jazz

Hollie Smith (born 1983) is a female soul singer from New Zealand. In 1999, as a 16 year old, Smith recorded her album Light From a Distant Shore after winning Best Female Vocalist at the National Jazz Festival of New Zealand. The album of Celtic music was produced by her stepfather who was a well-known musician in New Zealand. In 2003, Smith moved to Wellington (New Zealand) singing with Trinityroots. She recorded an album Home, Land and Sea and toured with the band.

A small seaside town in Tunisia in the 1970s. A boy walks along a deserted shoreline picking up the odds and ends he finds lying around: A broken fishing net; a few discarded sardine cans; spokes from an old bicycle. His heart and mind are full of music and he wants to play. It's as much as his father can do to put food on the table for Dhafer and his seven brothers and sisters. There certainly isn't spare money for music lessons, let alone for an instrument. So Dhafer makes his own oud, the traditional middle-Eastern lute, using whatever he can find.

Maori singer/songwriter Maisey Rika, has one of Aotearoa's (New Zealand's) most impressive lead vocal style, fused with her honest and thought invoking messages. Some have described her sound similar to Tracey Chapman or Sade, with a splash of India Arie. Her spine tingling vocals and fusion of English and Maori (Te Reo) lyrics is capturing the hearts of soul seekers both in New Zealand and abroad.

Joshua Redman (born February 1, 1969) is a prominent American jazz saxophonist who records for Nonesuch Records. Redman, who is Black and Jewish, was born in Berkeley, California. He is the son of jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman. He is a graduate of Berkeley High School. Then in 1991 he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society. Redman won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition the same year and began focusing on his musical career.