James Torme “Love for Sale”E1 Music
You can’t help but try to listen for The Fog. It’s really not there in Velvet Mel’s son’s voice. But James Torme does possess a pleasantly soft tenor that gives this swinging collection of standards, funk faves and original compositions a listenability not always heard on jazz albums. Torme works his instrument well within its somewhat limited range, giving a contemporary edge to such old chestnuts as “Autumn Leaves” and scatting with the best of them. Judicious use of female backup singers and trumpeter John Daversa lend the package extra (and extraordinary) soul and snap. Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
SebastiAn “Total” (Ed Banger/ Big Beat/Atlantic)
After years of singles, EPs, and hothouse remixes for fellow Frenchies Justice and Daft Punk, SebastiAn has his own artist album to burn through. As an architect of the steely French house aesthetic, SebastiAn makes tracks with stammering robotic rhythms such as “Mean Games” and “Embody” in his sleep. When he awakes, the filtered Vocoder-filled voices like the ones that populate the messianic “Love in Motion” (featuring U.K. soul sensation Mayer Hawthorne) act like mourning doves and greet SebastiAn with tweets.
Gaspard Auge of Justice stops by for the kink of “Tetra.” There are gimmicky moments that sound like revved- up motorcycles, and the day is complete. Knowing that he contributed to the soundtrack of 2010’s “Notre Jour Viendra,” this album is not all slamming and dancing. SebastiAn, the producer and composer, knows his way around a sensuous, ambient interlude and a melancholic chord passage.
Ultimately, though, it’s all about the banger and the British-Sri Lankan mistress of song, M.I.A., who goes from bhangra to rave on “Total’s” best tune, “C.T.F.O.” Vive le France! A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer
Diane Schuur “The Gathering” Vanguard
Jazz vocalist Diane Schuur’s first recording was a country song, made when she was in 10th grade, called “Dear Mommy and Daddy.” She hasn’t revisited the genre until now. For her first full-blown Nashville album, on sale Tuesday, Schuur took a predictably classy/classics approach, focusing on numbers associated with the Countrypolitan era — the genre’s jazziest — of the 1960s. So expect lots of vocal gymnastics and improv arrangements that nonetheless uncannily evoke shades of Patsy Cline (“Why Can’t He Be You”), Tammy Wynette (“Til I Can Make It on My Own”) and short-haired Willie Nelson (“Healing Hands of Time”). The whole thing was recorded in a day, mostly on first takes, with the likes of Alison Krauss, Vince Gill and Mark Knopfler dropping by.
