Hendrik Meurkens
Samba To Go! (Zoho)
www.hendrikmeurkens.com
The music of Brazil has captivated a great number of fans and musicians around the world, and many of the latter have tried to emulate the country's sounds and make them their own, for better or worse. Among those who have been successful is Hendrik Meurkens, a New York-based (but German-raised) harmonica player considered one of his instrument's most important players since Toots Thielemans.
Meurkens lived in Brazil for a number of y
Joel FitzpatrickBest known for his work as a songwriter and guitarist with Norah Jones - he penned several songs for her first two albums, including the Grammy-winning "Don't Know Why" - New York-born Jesse Harris has had a long career in his own right, and as a producer and touring sideman for the likes of Sasha Dobson, Jonathan Harris and many others. If that weren't enough to keep him out of mischief, he also wrote the score for Ethan Hawke vehicle The Hottest State.
Harris is current
2009 marks the 45th anniversary of Getz/Gilberto, the album that established bossa nova in the international market - something that came at the right time, as the popularity of the unapologetically apolitical genre had begun to wean in its native Brazil.
But it was not like Verve Records was excited about it at the time: in early 1964, Verve producer Creed Taylor finally decided to release the product of two days of recording sessions done in September of 1963 with saxophonist Stan Getz, Bra
