Artist: Elizabeth Shepherd Trio
     Album: Heavy Falls The Night
     Label: Do Right! Music
     Year: March 2010
     Genre: vocal jazz, R&B
     Format, bitrate: MP3 320kbps
     Time: 40:46
     Size: 79MB



Heavy Falls the Night takes the listener on an unpredictable musical ride. It's hard to pick a favourite track from such an eclectic album but, depending on your taste, it could be the dancefloor ready Seven Bucks, co-produced by Japanese mixmaster DJ Mitsu The Beats (Dwele, Jose James), and inspired by an NFB documentary. Or it could be The Taking - Shepherd’s powerful tribute to the women who came before her – knocked out in Jazz 11/8 time. Or maybe it’s the supremely soulful reworking of Anne Murray's 70s soft-rock radio staple Danny's Song, one of the few secular songs that made it past the gatekeepers in Shepherd's Salvation Army childhood home.

     Artist: Elizabeth Shepherd Trio
     Album: Start to Move
     Label: Do Right! Music
     Year: 2006, release: 2007
     Format, bitrate: 192kbps MP3
     Time: 50:54
     Size: 70MB




Elizabeth Shepherd pushes the boundaries of what is considered conventional jazz, all the while creating a sound completely her own. From London to Tokyo, Elizabeth has captivated audiences and critics on both sides of the pond. Her Juno nominated debut album, Start To Move continues to receive critical acclaim, and was voted the Top 3 Jazz Albums of the Year by the listeners of the Gilles Peterson show on BBC Radio 1 UK in 2006. Do Right! Music

   Artist: Lisa Ekdahl
   Album: Give Me That Slow Knowing Smile
   Label: Sony Music
   Year: 2009
   Format, bitrate: Mp3/320Kbps
   Time: 36:20
   Size: 138Mb (+Scans)

   2009 album from the Swedish singer/songwriter, whose voice has been compared to Blossom Dearie, Diana Krall and Astrud Gilberto. Ekdahl became an overnight sensation in Sweden with her 1994 debut album and has since become one of the country's most beloved musical talents. Give Me That Slow Knowing Smile presents an extremely inspired collection of Pop-Folk sung in English and entirely written Lisa herself. The album was partly produced by Swedish multi-instrumentalist
    ~ Mattias Blomdahl, Sony/BMG

   Artist: Michael Bublй
   Album: Meets Madison Square Garden
   Label: Reprise Records
   Year:2009
   Format, bitrate: Mp3, 320 Kbps
   Time: 43:49
   Size: 52Mb + 56Mb (full scans)

   Michael Bublй Meets Madison Square Garden finds Canadian crooner Bublй making a highly anticipated appearance at the storied New York City concert venue. Often seen as a symbolic moment for a performer having achieved a high level of populist success, Madison Square Garden performances have led to a few well-known live albums, including one from Bublй's own most notable influence, Frank Sinatra. Interestingly, while Sinatra's 1974 album The Main Event came toward the latter half of his career, Bublй's appeared right as some critics and even his contemporaries like smooth jazz trumpeter Chris Botti were proclaiming his ascension to Sinatra's throne as the best traditional pop vocalist of his generation.
    ~ Matt Collar, Barnes and Noble

   Artist: Hiromi Uehara & Chick Corea
   Album: Duet
   Label: Concord Records
   Year: 2009
   Format, bitrate: MP3, 320 Kbps
   Time: 49:18 + 65:02
   Size: 113Mb + 157Mb & 266 Mb

