1 	You Are My Love 	3:54
2 	Too Late For Love 	4:26
3 	Kiss The Bride 	5:06
4 	Medusa 	4:10
5 	Falling 	4:23
6 	The Other Side Of Love 	4:07
7 	It's Just The Way It Goes 	5:44
8 	You'll Never Know 	4:44
9 	Cosmic Samba 	5:10
10 	The Universe 	4:09
11 	Too Late For Love (Papik Remix) 	4:37
12 	Hideaway 	1:21

Guitar – Tony Remy, Alfredo Bochicchio
Keyboards – Mark Fisher, Nerio "Papik" Poggi
Vocals – Mark Reilly, Elisabeth Troy
Backing Vocals – Elisabeth Troy
Double Bass – Pierpaolo Ranieri
Drums – Marco Rovinelli
Flute – Andrew Ross
Percussion – Simone Talone
Saxophone – Fabbio Tullio
Saxophone [Solo] – Dave O'Higgins
Trombone – Ambrogio Frigerio
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Massimo Guerra

British band Matt Bianco release their latest album ‘Hideaway’ on March 8th 2013. Despite many misconceptions throughout the years, Matt Bianco is the name of the band who were originally formed in the early 1980’s by ex Blue Ronda À La Turk band members who comprised of the late Kito Poncioni, Mark Reilly and guitarist Peter White’s brother Danny White on keys. They invited the unknown Polish vocalist at that time Basia (Trzetrzelewska) to perform on their first set which yielded the monumental hits ‘Half A Minute’ and ‘Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed’.

After more than three decades of making great music and performing to global audiences, ‘Hideaway’ reunites Mark Reilly with long time collaborator Mark Fisher for another chapter in their signature class of exotic Latin rhythms blended with dancefloor orientated grooves. The use of ‘world’ instrumentation such as the sitar on the opening ‘You Are My Love’ set the mood for the album by this well traveled and seasoned group.

Those of you who are familiar with previous ‘Bianco’ tracks will recognize the harmonies on the catchy ‘Too Late For Love’ featuring Reilly on lead vocal. Time has stood still for this band whose instantly identifiable sound transcends the years with tracks such as ‘Kiss The Bride’ , ‘Madusa’ and the ‘Studio 54’ single contender ‘Falling’ which would have fitted perfectly into a late seventies disco set in that iconic New York club.

Smooth Jazz Radio will be attracted to the laid-back ‘It’s Just The Way It Goes’ with Reilly’s cool lead vocal and a soft trumpet bridge vibe.

However the album’s killer cut is the uptempo ‘You’ll Never Know ‘ featuring the exquisite and succinct Elisabeth Troy on vocal duties and is a perfect 2013 hit replacement for their 80’s smash ‘Half A Minute’. The powerful title hook line is perfectly complimented by the driving ‘Bianco-esque’ Latin percussion and synth riffs.

The album’s title ‘Hideaway’ conjures up an escapism from the frenetic modern world and ‘The Universe’ certainly delivers a cool groove which has all the aura of an intergalactic adventure with the echoed synths and electric piano licks which are reminiscent of the early Rah Band and ‘Messages from The Stars’ from the eighties.

‘Too Late For Love’ gets a meatier remix on the album by Papik with some added horns and the album wanes to a close like a candle’s final evening’s flickers with the album’s short, but subtly sweet title track ‘Hideaway’.

I expect long time Matt Bianco fans will be queuing up for this latest chapter in easy listening groove which is the perfect accompaniment to a quiet night in or a relaxing night’s surfing. ---jazzineurope.mfmmedia.nl

Matt Bianco is one of those groups who are now more popular overseas as opposed to the UK. Much like Sade, Swing out Sister and Incognito they continue to tour abroad and the albums are still selling well.

Mark Reilly and Mark Fisher are still the mainstays of the band and the album is typical of their well crafted songs and rich melodies. Their albums always contains a cover version and the new album kicks off with the old Liverpool Express hit from the 70's, You are my Love: the band makes the song their own turning into a summer latin-flavoured groove.

Things take off with Too Late for Love - one of the best tracks on the album, the track sees the band in full stride. You'll Never Know sees the band on top form again, whilst Cosmic Samba is an instrumental with just female vocalist Elisabeth Antwi adding to the track urging you "to fly her to the moon".

