to Blues". At a festival dedicated to Chopin in Hague, Peter Beets was asked to play in the foyer as kind of background bar pianist.He refused but instead asked to play Chopin improvisations in one of the halls.His concert entitled 'Chopin Meets The Blues' was a great success and so the idea for this album was born. Chopin's music provides only the starting point for Peter Beets improvisations.Eight rather slow tempo Chopin compositions turn into eight fast tempo swing(a la Oscar Peterson who is one of Peter Beets's heroes) mprovisations in which Chopin's music is sometimes barely recognizable ( not that this should trouble anyone). The Peter Beets Quartet features beside Peter Beets, Joe Cohn( son of tenor sax player Al Cohn) on guitar, Reuben Rogers on double bass and Greg Hutchinson on drums . Why "Chopin meets The Blues" ? Because, according to Peter Beets "....I purposely avoided the word "jazz" itself, because that word tends to turn many people off"??? Does 'Chopin Meets The Blues' sound more attractive than 'Chopin Meets Jazz'? I don't know. Anyway, a very good album, highly enjoyable.

Caecilie Norby is one of the best living danish jazz singers-11 nominations for "Danish Vocal Jazz Album of the Year". Although she grew with classical music - her father was a conductor and composer, her mother an opera singer, she turned first to jazz(as part of the Jazzz/Funk group Frontline) , then to pop/rock ( three albums with the group 'One Two sold 250.000 albums only in Denmark), developing later her career mostly in jazz with four of her seven solo albums released by Blue Note. In 'Arabesque', her debut with ACT, she returns to her classical roots.She wrote both the music(some of it together with her husband, bassist Lars Danielsson who is also the producer of her albums) and the texts for most of the 15 tracks of the album, based on classical themes by Ravel, Faure, Satie, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy in addition to some tracks composed by Michel Legrand , one Abbey Lincoln song(Wholly Earth) and one composition by her father. As expected, 'Arabesque' is a marvelous blend of classical and jazz, played with great skill by some of the best artists in european jazz -Lars Danielsson, Bugge Wesseltoft, Katrine Gislinge(piano), Ulf Wakenius, Palle Mikkelborg, Hans Ulrok and Anders Engen. Melodic, original (just listen to the funky swing interpretation of 'Bei mir bist du schoen' ), elegant, slow, melancholic music played with great talent.

Anat Cohen is one of the talented young israeli jazz musicians that burst into the US jazz scene in recent years and who has a great contribution to the re-emergence of clarinet in jazz music. A very talented clarinet player(she was voted clarinetist of the year from 2007 through to 2011 by JJA ), she released two albums in 2007-Noir and Poetica. While 'Noir' is a big-band album on which Anat Cohen plays both saxophone and clarinet, 'Poetica' is a quartet album on which she plays only the clarinet.For 'Poetica' Anat Cohen picked some Israeli songs('Agada Yapanit' , 'Hofim', 'Eyn Gedi', 'Nigunim') which get a pretty straight reading, one Jacques Brel cover ('La Chanson Des Vieux Amants ') that somehow manages to sound more israeli than french, one latin ballad ('...Saudade') , one less known John Coltrane composition('Lonnie's Lament') which sounds great in Anat Cohen's vision, a couple of originals written by Anat('The Purple Piece',' La Casa del Llano') and one composition by Omer Avital('Cypresses') who also arranged the strings on some of the tracks and who plays some great bass on the album. Warm, intimate, lullaby-like, touchy , sounds like a border meeting of chamber music with world music and jazz, played with great charm by Anat Cohen and her band(quartet or strings). An enchanting album for people who hurry to no place, who appreciate simple and beautiful music(jazz or whatever) .

Like his fellow tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem, Dhafer Youssef found his creative home in Europe.Like Anouar Brahem he brings to jazz his cultural heritage, creating a mixture of world and jazz music.Unlike Brahem he is also a passionate singer and in this album it is strongly felt, his (mostly wordless) vocals taking lead over his oud playing. Named after the eighth-century Persian classical poet Abu Nawas this is Dhafer Youssef 4th album and marks a return to the acoustic music together with Tigran Hamasyan on piano, Mark Giuliana on drums and canadian bassist Chris Jennings. Eleven tracks, mostly calm, tender, spiritual music with arabic influences, punctuated by Youssef's soaring vocals, well supported by Jenning's bass and bolstered by Giuliana's powerful drumming. 'Les Ondes Orientales' ,Khamsa and 'Odd Elegy' are some of the best tracks on this album. IMHO the hidden egg of this album is Tigran Hamasyan with his superb ECM-ish playing(personally being an instrumental music lover , I'm less impressed with Youssef's mesmerizing voice). Mark Giuliana proves again he is one the most talented drummers from his generation. With its simple but powerful melodies, 'Abu Nawas Rhapsody' is a great album for East meets West music lovers .

Who needs another compilation of standards? Apparently if it's done by French artists, the French do. Downloads of some of the songs in this album surpassed classics like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. French piano player and arranger Andre Manoukian brought in some of the hotest young talents in France, like China Moses(daughter of Dee Dee Bridgewater), Anaïs,Emily Loizeau, Helena Noguerra and others. Manoukian picked some of the best known love songs of the jazz repertoire ( from Gershwin to Bacharach) and arranged them with freshness, humor and elegance. Luckily his singing stars don't try to emulate any of the great voices who have made these songs famous but keep their own personalities thus avoiding any unflattering comparisons. 'Tea For Two' and 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' sung by Emily Loizeau together with 'Lullaby Of Birdland (China Moses and Benjamin Siksou) stand out. A nice, unpretentious, entertaining album of mellow pop and jazz.