VA - Dreyfus Jazz : 20 Years [20 CD, 2012]

 

In the early 90′s, Dreyfus starts to get involved with jazz music. 20 years later, Dreyfus Jazz label has become a prestigious and unavoidable label of quality and high artistic standards universally recognized. Today, the label continues to bring together the best talent and promote quality jazz.

•  Adrien Moignard - All The Way
•  Ahmad Jamal - It's Magic
•  Aldo Romano - Just Jazz
•  Anne Ducros - Close your eyes
•  Béla Fleck-Places
•  Bireli Lagrene - Gipsy Trio
•  Didier Lockwood - Tribute To Stephane Grappelli
•  Eddy Louiss - Eddy Louiss Trio
•  Franck Avitabile - Short stories
•  Geraldine Laurent - Time Out Trio
•  Marcus Miller - The Essential Marcus Miller - Power
•  Michel Petrucciani - Solo Live
•  Philip Catherine - Philip Catherine - Guitars Two
•  Richard Galliano Septet - Piazzolla forever
•  Rosario Giuliani - Lennie's Pennies
•  Roy Haynes - Fountain of Youth
•  Steve Grossman with Michel Petrucciani - The Quartet
•  Sylvain Luc - Joko
•  Terez Montcalm - Voodoo
•  Trio Sud - 'Young And Fine'

 

Bill Evans Trio - Turn Out the Stars : The Final Village Vanguard Recordings (6 CD, 1996) [FLAC]

  

New York City's legendary jazz club the Village Vanguard was the setting for Evans's musical triumphs in the early 1960's, and it's ironic it was the scene of his last triumphs. This six-disc set was recorded there in June 1980--Evans would pass away three months hence. Accompanied by bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, Evans gives several of his classic tunes definitive readings. The interplay between these three is astonishing, the audio quality is overall superb, and Evans plays often with what can only be called quiet fire. TURN OUT THE STARS proves he left this world at the top of his game.



Recorded live at the Village Vanguard just months before Evans' sudden death in September, 1980, this material was originally earmarked for an album later that year. However, it remained unissued until 1996 when the compilers discovered Evans' handwritten notes concerning the aborted release.

Listening to these performances with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera, one is struck by how little Evans' overall style had changed in the twenty-four years since his 1956 debut: luxuriously-phrased piano lines, almost horn-like in their length and melodicism, which never lapse into mere vapid prettiness (even on tunes as slick as Paul Simon's "I Do It For Your Love") due to their cerebral, near-abstract quality. Johnson and LaBarbera are an intuitive unit, responding with ease and grace to their leader's occasional flights of fancy.

 

Jean-Luc Ponty - Original Album Series (1975-1978) [5 CD, 2012] [FLAC]

 A wide-ranging violinist who helped popularize the use of electronics among string players, and developed a varied style mixing many jazz genres.

• Upon The Wings Of Music (1975)
• Aurora (1975)
• Imaginary Voyage (1976)
• Enigmatic Ocean (1977)
• Cosmic Messenger (1978)

VA - Americans in Paris: The City of Love and All That Jazz (10 CD, 2012/FLAC)

 This 10 CD set offers an exciting overview of some of the most important recordings made by American jazz stars in Paris in the Fifties. They are milestones of Modern Jazz, Bebop and Hard Bop recorded by some of the most important players of the time, including Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Lionel Hampton, Chet Baker, Sarah Vaughan, Mary Lou Williams, Lester Young and Donald Byrd. Treated like second class citizens at home, many American jazz stars not only got more recognition and respect in the French capital, but found much better playing conditions as well. From concert-halls like "L'Olympia" to the clubs of the "Latin Quarter" they were appreciated and celebrated, and their music met with a glowing enthusiasm.

Al Di Meola – All Your Life - Tribute to The Beatles [2013/FLAC-HD]

 

Guitar superstar Al Di Meola pays personal tribute to The Beatles - “All Your Life” puts a fresh new rhythmic slant on beloved tunes.