The songs are timeless, that is not to say that the tracks are dated, it simply says that the songs will still sound good in 10 years time, unlike some of today's popular music.

If you liked the band first time around, you will not be disappointed. For anyone who likes their music with a touch of pop, a dash of jazz and some brilliant memorable tracks then this album is an essential purchase. It may have been 4 years since their last album but the wait has been worth it. ---Graham Clark, yorkshiretimes.co.uk

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex mediafire ulozto gett bayfiles

back

1. Hifi Bossanova (4:24)
2. Lost In You (Revisited) (4:42)
3. Natural (4:28)
4. Don't Look Back (4:27)
5. Always On My Mind (4:31)
6. The Way I Like It (3:59)
7. Ba-De-Ah (4:43)
8. Someone Else's Dream (3:55)
9. Anna-Marie (4:04)
10. Angel Divine (4:13)
11. Matt's Chill (3:49)

Nick Cohen - Bass
Simon Finch - Flugelhorn, Trumpet
Mark Fisher - Keyboards, Melodica, Piano
Weston Foster 	- Drum Programming, Vocals (Background)
Rômulo Gomes - Bass
Hazel Sims - Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Kym Mazelle - Vocals
Mark Reilly - Vocals, Vocals (Background), Vocoder
Tony Remy - Guitar, Vocoder
Andrew Ross - Flute, Saxophone
Ricardo Silveira – Guitar

Well I’d like to think I fly in a kind of retro style, 
well I’ve heard it all before but I’m feeling it again.

This is the first line of the first track on Matt Bianco’s new album Hifi Bossanova and pretty much sums the album up in one contorted sentence. After the short lived reunion of the original line up for ‘Matt’s Mood’ (which, in my humble opinion was nothing but a calculated move by Basia to give her non existing career a shot in the arm) the new album has reunited the duo of Mark Reilly and Mark Fisher. Those two shaped the sound of this band over the decades and should by all means be regarded as Matt Bianco proper.

Interestingly, this is the first collaboration of those two in 7 years since they released Echoes. But this time things are different: they have secured a contract with big German independent label ‘Edel’ and will be releasing their new oevre in Europe and the UK (if I remember correctly this is the first UK release since 1991’s ‘Samba in Your Casa‘) while their trusty label in Japan – JVC-Victor – will release Hifi Bossanova in Asia. There will even be a tour. So all the portents point to a commercial success. But, what is it actually like?

Well, it’s different. Not different as in ‘Aaargh, that’s terrible’, no, just different from their last records. They have shed what I call their ‘e-Latino’ sound (all uptempo drum loops, housey hihats and claptraps) and have returned ironically to the more acoustic feel of the first MB album back in 1984. You could call it “Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto meet Baden Powell in 1984 in a cafe where they’re playing Steely Dan in the background”. Makes sense? It’s not as catchy as their previous albums: Every MB record in the past had some songs that you were able to hum instantly (Fire, ‘Cha Cha Cuba‘ and ‘Lost in you’ come to mind), but this time things are a bit more grown up, more sophisticated. You could even call it Sophistipop. The percussion and drums are more organic, more midtempo and chugging along nicely in the background (it’s not all bossanova, though). The melodies are more complex and grow more slowly on you than in the previous albums. It certainly takes a little while to get used to the different harmonics and singing/whistling/humming along to it takes you a little bit longer than usual. Which is not necessarily a bad thing as you just want to listen to it more and more. Now don’t think that Fisher and Reilly are reinventing the wheel with this: there are still plenty of the usual MB ingredients: plenty of vocodered ‘boom chicka chicka’ sounds, there is some ‘te tumba’-ing (in the bossanova’d version of ‘Lost in you’) and ‘ah – be da’ ing going on and Mark Reilly’s lyrics are, well, still Mark Reilly’s lyrics. There is also plenty to hear from their female vocalist Hazel Sim who sounds so much more appropriate for this material than Basia (less pathos is often a good thing) and gels well with Mark Reilly’s timbre. Highlights of the album are the title track, ‘Always on my mind’ (no, not another Elvis cover) and the divine ‘Someone else’s dream’ and yes, there is the odd stinker as well, but after listening to the thing for 5 days almost continuously I can happily say that I am delighted with it. This is the first Matt Bianco album in which Fisher and Reilly must have said ‘sod the teenage market’ and focussed on their core audience of men and women ‘of a certain age’ (middle class geezers and ladies in their late thirties and above).

