Antonio Carlos Jobim News

The jazz-pop crew from the island of Cyprus called Electric Sound Continuum has released their latest LP record album, “Songs Dissolved in the Dawn.”

Bay Area Cabaret, devoted to presenting audiences with top performers who expand the definition of cabaret, enters its 10th season this fall with a gala series at the Fairmont San Francisco's historic Venetian Room. To celebrate this significant milestone, Bay Area Cabaret presents a star-studded lineup of performers making their Bay Area Cabaret debuts, as well as the return of a few favorites from the past decade. Opening the season Saturday, September 21, 2013 with a bang is Broadway's Megan Hilty, known to millions as the powerhouse 'Bombshell' on NBC's television program Smash. The season continues October 20, 2013 with Tony nominee Norm Lewis (The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess) and November 10, 2013 with 'America's romantic piano sensation,' multi-platinum selling recording artist Jim Brickman, joined by special guest Broadway heartthrob David Burnham.

This fall Shoshana Bush will appear in her East Coast album release show for 'Shoshana Bush and Friends - Live at Catalina Jazz Club' at a venue TBD. In the meantime, she will host Birdland's Jazz Party on June 2nd from 6-7:15pm (doors5:00pm). Birdland is located at 315 West 44th Street, NYC between 8th and 9th Avenues.

This fall Shoshana Bush will appear in her East Coast album release show for 'Shoshana Bush and Friends - Live at Catalina Jazz Club' at a venue TBD. In the meantime, she will host Birdland's Jazz Party on June 2nd from 6-7:15pm (doors5:00pm). Birdland is located at 315 West 44th Street, NYC between 8th and 9th Avenues.

It's taken me two weeks to write this review of Ann Hampton Callaway's recent 8-shows-in-four-days run at Dizzy's Jazz Club at Lincoln Center, where she paid musical tribute to the late, great Sarah Vaughan, and I hope you buy the reason for such procrastination. Since late September last year, I've now seen four different Callaway cabaret shows at three different venues and reviewed two of them and, well, writing about how terrific Ann is on a cabaret/nightclub stage is getting a bit difficult as well as boring. I mean, I'm running out of words in my personal thesaurus to describe Callaway's consistent excellence, not to mention how she seems to provide a periodic master class in cabaret performance. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt I needed to prove I was up to this reviewing challenge, and a show as wonderful as From Sassy to Divine: A Celebration of Sarah Vaughan deserved more kudos on what Rachel Maddow calls, 'The Internet Machine.'

Birdland Jazz Club has announced their exciting line-up of exceptional talent for today, May 13 - May 19.

Birdland Jazz Club has announced their exciting line-up of exceptional talent for May 13 - May 19.

Sony Masterworks releases Gloria Estefan's The Standards on September 10, 2013. Celebrating great tunes from the American Songbook, The Standards reaches out to Estefan's global fan base via international song classics sung in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French, some with new lyrics written by Estefan herself. The album also features collaborations with world class, award-winning artists like singer songwriter Laura Pausini, violinist Joshua Bell and saxophonist Dave Koz.

Helio Alves Quartet will play the Shapeshifter Lab tonight, April 3rd at 8:15pm. The quartet features Helio Alves: Piano; Mike Moreno: Guitar; Peter Slavov: Bass; and Alex Kautz: Drums.

One World Theatre, Austin's premiere music venue known presenting diverse music and cultural arts in an up close and personal setting has announced its 2013 Summer Season. Highlights include top singer-songwriters like Dar Williams and Jimmy Webb, contemporary jazz greats like Euge Groove and Earl Klugh, Latin music icons like Sergio Mendes and Arturo Sandoval and local favorites like Walking Woody's Road featuring Jimmy LaFave, Eliza Gilkyson, Slaid Cleaves and Sam Baker. One World Theatre will also present GRAMMY Award winning trumpeter, Chris Botti at Riverbend Centre.

