Benny Green - Solo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

French composer Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) made a life's work of collecting, transcribing, and arranging folksongs. His Chants d'Auvergne has long been very popular. Much of the rest of his songs, though, have been unjustly neglected. Among these, L'arada emerges as a particularly intriguing work. A native of North Carolina, Dr. Coker-Merritt received her Master of Music degree from UNC-Greensboro, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance at Florida State University. She began her professional operatic career with Pittsburgh Opera, studying as an apprentice with opera legends Renata Scotto, Régine Crespin and Renée Fleming. She made her professional operatic debut with Baltimore Opera in 2003. Sean Kennard has won top prizes in the Queen Elisabeth Competition (Belgium), the International Music Competition of Viña del Mar (Chile), the Vendome International Piano Competition (Portugal), the Sendai International Music Competition (Japan), the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (USA), the National Chopin Competition, the Iowa Piano Competition, the American Pianists Association, and the International Chopin Competition of the Pacific.

2018 . Although featured in a wide variety of performance arenas, Green is in his element and shines as the leader of the Benny Green Trio. With drumming master Kenny Washington and revered bassist David Wong completing the piano trio, Green commands the stage, delighting international audiences in his 38th year as a bandleader. It was only natural that this trio would become the springboard for Green's recent new musical adventures. A recording session led by prodigy vocalist Veronica Swift made such an impact on Green that he expanded his own generally instrumental traditions and began collaborating with both Swift and his trio. Green's authoritative skill at the keyboard and hard-swinging ensemble were the perfect sonic landscape for Swift's masterful musicianship and organic approach to scat singing, with Swift proving her voice was the perfect soloing instrument to complement Green's stylistic swing.

I planned Benny's Crib to be a continuation of the ensemble cast I'd presented on Then and Now, which is my working trio augmented by three guest performers, flautist Anne Drummond, vocalist Veronica Swift and percussionist Josh Jones for a few of the selections, as a further extensions of my basic instrumental palette of piano, bass and drums. With Anne's flutes and Veronica's voice, I like to InchstackInch or InchlayerInch a virtual InchfewInch of them to make chords and counterpoint, sometimes doubling the clusters I play on the piano with my right hand. // Bassist David Wong has now worked in my band longer than anyone, seven years, and again lends his impeccable service to Benny's Crib. The lone variation in personnel from the previous album is our new drummer, Aaron Kimmel, who we love. // It somehow just came about in the recording sessions and production of this album, that I found myself gravitating to the Rhodes quite consistently. Along the way, it occurred organically rather than by pre-conceived design that this is an all-electric piano album. That said I don't believe that I was seeking to make any more of a statement by featuring the Rhodes on this album than simply going with my heart in what I was hearing at the time.-Benny Green