Recorded at the Abbey Road Studios, London

1. In My Life (4:30)
2. And I Love Her (4:07)
3. Because (5:12)
4. Michelle (2:52)
5. I Will (2:52)
6. Eleanor Rigby (2:50)
7. Penny Lane (5:41)
8. Blackbird (4:38)
9. I Am the Walrus (4:04)
10. Day in the Life (3:01)
11. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (3:09)
12. With a Little Help from My Friends (4:15)
13. If I Fell (2:59)
14. She’s Leaving Home (3:22)

Stan Kenton — 50th Anniversary Celebration: Back To Balboa (5 CD, 1991/FLAC)

 STAN KENTON 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION - BACK TO BALBOA is a 5-CD set recorded during a four-day concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stan Kenton Orchestra's debut at the Rendezvous Ballroom on Balboa Island, California. Discs 1 and 2 feature a band of Kenton alumni led by Kenton composer-arrangers Pete Rugolo, William Russo, Shorty Rogers, Bill Holman, Hank Levy, Buddy Childers, Lennie Niehaus and Marty Paich. Discs 3 and 4 feature Kenton sidemen and arrangers leading their own bands. Disc 5 includes four panel discussions of Kenton's band.

 

John Coltrane - Blue Train (10 CD, 2007) [FLAC + 320]

 

Although never formally signed, an oral agreement between John Coltrane and Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion was indeed honored on Blue Train -- Coltrane's only collection of sides as a principal artist for the venerable label. The disc is packed solid with sonic evidence of Coltrane's innate leadership abilities. He not only addresses the tunes at hand, but also simultaneously reinvents himself as a multifaceted interpreter of both hard bop as well as sensitive balladry -- touching upon all forms in between...

 

Oscar Peterson - The Complete Clef - Mercury Studio Recordings Of The Oscar Peterson Trio (1951-1953) (7 CD, 2008/FLAC)

This Mosaic Records collection is the first comprehensive study of Oscar Peterson's earliest trio recordings, the setting for which he was best known, throughout his reign. The collection includes 127 tunes, including five alternate masters that have never appeared on any record, in any format. The earliest recording dates from November 25, 1951 and the last is from December 7, 1953. In the interest of being complete, we amassed a collection that exceeds even the one held in the Universal Music vaults; with some original masters missing entirely, we went to collectors for vintage 78s, second generation tapes, even rare LPs and EPs, performing sonic miracles when necessary to achieve a quality that meets our Mosaic standards. 

Coming up in the era he did, he fell somewhere in between the swing players and the be-boppers, and the two strains wove together into something he never felt any reason to abandon. He and Ray Brown had developed an almost brotherly relationship thanks to the JATP tours they did together, and in Barney Kessel he found another player whose solos could wipe the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. With the JATP tours combined with these Clef and Mercury recordings the trio found the time and opportunity to hone their craft together and become a tight unit. Norman Granz' vision of the "Songbook" album, was perfected by the trio and the series of "Oscar Peterson Meets…" have long been unavailable and are finally in one package. 

 

• Oscar Peterson: piano, vocal; 
• Barney Kessel: guitar; 
• Ray Brown: bass. 

 

Ahmad Jamal - The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-62 [9 CD, 2010] [FLAC + 24-44 + 320]

 

In 2007, this set was well on its way with Ahmad Jamal’s blessing. He listened to and approved a multitude of previously unissued material, expanding the legacy of this extraordinary trio. A tape search proved problematic and we spent the next two years scouring various Ahmad Jamal Argo masters scouring Europe and Japan as well as the US.

As you can hear, this legacy has been reconstructed although almost half of it has comes from digital sources. Both analog and digital sources have minor problems here and there such as the small frying sound on disc 4, track 5. The only major problem is the “Count “Em 88” album (disc 1, tracks 1-9) which for years was available only in electronically-rechanneled stereo. The only existing source in 2010 is a Japanese CD master that seems to have been dubbed from an LP. It has wow and flutter and occasional electronic static as on track 5. Every effort has been made to bring all of this music to you in the best possible fidelity.

Peter Erskine, John Taylor, Palle Danielsson- As It Was [4 CD, 2016/FLAC]

 

This addition to ECM’s popular Old and New Masters Series is a box set reprising the four albums made by Peter Erskine’s American-British-Swedish trio with John Taylor and Palle Danielsson between 1992 and 1997: You Never Know, As It Is, Time Being and Juni. If its core concept – a piano led by a drummer – was unorthodox, the group was nonetheless influential, and the recordings provide an excellent environment for appreciating the distinctive writing and playing of John Taylor.