Alexis Fishman will make her debut performance at 54 Below (254 W. 54th Street) on March 21st, 2013 at 9:30pm, as winner of the New York Musical Theatre Festival's 2012 Next Broadway Sensation competition.

Helio Alves Quartet will play the Shapeshifter Lab on Wednesday, April 3rd at 8:15pm. The quartet features Helio Alves: Piano; Mike Moreno: Guitar; Peter Slavov: Bass; and Alex Kautz: Drums.

Even her biggest fans among the opening night crowd were likely befuddled, slightly bothered, and even a tad bewildered when they heard that Christine Andreas' first cabaret show at 54 Below was called "Bemused," and not exactly sure what that meant. But they would ultimately end up being thoroughly bewitched by a wonderfully engaging show by this totally entertaining pro. While most current or former Broadway stars who are staging shows at 54 Below are performing what amounts to mini-concerts, the lady who first became a Broadway audience favorite as Eliza Doolittle in the 20th anniversary production of My Fair Lady (and is two-time Tony Award nominee) knows her way around cabaret and developed a charmingly creative conceit for this run (continuing on Jan. 29, Feb. 1, 2 at 8:30 pm and Jan. 30, 31 at 7 pm), which included songs from Broadway, pop, the Great American Songbook, and even Edith Piaf.

Producers NELLE NUGENT and KENNETH TEATON welcome STEPHEN BYRD and ALIA JONES as producing partners on the Broadway production of THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL, starring Academy Award nominee and three-time Emmy Award winner CICELY TYSON, Academy Award winner CUBA GOODING, JR, (Jerry Maguire, Red Tails), Emmy Award nominee and recording star VANESSA WILLIAMS (Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives), and Tony Award nominee CONDOLA RASHAD (Lifetime's Steel Magnolias, Broadway's Stick Fly). Directed by MICHAEL WILSON, this 14-week limited engagement will begin previews on Easter Sunday, March 31st at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre (124 W 43rd St). Opening night is scheduled for Tuesday, April 23rd.

This past Saturday night, I was finally able to catch Jeff Macauley's show 'It Was Me: The Lyrics of Norman Gimbel,' and found it to be one of the most charming cabaret shows-male or female-that I saw this year. Macauley doesn't possess a particularly powerful voice or a wide vocal range, but he has a smooth, endearing baritone that can occasionally hit tough tenor notes, and for this show he displayed a knack for offering interesting and humorous biographical anecdotes as if he were a smooth jazz FM deejay. Dapper and Mad Men-esque in a tight black suit and black bow tie, Macauley presented his show as if he was a classic 'lounge lizard,' but in the best sense of that term.

Jazz legends, Chick Corea and Gary Burton, come to the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall tonight, November 9, 2012 at 8 p.m. The Grammy winning duo will highlight music from their latest collaborative effort, Hot House, featuring the Harlem String Quartet.

Stephen Hawking and his fellow physicists may not have yet figured out the formula for traveling through the time-space continuum, but apparently the Metropolitan Room discovered the secret. Last Friday night (October 26), I walked through the curtain into the main performance space and entered a time tunnel that took me from the 21st century into the 1960s and '70s. Two lovely, rising young stars of cabaret, Lauren Fox and Jennifer Sheehan (photo left), had obviously hurtled though that same time warp because in two separate shows on the same evening, they performed songs that had been written and recorded 15 to 25 years before they were born. In the process they transported this particular Baby Boomer joyously back to his youth and to the days of cultural upheaval, generation gaps, peace, love, war, and some of the best pop/rock music ever written.

Jazz legends, Chick Corea and Gary Burton, come to the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall November 9, 2012 at 8 p.m. The Grammy winning duo will highlight music from their latest collaborative effort, Hot House, featuring the Harlem String Quartet.

The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel welcomes back the acclaimed husband-and-wife team John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molaskey to the legendary Café Carlyle. Mr. Pizzarelli and Ms. Molaskey will play a month-long engagement from tonight, October 30 to November 24th