The Paris All-Stars – Homage To Charlie Parker (1990/FLAC)

 

The city of Paris celebrated bop and the spirit of Charlie Parker with several days of all-star concerts in 1989, highlighted by this performance featuring eight giants who either played with the late alto saxophonist or built upon the foundation of his contributions, though the repertoire doesn't draw exclusively from Parker's recordings. The concert was led by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, with alto saxophonists Phil Woods and Jackie McLean, tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, pianist Hank Jones, bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Max Roach. Egos are never apparent as the men joyfully support one another and no one goes out of his way to showboat during a solo. Getz is featured in "Warm Valley," Roach is all alone during his three-part "Drummers' Sweet," it's Jackson with the rhythm section in the sentimental "Old Folks," while Heath opens a trio rendition of "Yardbird Suite" with a formidable unaccompanied solo. Dizzy's muted horn is complemented by Jones' spacious piano in a marvelous duet of "Con Alma." Woods and McLean team up for a fun romp through "Cherokee," while everyone returns to the stage for an inspired, smoking interpretation of "A Night in Tunisia," followed by Gillespie's delightful scatting in a burning take of "Oop-Pop-A-Da," which ignites his fellow players. Classical composer Mort Goode's liner notes talk more about the musicians than the performances themselves, so that explains why he didn't catch the bizarre mislabeling of "Steeplechase" as "Birk's Works," or the crediting of Gillespie's "Oop-Pop-A-Da" to Babs Gonzales. Sadly, this A&M CD has been out of print for quite some time, though it is well worth searching for a copy. 

    Alto Saxophone – Jackie McLean, Phil Woods

    Bass – Percy Heath

    Drums – Max Roach

    Piano – Hank Jones

    Tenor Saxophone – Stan Getz

    Trumpet – Dizzy Gillespie

    Vibraphone – Milt Jackson

Recorded June 15, 1989 at La Grande Hale - La Villette, Paris 

1. Steeplechase
2. Warm Valley
3. Drummer's Sweet: The Third Eye/Billy the Kid/The Drum Also Waltzes
4. Old Folks
5. Yardbird Suite
6. Con Alma
7. Cherokee
8. A Night in Tunisia
9. Oop-Pop-A-Da

Charles Tolliver Big Band - Mosaic Select 37 (3 CD, 2011/FLAC)

 

Three recordings, one of them previously unreleased (recorded in Hamburg for NDR), and featuring at least two generation of hard-boppers, including Jon Faddis, Herb Geller, Charles McPherson, George Coleman, Reggie Workman, Curtis Fuller, Jimmy Heath, Clifford Jordan. On the German recording some of the most eminent Americans residents of Berlin, such as Benny Bailey and Alvin Queen, can be heard.

 

The Crusaders - The Golden Years (3 CD, 1992/FLAC)

 Issued in 1992, the first of GRP's Crusaders boxes deliberately limits its reach to a 20-year stretch, stopping just before the crucial departure of drummer Stix Hooper -- hence the arguably apt title The Golden Years. The three discs occasionally give us a good idea of the band's evolution from a fine Texas bop outfit to the soulful groovemeisters somewhat beyond category. 

Disc One roughly documents the transition from the Jazz Crusaders to the Crusaders, with the live "Eleanor Rigby" serving as the pivotal turning point, though some may lament the short weight of material (albeit licensed from Pacific Jazz) from the 1960s. 

Musically, Disc Two is a gas, an uninterrupted cornucopia of first-rate material -- two tracks from Those Southern Knights, almost the entire Free as the Wind album, and doubling back to two monster cuts from Crusaders I, the sublime "So Far Away" and percolating "Put It Where You Want It." 

Disc Three moves at a somewhat lower level, but you do get the full-length "Street Life," and the set closes with a flashback to The Second Crusade. Missed chronological opportunities aside, newcomers and established fans will find a terrific selection of fine grooves and zesty music-making in one compact box. 

 

 

VA - The Smithsonian Collection Of Classic Jazz [5 CD, 1997/FLAC]

 

The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is a five-disc box set released in 1997 by the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by jazz essayist and historian Martin T. Williams, the album featured tracks from over a dozen record labels spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz. The compilation has been recognized as an invaluable document of jazz history and maintains a legacy as introductory listening for new jazz fans as well as scholarship.

 

 

Andy Summers discography [1982-2017] (FLAC)

  

Andrew James "Andy" Summers (born 31 December 1942) is an English multi-instrumentalist, born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England.

While Andy is best known as the guitarist of the Police, he has since forged a successful and acclaimed solo career with new age-influenced contemporary instrumental music that, like his work with Sting and company, draws on his love for jazz and his fascination with creating instrumental textures.

