Handful of Soul
An incredible full length debut from vocalist Mario Biondi -- a jazz singer we'd rank right up there with the legendary Mark Murphy -- supported here with great backings from the High Five Quintet! The grooves here are in a soaring, tightly-stepping style -- very much the best club jazz mode of the contemporary European scene -- with all-acoustic instrumentation, and rhythms that move along at a really great dancefloor pace! Mario's vocals are really unique too -- with a little rasp that catches slightly, and really brings a timeless quality to his voice -- mixing personal feeling into the lively numbers on the album, with an unexpected depth that really makes the album stand out from similar sessions of this type! There's echoes of hip vocal jazz work from years past by artists like The Peddlers, Bobby Cole, or Mark Murphy