REPOST with additional Rapidshare.com links and info from Mr. Bubu Hans

   Duet captures the two pianists in an engagement at Tokyo's Blue Note club in September of 2007, and finds them repeatedly achieving ecstatic heights of ingenuity and inventiveness. At first blush the opening tracks might feel too quiet as an introduction to the Sturm und Drang of this dynamic pairing, but if the anticipated energy, the bounding, rampaging, red-eyed thunder-and-lightning this partnership promises to deliver is not immediately evident as the first of two discs opens with Bill Evans' "Very Early" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "How Insensitive," don't touch that dial...
   Once these two get their hands warm on "Déjà Vu," the first of Hiromi's contributed compositions, they ignite things with a respectfully deconstructed version of "Fool on the Hill" that hews neatly to the lilting Lennon/McCartney melody line and harmonies right up until the closing three bars, when Corea unexpectedly plucks a few portentous notes inside the piano. The cubist conflagration long-time Corea fans perennially yearn for then flares dramatically on a joyful, abstracted version of his enduring "Humpty Dumpty," ending with his throwing down fistfuls of Cecil Taylor-esque tennis-ball chords, and his protégé enthusiastically throwing them right back. When he next engages Hiromi in some gravity-defying rhythmning on Thelonious Monk's "Bolivar Blues," the first disc's final track, it is plain she's in a mood to play. . . .

     Artist: Lila Downs
     Album: Shake Away
     Label: Manhattan Records
     Year: 2008
     Format, bitrate: MP3, 128 kbps
     Time: 54:55
     Size: 52MB
     AMG Rating:


        Lila Downs' Shake Away is easily the most polished and refined release since she released Ofrenda in 1994. By turns, it is also the most ambitious. Co-produced by Downs, longtime collaborators Paul Cohen, Brian Lynch, and Aneiro Taсo, these 16 songs (13 plus three bonus cuts) are a wild mix of cumbias, folks songs, rancheras, blues, and rock tunes that are originals and covers. The latter include an excellent and wildly unusual reading of "Black Magic Woman" with songwriter/guitarist Raul Midуn.
   Artist direct

     Artist: Joanna Wang
     Album: Start from Here
     Label: Sony BMG Music Entertainment (TW)
     Year: 2008
     Format, bitrate: Mp3, 192 Kbps
     Time: 52:46 + 21:18
     Size: 96MB

     The voice of Joanna Wang arrives to warm up the spirits of music lovers in the winter season. Wang has been gifted with unique jazz vocals that have earned her applause since her early teens. Now 18 years of age, she enters the music scene with her first full-length English album. Start From Here features 12 tracks including renditions of classics like Spandau Ballet's TRUE and Billy Joel's New York State of Mind. Also included on this release is I Love You, Joanna's take on David Tao's popular ballad "Love is Simple".
     This edition comes with a second CD of Chinese songs.
   YesAsia Description

     Artist: David Fiuczynski & John Medeski
     Album: Lunar Crush
     Label: Gramavision
     Year: 1994
     Release: 1994 (Jan 7)
     Format, bitrate:[/b] MP3/160Kbps
     Time: [/b]57:02
     Size:[/b] 65MB
     

     In a break from Medeski, Martin & Wood, retro keyboardist John Medeski gets co-billing with free-thinking guitarist David Fiuczynski in a freestyle dive into a maelstrom of funk, hip-hop, jazz, and rock that grooves all the way down to the last laser pit. Medeski works out on an electronically modified Wurlitzer electric piano and a B-3 organ, playing in a funky, depth-charged, jagged style while Fiuczynski is forever chopping up the lines, streaking around the keyboards, emulating Hendrix or earlier, straighter blues guitarists. Fiuczynski's band, the Screaming Headless Torsos, provides a series of tough grooves as unyielding as its name, and Michelle Johnson's weird vocals on "Pacifica" and "Lillies That Fester..." seem to come right out of a creepy alternative rock station. The musicians these guys have absorbed would fill an encyclopedia — to cite a few possible sources, jungle-band Miles, the first Tony Williams Lifetime, hip-hop, M-Base — yet they manage to convert everything into a zesty, complex yet exuberant mix all their own. If you're of an electric frame of mind, check it out
   Richard S. Ginell, AMG

     Artist:Norah Jones
     Album: First Sessions
     Label: Blue Note (Capitol)
     Year: 2001
     Release: 2001 (Jan. 1)
     Format, bitrate: MP3, 320Kbps
     Time: 19:27
     Size: 42MB

