In my childhood I used to listen to tapes of Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald, ever since those days I have a strong connection with jazz music, recently I made an extensive research of contemporary artists that, given their creativity and innovation, I think you should listen, I‘d wish to have a whole lot of time to include every single one of them and to deepen the information on each one, nevertheless, here they are:

Mario Biondi and the High Five Quintent present their debut album Handful of Soul which is an extrodinary and sublime jazz recording, in my opinion this is one of the most refreshing and dynamic jazz albums, they recreate the complete jazz experience, Mario’s voice is an angular piece to this band, because he sings with so much swing and deepness that you will think he’s a black singer.

From Canada, Elizabeth Shepherd, which is a great singer/songwriter, she and her trio offer us a fascinating option of new vocal jazz, according to my evaluation she could only be compared with the playful vibe of Jamie Cullum, the songs are full of energy and soul, I love the bass arrangements and the groove that she builts on her music, She has also appeared on numerous ‘Live in Session’ including Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide show on BBC Radio 1 UK.

Nostalgia 77 is the studio project of Ben Lamdin his creations range from heavy-funk to dusty-old jazz, recently he reunited a bunch of extraordinary musicians conforming an octect, including the fantastic voice of Alice Russell. Their last effort, Everything Under the Sun won the “Jazz Album of the Year 2006″ award from the BBC, highly recommended, one of the finest contemporary jazz albums.

Hajime Yoshizawa is an extraodinary musician, producer and pianist from Japan, the way that he perceives and plays music is very different compared with western jazz, in fact I believe that he has a unique ability to connect his left side of the brain directly to the piano keys, he had also worked for Kyoto Jazz Massive, Cosmic Village, Sleep Walker, Dalata, Jazzanova, Monday Michiru and Isabelle Antena.

Nils Krogh is a 22 year old producer/artist from Sweden who has a lot potential to make a great contribution to jazz music, apparently he started his blooming career with the record label Dealers of Nordic Music, which is a huge beginning. Today with just an EP, Things We Do, he has done remixes from people like Nicola Conte and Inverse Cinematics.

Bruno E is a music producer from Brazil, he started his carrer working with hip-hop artists and soon he became a respected figure of the electronic scene, soon he founded the record label SambaLoco, which lauched some artists from the stature of DJ Patife, Marky, XRD, and Mad Zoo, among others. Recently he started a new record label named Urubu Jazz, that leads a new wave of jazz musicians and electronic producers.

Non less important I also recommend that you check out these artists, which, as I said before, for the insufficience of time to cover them all, I just list them:
Kaidi Tatham, Eliza Lumley, Ryota Nozaki (Jazztronic), Natural Self, Dj Mitsu, Sunaga T Experience, and finally you can also download this extrodinary DJ set from DJ Chikashi Nishiwaki as an additional “gift”.