1982 - Andy Summers & Robert Fripp - I Advance Masked

1984 - Andy Summers & Robert Fripp - Bewitched

1987 - Andy Summers - XYZ

1988 - Andy Summers - Mysterious Barricades

1989 - Andy Summers - The Golden Wire

1990 - Andy Summers - Charming Snakes

1991 - Andy Summers - World Gone Strange

1995 - Andy Summers - Synaesthesia

1997 - Andy Summers - The Last Dance of Mr. X

1998 - Andy Summers - A Windham Hill Retrospective

1999 - Andy Summers - Green Chimneys- The Music of Thelonious Monk

2000 - Andy Summers - Peggy's Blue Skylight

2004 - Andy Summers - Earth + Sky

2005 - Andy Summers & Victor Biglione - Splendid Brazil

2017 - Andy Summers - Triboluminescence

Henry “Red” Allen And His Orchestra - The Chronogical Classics 1929-1947 (FLAC)

 

Jazz history is full of innovators, interpreters, and individualists. The innovators change the way that the music is played and influence both their contemporaries and future generations while the interpreters perform the mainstream of the day or earlier styles, contributing fresh ideas to the music. The individualists are unique players who have their own sound and/or style. While they may not be major influences on others, they add to the legacy of jazz through their colorful musical personalities. Henry “Red” Allen was an individualist.

The last great trumpeter to emerge from New Orleans in the 1920s and arguably the most advanced of all of them. Allen’s playing remained unpredictable throughout his career. He was mostly heard in Dixieland, trad jazz and swing settings but the trumpeter tended to be more modern than his repertoire and his bands. His playing was quite speechlike and conversational, his phrasing sometimes almost ignored the beat, and he had a wide array of sounds, smears, and growls that sounded unlike anyone else. Allen was also an underrated vocalist who sang a bit like his trumpet playing and was a natural and masterful showman.

Sidney Bechet - Mosaic Select 22 (3 CD, 2006/FLAC)

 

Fela Kuti - Live In Detroit 1986 (3 CD, 2012/FLAC)

 

In its own way, this is a kind of grail; a live recording by the great Fela Kuti captured live mere months after his release from prison in 1986. After serving two years on a trumped-up charge of "currency trafficking," he was reluctantly released by the Nigerian government in April due to considerable pressure by Amnesty International. This show took place at Detroit's historic Fox Theater in November. The recording is the first release of "new" Fela material in nearly 20 years. 

CD1
01 - Just Like That

CD2
01 - Confusion Break Bone
02 - Teacher Don't Teach No Nonsense

CD3
01 - Beast Of No Nation 

Steps discography (1980-1982) [FLAC]

 

Steps Ahead is an American jazz fusion group.

The group arose out of spontaneous sessions at Seventh Avenue South, a jazz club in New York City owned by saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter brother Randy Brecker. The first three albums were released under the name Steps, later changed to Steps Ahead, on Nippon Columbia in Japan, starting with the debut live album Smokin' in the Pit (1980), followed by Step By Step (1981) and Paradox (1982). 

Sam Manning - Volume 1 + 2 (1924-1930) [2 CD, 2002/FLAC]

 Samuel L. Manning (c. 1898–1960) was a Trinidadian performer and songwriter who was one of the earliest calypsonians to achieve international acclaim.

Manning was born in about 1898 in Couva, Trinidad. He worked as a chauffeur and jockey in Trinidad and British Guiana before travelling to London and enlisting in the Middlesex Regiment during World War I. He then served in the British West Indies Regiment in France and the Middle East. After demobilisation he began organising concerts and toured the Caribbean as a vaudeville entertainer, singing calypso songs and performing comedy sketches.

In the early 1920s, he moved to Harlem, New York, where he performed and recorded music that combined jazz and calypso rhythms. In 1924 he recorded for the OKeh and Paramount record labels, and his music became popular with black American audiences as well as expatriate West Indians. He made his first Broadway appearance in 1925 in John Howard Lawson's play, Processional. His song "Lieutenant Julian" commemorated the 1929 transatlantic flight by Trinidadian Hubert Fauntleroy Julian. Manning became increasingly associated with radical political causes. His companion was Amy Ashwood Garvey, who had been Marcus Garvey's first wife. She produced Brown Sugar, a jazz musical production at the Lafayette Theatre that featured Manning and Fats Waller and his band.

In 1934, he moved to England, where he gave performances in London. Manning was a member of the executive of the International African Friends of Ethiopia in 1935. He and Garvey opened the Florence Mills Social Club in London's Carnaby Street, which quickly became a gathering spot for the city's black intellectuals.

Manning returned to New York City in 1941. That same year, he produced the only known calypso "soundies". film clips made for film jukeboxes located in restaurants and bars. They featured Manning and his ensemble, and Trinidadian dance legend Beryl McBurnie. In 1947, Manning wrote and directed Caribbean Carnival, a Broadway show produced by Adolph Thenstead, which was billed as the "First Calypso Musical Ever Presented". It was a lavish production, featuring 50 singers and dancers, among them New York-based calypsonian the Duke of Iron, Trinidadian dancer Pearl Primus and Manning himself. Manning and Thenstead also founded a record company, Cyclone.

Manning died in 1960 in Kumasi, Ghana, while travelling in Africa.