Opening Doors: A Jazz Tribute To The Doors

1. Riders On The Storm

2. Break On Through (Organ Mix)

3. Hello, I Love You

4. Touch Me

5. Love Me Two Times

6. Wintertime Love

7. Light My Fire

8. Roadhouse Blues

9. Spanish Caravan

10. People Are Strange

11. Break On Through (Rhodes Mix)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist
In recent decades, male jazz singers have become an endangered species. For every male jazz singer who debuted in the 1970s and 1980s, there were at least a dozen or more female jazz singers. And yet, some promising young male jazz singers emerged in the 1990s, including Kevin Mahogany, Kurt Elling, Allan Harris and Ian Shaw.

Another young male who is doing his part to keep jazz singing alive and healthy is the Philadelphia-based Lou Lanza, who has fashioned a distinctive and recognizable style that successfully unites the vulnerability of Chet Baker, Mel Torme and a young Frank Sinatra with the hard-bop risk-taking of Mark Murphy and Jon Hendricks.

"As far as the current crop of younger male jazz vocalists goes, most of them are either esoteric hard bop singers like Kurt Elling--whose risk-taking I admire--or they fall into the crooner vein a la Harry Connick and Allan Harris," explains Lanza, who provided three albums in the 1990s and is planning to release at least two or three more in 2003 and 2004. "There aren't too many who are in between, but I like to think that I'm a combination of the two."

Listening to Lanza's CDs, one hears a singer who has developed his style by paying close attention to a variety of artists--not only male jazz singers, but also, jazz instrumentalists, female jazz singers and classic pop crooners like Sinatra.

"I feel that I'm a bit of a wild card and that I'm a combination of a lot of different influences," asserts Lanza, who is unrelated to the Philadelphia opera singer Mario Lanza. "Chet Baker taught me the importance of showing your vulnerability, whereas Ella Fitzgerald showed me that I could move my voice around like an instrument whether I'm scatting or using words. Chet phrased beautifully, and obviously put a lot of thought into the impact and meaning of the lyrics he was singing. Mark Murphy is probably the best conglomeration of all those things because he has the vulnerability as well as the ability to use his voice as an instrument."

Lanza continues: "I think what I got the most from Sinatra was knowing the importance of the lyric. And Miles Davis showed me that you could improvise musically, yet still convey the meaning of the lyrics through the notes--without words."

Lanza's recording career began in 1995, when he recorded his promising debut album, The Road Not Taken, for the independent J-Bird label. That album was followed by his second album, Corner Pocket, a more eclectic outing that he recorded in 1997. "With Corner Pocket, I was concerned with hitting the jazz element especially hard, and I got more into bebop, scatting and vocalese," Lanza recalls. "I wanted someone to be able to pull out any song and say, 'This is definitely a straight-ahead jazz album.' "

But if Corner Pocket illustrated his more aggressive, hard-swinging side, Lanza favored a more pensive, reflective approach when he recorded his third album, Shadows and Echoes, for the Dutch Challenge Records. Shadows and Echoes was produced by jazz veteran Chris Ellis, a British singer who is also among the most respected jazz producers in Europe.

And just as The Road Not Taken, Corner Pocket and Shadows and Echoes were three very different albums, Lanza's next two releases will show the jazz world different sides of his artistry. One of them is An Intimate Portrait in Blue, a moody, often melancholy album of ballads and torch songs. The other album, Opening Doors: A Jazz Tribute to the Doors , is a hard-swinging, more aggressive effort that finds Lanza paying tribute to one of the top rock bands of the 1960s. The singer plans to release both Opening Doors and An Intimate Portrait in Blue on his own label City Sounds.

While Lanza isn't the first jazz artist to record songs by The Doors, Opening Doors marks the first time that an entire jazz vocal album has focused on their music exclusively. And make no mistake: Opening Doors is very much a jazz album. From "Light My Fire" to "Break On Through

Product Description
If you love The Doors music while at the same time love jazz vocals, this cd is the one for you. To quote jazz vocalist, Jd Walter: "With the cd opening Doors, Lou Lanza, Philly's ultimate crooner, has proven he belongs with the crème de la crème of the Phill jazz scene, or any jazz scene for that matter"

Opening Doors: A Jazz Tribute To The Doors,Lou Lanza,Citysounds,Bop,Post-Bop

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