am i Blue

Scottish Jazz Awards finalists Rose Room have become one of Scotland’s leading ensembles influenced by the Gypsy Jazz genre. Sharing a love of Swing music and the style of the great Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, their“vigorous and vivacious” performances seem to go “down a storm” with any audience as their 1930s ‘Hot Club’ standards and self-penned originals are always served up with great energy and panache…

Jazz vocalist, actress and model Melissa Pace Tanner has sung in many different bands over the years. Her alto voice is light and smooth, like a good wine. In more recent years Melissa has been focusing on her love of jazz, with her first solo album released in February 2004. Melissa's velvety sexy voice gives new life to Jazz classics such as "The Joint Is Jumpin'", "My Funny Valentine", and "Waters Of March".

Bill Doggett is a recent discovery for me. Nice, nice , nice piano player and really great on the B3 organ. I really have enjoyed other artists on this French series "Blues Reference" from Black and Blue. They carved a niche getting good US blues players over to France and recording them in really well-produced sessions. (Jimmy Johnson, Magic Slim, JB Hutto, Luther Guitar Jr Johnson, and about fifty others) Especially good since some of the blues recordings of the lesser-known artists in the 70's were poorly produced affairs trying to cater to a rapidly changing market.

The same movie with the same characters, cast and crew as I am Curious (Yellow), but with some different scenes and a different political slant. The political focus in Blue is personal relationships, religion, prisons and sex. Blue omits much of the class consciousness and non-violence interviews of the first version. Yellow and Blue are the colors of the Swedish flag.

Sarah P.’s solo debut full-length “Who Am I” will be released. A pop record that is different, an ode to the humanly deep need of security and love and a piece of art that reads pages from Sarah P.’s diaries. It’s an album about fears, hopes, memories, dreams - and love. Inspired by Berlin, her Greek roots & personal struggles, Sarah asks “Who Am I? Who are we?” “Our ethics, our cultures are shaping us, but what we become is completely our choice. I’ve been constantly asking myself “who am I”. Have you?”, asks Sarah in her latest article. Although the album is inspired by her struggles and personal fights, the humor and positivity are not missing - Sarah’s sarcasm is omnipresent, so is her passion for a better change that we all can bring once we decide to do so. It’s the realization that we have to start by asking ourselves who we are, who we want to be, and what we stand for.