     "First Sessions" was recorded on October 8th & 9th, 2000, originally intended as a demo session. Overwhelming popular response to the music captured that day allowed for a limited release of a six-song EP CD titled "First Sessions". This CD is out of print and has become a collector's item.
   www.norahjones.info

     Artist: David Fiuczynski
     Album: Black Cherry Acid Lab
     Label: Fuzelicious Records
     Year: 2003
     Release: 2002
     Format, bitrate: MP3/320Kbps
     Time: 30:00
     Size: 55 MB

     Experimentations in funk-punk-jazz-rap, Black Cherry Acid Lab is a tongue-in-cheek exploration of the jam session ethic, featuring rants and raves on the radio industry, American politics, and racism in the USA. From funk-rock with David Fiuczynski's be-bop inspired unison twelve-tone lines to off-the-wall punk colliding with faux-Gregorian chant, this is what Dr. Fuze concocted in his basement Acid Lab. Inspired by the music of jazz composer extraordinaire George Russell, Black Cherry Acid Lab is a series of vignettes that are super funky, punky and wild. Partly improvised, partly arranged and all raw, this is a funky freaky musical throwdown
   CdBaby.com

   Artist: Norah Jones
   Album: Live From Austin Texas
   Label: New West Records
   Year: 2007
   Release: 2008
   Format, bitrate: MP3, 192 - 320 kbps (from a [2 LP, 180 Gram Vinyl])
   Time: 76 min
   Size: 84 MB

   What a ride it s been for Norah Jones since that night in March 2002, when I first heard her rich, seductive tones as she performed in a cramped room above an Indian restaurant in downtown Austin at a South by Southwest showcase. A few months later she recorded her first Austin City Limits. Now, after five years, many millions of CD s sold, a shelf full of Grammy Awards, and worldwide acclaim, Norah returns to ACL as one of the most successful and respected recording artists of the decade. This performance from June 14, 2007, includes some of those now-classics that captivated an audience longing for heartfelt music. It also highlights her growth as a serious songwriter on her third CD, Not Too Late. These new songs are more honest, closer to my gut, she says. This record is much more personal....I like writing songs that are not so cut-and-dried, songs with a twist to them.
   One thing that hasn t changed is her passion for all kinds of musical styles, which probably has a lot to do with growing up in Texas and now living in the heart of New York City. Touches of smoky jazz, country twang, Memphis soul and old-fashioned Tin Pan Alley permeate her original songs as well as her choice of other songwriters material.
   Watching her on the ACL stage is the next best thing to having her sitting at a piano in your living room. She and her longtime band mates slide into a groove as cozy as an old pair of slippers. They venture into some new musical territory, but at the center of it all is that voice, that voice that has touched millions around the world. As Time Magazine put it, she may just prove to be the most natural singer of her generation.
   Amazon.com

     Artist: Norah Jones
     Album: Feels Like Home
     Label: Blue Note Records
     Year: 2004
     Format, bitrate: MP3, 320Kbps
     Time: 46:50
     Size: 95 MB
     AMG rating:

     It may be far too obvious to even mention that Norah Jones' follow-up to her 18-million-unit-selling, eight-Grammy-winning, genre-bending, super-smash album Come Away With Me has perhaps a bit too much to live up to. But that's probably the biggest conundrum for Jones: having to follow up the phenomenal success of an album that was never designed to be so hugely popular in the first place. Come Away With Me was a little album by an unknown pianist/vocalist who attempted to mix jazz, country, and folk in an acoustic setting -- who knew? Feels Like Home could be seen as "Come Away With Me Again" if not for that fact that it's actually better. Smartly following the template forged by Jones and producer Arif Mardin, there is the intimate single "Sunrise," some reworked cover tunes, some interesting originals, and one ostensible jazz standard. These are all good things, for also like its predecessor, Feels Like Home is a soft and amiable album that frames Jones' soft-focus Aretha Franklin voice with a group of songs that are as classy as they are quiet. Granted, not unlike the dippy albeit catchy hit "Don't Know Why," they often portend deep thoughts but come off in the end more like heartfelt daydreams. Of course, Jones could sing the phone book and make it sound deep, and that's what's going to keep listeners coming back...

