I’m glad New in Music This Week: August 14th isn’t a huge list since I’m going out of town to The Festival in Kingston, NY. I hope there aren’t some last minute titles I’m unaware of for this week. If so, they will be listened to for next week.
My top pick this week is:
JAZZ: SAY YES – NicoleYvette – Self-released
I was reminded of Elvis Presley’s 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong when I first read about NicoleYvette’s debut album.
She doesn’t have 50 million fans, but she has some very serious ones who have joined her on Say Yes: Terri Lyne Carrington, Paul Cornish, Kurt Elling, Larry Goldings, Keyon Harrold, Joel Ross and more.
Her producer is Sara Gazarek. She must be the real deal.
She is. If you’re expecting a straight-ahead jazz album, you will have to adjust those expectations. This is jazz by an artist who is clearly a product of growing up with and singing church music.
Most of the album features songs she has written. There are two covers: Cole Porter’s Night and Day and What a Wonderful World. Both arrangements are fresh and let me know what NicoleYvette is going to completely follow her instincts. They are all working full throttle on Say Yes.
Interestingly, she has two versions of her song If I Could on the album. I believe they anchor this album as her father’s illness and passing form the narrative spine here. There’s an urgency to the first version with the band. As if she’s trying everything she can think of to change what’s happening. At the end of the album, with just Cornish on piano, the urgency seems to have been replaced with deeply emotional resignation. Her vocal is heartbreaking here.
You should Say Yes to NicoleYvette. You won’t be disappointed.
Here are the other fine releases that are New in Music This Week: August 14th:
ART SONGS: SUR – Daniela Mack / JP Jofre Quintet / Juan Pablo Jofre – Pentatone
Last week my top pick was the album Piazzolla Whisky by Duet Tango – an album of music by Astor Piazzolla. Along comes Sur by mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack. Under different circumstances Sur might have been the top pick this week.
I only have great things to say about this gorgeous album. Mack’s singing is clear, passionate and perfectly recorded. Having grown up in Argentina with Piazzolla’s music, it’s no wonder she’s made this project her debut solo album. You can feel every fiber of her being coming to life as each song gets performed.
What came to mind while listening to Sur was that it fit her like a glove in the same way that Brecht/Weill’s music fits Ute Lemper. Most artists are inextricably linked to their heritage. Mack, like Lemper, is a fierce and passionate advocate for the music of her country and its best-known export: Piazzolla.
Sur closes with JP Jofre’s Dulces Sueños (Sweet Dreams). It’s a beautiful way to close out a supremely beautiful album.
CHORAL MUSIC: THE SECRET LETTER – Cantus – Signum Classics
This album stems from a program Cantus performed in 2025 where they interspersed letters from Marcus Aurelius, Emily Dickinson, Rod Kelly Hines, Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde with music both well-known and not.
What do these letters have in common?
They all express the author’s same-sex feelings and longings.
Songs like Bésame Mucho, Blackbird, We Kiss in the Shadow (from The King & I), music by Poulenc and Janáček and more are performed by Cantus.
There are some world premiere recordings by Saunder Choi, Mohammed Fairoux, and Mari Esabel Valverde.
Cantus has once-again created an album that shows their commitment to unique and compelling programs and recordings. Of course they sing well. That’s a given. It’s that their heart is fully on display to inspire us all with ideas the world sorely needs now.
JAZZ: CATALOG OF DREAMS – Alex Hamburger & José Luis Martins – Challenge Records
This idiosyncratic album by flutist/vocalist Hamburger and pianist Martins features Brazilian tunes, a Wayne Shorter standard and a song by Thundercat. Strange bedfellows perhaps, but they work here.
Gilberto Gil’s Ladeira da Preguiça, Lacerda’s Poente and Airto Moreira’s Tombo in 7/4 are the Brazilian tracks. The Wayne Shorter tunes is Dance Cadaverous. Thundercat’s song is the wonderfully absurd song Captain Stupido. There are also two original songs.
Catalog of Dreams is like going to a buffet of music and hearing a little bit of several things – but all done with first-rate musicianship and wonderful ways of interpreting the music.
JAZZ: PARABÓLICO: REFLECTIONS ON GILBERT GIL Vol. 1 – Gaia Wilmer Large Ensemble – Sunnyside Records
Another exploration of Gilberto Gil’s music? When it’s this good, bring on more!
Gaia Wilmer has created a thoughtful, intelligent, engaging and unique approach to Gil’s music. She has a way with orchestrations that adds sophistication to music that wasn’t needing it but becomes even more interesting with her approach.
She says in the press notes, “I have been drawn to working with the music of someone I love and creating my own music from it.” Mission accomplished and then some.
Of the seven tracks, five of them were Gil compositions. Wilmer wrote Overture: O nascer de cada dia which opens the album and Vignette: A Luz Na Escuridão which is the penultimate track.
The end result is an album that is Wilmer’s fully realized vision.
Her 20-piece band is top notch and clearly just as invested in this music as she is.
Seems like Brazilian music is popular this week!
JAZZ AND…: GENERATE MUSIC – Prism Quartet – XAS Records
The central thesis for this compelling album of genre defying music is an examination of where and when Black and Jewish Americans find ties with one another. Sometimes they are allies, but not always.
With the opening track, poet Ursula Rucker offers us a sense of where this album will take us. Her text is presented in a makeshift.
The next track gives us funk, jazz and klezmer in the rollicking The Unknown Common Ancestor. Fred Wesley’s Requiem for AJ fully lays out the intentions of Generate Music: a powerful statement made using poetry and music. The use of “Do you” is potent and packs a wallop that is matched by the drumming of Tyshawn Sorey.
Sorey’s untitled composition for Saxophone Quartet, Guitar and Double Bass offers equal parts stillness and unease in its opening minutes but settles into a more contemplative piece. The programming of this piece here offers a break before moving forward with more political pieces.
This is a bold album by Prism Quartet in a time where boldness has become essential. Kudos to members Timothy McAllister, Matthew Levy, Zachary Shemon and Taimur Sullivan for creating Generate Music.
The works played were written by Yotam Haber, David Krakauer, Levy, Myra Melford, Diane Monroe, Ursula Rucker, Tyshawn Sorey, Susan Watts and Fred Wesley.
OPERA: MANON! – Heartbeat Opera – Lexicon Classics
Jules Massenet’s opera had its world premiere in Paris in 1984 It had five acts and was lacking an exclamation point!
Heartbeat Opera trimmed the opera down to a 90-minute opera with an English libretto that feels like it was part of an earlier time on Broadway as opposed to the spectacle, jukebox, shows running forever and ever time we have now.
In other words, they made a real crowd pleaser. But you wouldn’t have known it unless you saw one of the three works of performances they gave in Brooklyn earlier this year.
Thankfully, they’ve chosen Manon! to be the first of their adaptations to be performed. And it’s nothing but pure joy from the first moment until the last.
Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue wrote the new libretto. Dan Schlosberg did the arrangements and conducts.
This is quite wonderfully sung by Emma Grimsley as Manon; Matt Dengler as Chevalier Des Grieux; Glenn Seven Allen as Guillot; Jamari Darling as Lescaut; Justin Lee Miller and Count Des Grieux; Kathryn McCreary as Pousette and Natalie Walker as Javotte.
If you’re a purist, you may not enjoy this recording. But those with open hearts and minds will certainly find 90 minutes of joy in this recording.
That’s all for New in Music This Week: August 14th.
Enjoy your weekend!
Enjoy the music!
Main Photo: Part of the album art of Daniela Mack’s Sur (©Éli Zaturanski/Courtesy Pentatone)