Well, there’s certainly plenty of us around who will gladly shell out money for this gem of an album. Let it be all over the charts and I’m already looking forward to the tour. Well done, chaps. --- Fordiebianco, messagedfromtheouthouse.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex 4shared mega mediafire zalivalka cloudmailru uplea

back

Matt Bianco – Gravity (2017)

1 	Joyride 	
2 	Invisible 	
3 	Gravity 	
4 	Heart In Chains 	
5 	Solace 	
6 	Summer In The City 	
7 	Before It's Too Late 	
8 	AM/PM 	
9 	Paradise 	
10 	The Autumn Leaves Are Falling 	
11 	Ooh Wee 	
12 	Joyride (Mark De Clive Lowe Remix)

Some things just get better with time. Red wine and self-confidence, for instance, or Matt Bianco. The legendary British group, named after an imaginary Sixties superspy in the Eighties, is adored around the world for hits like "Half A Minute", "Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed", "Whose Side Are You On?", or "Yeh Yeh". For their fifteenth album "Gravity", front-man, vocalist and songwriter Mark Reilly recruited a superb new band featuring Swedish sax- and flute-star Magnus Lindgren and a large chunk of Jamie Cullum's group. Their mission: reviving and modernizing Matt Bianco's Bossa- and Jazz-roots, while keeping the easy going swing of former successes, built around the singularly recognizable Dry-Martini-voice of Mark Reilly. The result is an energetic, yet relaxed collection of ten original songs, with enough gravity to please their most sophisticated admirers and plenty of new fans, who might have been bitten by the Jazz-bug via a Gregory Porter or Jamie Cullum. ---Product Description, amazon.com

The british jazz band Matt Bianco have had their fair share of ups and downs. After a run of UK chart singles between 1984 and 1989 including HALF A MINUTE, GET OUT OF YOUR LAZY BED, DON’T BLAME IT ON THAT GIRL / WAP-BAM-BOOGIE and YEH YEH, the group was struck by tragedy in December 2016 when their co-leader and keyboard player Mark Fisher died aged just 57. Keen to carry on the legacy, founder and lead vocalist Mark Reilly vowed to carry on performing under the Matt Bianco name, resulting in the release of a new studio album GRAVITY.

GRAVITY is Matt Bianco’s thirteenth studio album (excluding compilations) and follows last year’s THE THINGS YOU LOVE, a collaboration with Holland’s New Cool Collective funky jazz band. Recorded live in the studio, the 11 track album revives and modernises Matt Bianco’s Bossa and Jazz roots while maintaining the easy-going swing of their former successes.

Described as “somewhere between Lee Morgan’s SIDEWINDER and War’s LOWRIDER”, the album’s opening track JOYRIDE immediately sets the tone, with its laid back, feel-good summer feel, a vibe which continues on uptempo groovers like SUMMER IN THE CITY and INVISIBLE.

Reilly assembled an all-star band to record on the album with a supporting cast of noted British jazz musicians, including saxophonist Dave O’Higgins, bassist Geoff Gascoyne, pianist Graham Harvey, trumpeter Martin Shaw and Swedish sax and flute star Magnus Lindgren, all performing on the album. The array of talent clearly shows in the material with the Latin inspired PARADISE and the swinging shuffle AM PM, standing out as highlights, as well as the mellow BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE which features a wonderfully emotive sax intro by O’Higgins.

The pace slows for SOLACE, a deep, dark, blue ballad and HEART IN CHAINS, a lovely nocturnal piece which combines the Dry Martini-voice of Reilly with the smooth and soulful vocals of Elisabeth Troy, a hart-hitting vocalist in her own right.

The title track GRAVITY draws on anorganic jazz combo sound with excellent jazz piano by Harvey. The album closes with a bonus remix of JOYRIDE by Mark De Clive which loosens up the groove, giving it a laidback ambience.

Classy, cool and sophisticated, GRAVITY’s collection of eleven original songs boast enough gravity to please their most ardent admirers and win over plenty of new fans. All in all, a strong studio album which encapsulates the stylistic essence of Matt Bianco. ---franklymydearuk.co.uk

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

yandex 4shared mega mediafire uloz.to cloudmailru gett

back