   Artist: John Zorn
   Album: Madness, Love and Mysticism
   Label: Tzadik
   Year: 2001
   Format, bitrate: MP3, 256Kbps
   Time: 52:05
   Size: 93MB

   The first piece (Le Mômo) is an extremely virtuosic piece for piano and violin, a "un-natural" combination which has nevertheless allowed other geniuses to create gems of aural magnificence (check out Schoenberg's "Fantasy for piano and violin" or Bartok's two Violin Sonatas). The Zorn piece doses not fade in comparison with his illustrious predecessors. Much the opposite. The second track, dedicated to Joseph Cornell, the subtle and brilliant creator of those delightful boxes, is an astonishing piece for solo cello, an instrument I personnally adore. This is way more extreme and adventurous than anything I've heard until now (plus the performance is top-notch). Track three reunites all three instruments in a wonderful trio, which will leave you gasping for more.
   This music is demanding, but if you're willing to put in the effort, the rewards are great. I suggest that you listen to it as if you were in a concert hall, attending a live performance. This CD is definitely not a mere aural tapistry meant to "decorate" the void while you're doing some other stuff. These are sonic masterpieces which are meant to induce esthetic bliss. But you got to listen and open your mind to it. Believe me, it's worth it. If you like Zorn, you've got an open mind anyway.
   Again, to those who might fear "classical" stuff, fear no more and try this one. It's mind-boggling. Zorn has definitely got a point when he stresses that "avant-garde" is a genre in itself. This CD is clearly avant-garde, not "classical", nor "experimental" nor "popular" music.
   John Zorn, through his various projects, and his Tzadik label, has built solid foundations which now allow him to put out such extreme masterpieces as this one. Whereas most composers have to struggle in order to get their pieces played, John Zorn has earned himself an absolute freedom to create what he wants (Zappa did the same, fueling his "serious" projects through his Rock bands, Mike Patton used FNM to bring to life outlandish projects such as Mr Bungle or Fantomas...). So this is THE REAL STUFF, composed by one of the REAL GUYS. Uncompromised artistic vision (no "style" or "genre" to stick to, no prerequisite format to respect in order to get the stuff to appeal to the "masses"). It could nevertheless be argued that this might be labeled as well, and marketed in a appropriate "niche" (which it is in a sense). Whatever. THIS IS RARE. This is the result of hard work and strong artistic integrity. Hats off, gentlemen.

   Artist: Big Satan
   Album: Souls Saved Hear
   Label: Thirsty Ear
   Year: 2004
   Format, bitrate: MP3, 320kbps
   Time: 47:53
   Size: 66MB

   Tim Berne's music isn't to be taken lightly. Like Anthony Braxton and even Steve Coleman, Berne's muse is dense, exhaustive and occasionally exhausting, packed with incident and invention; slip any one of his albums in your CD player and you know you're in for a heady ride.
   Like Braxton and Coleman, Berne works in a bewildering variety of contexts, but this trio (completed by long term collaborators Tom Rainey and Marc Ducret) is one of the best showcases for his (and their)unique virtuosity.
   Berne likes to work without a bassist, and it's hard to imagine how one would fit in here.The low endis implied by the combination of the resonant thump of Rainey's kickdrum and the occasional growl of Ducret's lower strings.Berne's fruity alto spins cerebral, funky patternsand hot, atonal blasts.Often the result is arestless,airy funk, multi-limbed, firing off rhythmic clusters in every conceivable direction, topped off with lithe, acerbically lovely melodic lines. But of course it's much more than that; how many jazz records can you think of that open with a mandolin solo?...
   Peter Marsh, BBC