VA - Blue Note Live At The Roxy Vol. 1+2 (1976/FLAC)

  

2 CD comprising live recordings from the 'Blue Note Live' concert at the Roxy in Los Angeles, California on 28th June 1976, featuring performances by Alphonse Mouzon, Carmen McRae, Ronnie Laws, Earl Klugh & Donald Byrd.

Vol. 1

01. New York City (Alphonse Mouzon) (5:33)

02. Just Like The Sun (Alphonse Mouzon) (4:19)

03. Without A Reason (Alphonse Mouzon) (8:02)

04. Captain Midnight (Ronnie Laws) (4:48)

05. Night Breeze (Ronnie Laws) (8:19)

06. Piano Interlude (Ronnie Laws) (1:44)

07. Always There (Ronnie Laws) (3:30)

08. Places And Spaces (Donald Byrd) (4:56)

09. (Fallin' Like) Dominoes (Donald Byrd) (6:12)

Vol. 2

01. Music (Carmen McRae) (3:55)

02. Paint Your Pretty Picture (Carmen McRae) (4:53)

03. Them There Eyes (Carmen McRae) (1:53)

04. T'ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do (Carmen McRae) (5:00)

05. You're Everything (Carmen McRae) (3:05)

06. Presentation of Proclamation (Councilman Dave Cunningham) (4:40)

07. Medley: Like A Lover~A Felicidade~Manha De Carnaval~Samba De Orfeu (Earl Klugh) (12:57)

08. Blue Note '76 (Blue Note All-Stars) (12:46)

Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela - Rejoice (Special Edition) (2 CD, 2021/FLAC)

 "Rejoice" is a very special collaboration between Tony Allen, the legendary drummer and co-founder of Afrobeat, and Hugh Masekela, the master trumpet player of South African jazz.

Having first met in the 70s thanks to their respective close associations with Fela Kuti, Allen, the Nigerian master drummer widely hailed as the co-founder of Afrobeat (and long-time member of alt-rock supergroup The Good The Bad & The Queen), and Masekela, South Africa’s legendary trumpet player, talked for decades about making an album together. When, in 2010, their touring schedules coincided in the UK, the moment presented itself and producer Nick Gold took the opportunity to record their encounter. The unfinished sessions, consisting of all original compositions by the pair, lay in archive until after Masekela passed away in 2018. With renewed resolution, Tony Allen and Nick Gold, with the blessing and participation of Hugh’s estate, unearthed the original tapes and finished recording the album in summer 2019 at the same London studio where the original sessions had taken place. Allen and Masekela are accompanied on the record by a new generation of well-respected jazz musicians including Tom Herbert (Acoustic Ladyland / The Invisible), Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective), Mutale Chashi (Kokoroko) and Steve Williamson.

For this Special Edition, World Circuit have gone back to the original 2010 mixes and added previously unheard parts from the 2019 sessions to create 8 reimagined bonus mixes.

• Tony Allen, drums
• Hugh Masekela, trumpet, flugelhorn
• Joe Armon-Jones, keyboards, piano
• Mutale Chashi, bass

CD 1

01. Robbers, Thugs and Muggers (O'Galajani)

02. Agbada Bougou

03. Coconut Jam

04. Never (Lagos Never Gonna Be the Same)

05. Slow Bones

06. Jabulani (Rejoice, Here Comes Tony)

07. Obama Shuffle Strut Blues

08. We've Landed

CD 2

01. Robbers, Thugs and Muggers (O'Galajani)  (Cool Cats Mix)

02. Agbada Bougou  (Cool Cats Mix)

03. Coconut Jam  (Cool Cats Mix)

04. Never (Lagos Never Gonna Be The Same)  (Cool Cats Mix)

05. Slow Bones  (Cool Cats Mix)

06. Jabulani (Rejoice, Here Comes Tony)  (Cool Cats Mix)

07. Obama Shuffle Strut Blues  (Cool Cats Mix)

08. We've Landed  (Cool Cats Mix)

Verve Jazz Masters series Vol. 31-40

 Jazz Masters is a series of mainly single artist compilations released by Polygram/Verve between 1994 and 1996. The compilations collect material that was originally released on Verve or on one of the labels that became part of the Polygram group. The 20th and 60th releases in the series were various artist collections.

VJM 31 - Cannonball Adderley

VJM 32 - Chet Baker

VJM 33 - Benny Goodman

VJM 34 - Coleman Hawkins

VJM 35 - Johnny Hodges

VJM 36 - Gerry Mulligan

VJM 37 - Oscar Peterson Plays Broadway

VJM 38 - Django Reinhardt

VJM 39 - Cal Tjader

VJM 40 - Dinah Washington Sings Standards

The Crusaders album collection 1972-2003 (FLAC)

 

The Crusaders were an American jazz group that were successful from the 1960s to the 1990s. The group were known as the Jazz Crusaders from their formation in 1960 until shortening their name in 1971. The Crusaders were comfortable playing a wide assortment of genres, from straight ahead jazz, to urban R&B, to R&B-based jazz, to even blues. The band reached a commercial apex in 1979 with their hit single "Street Life", featuring lead vocals by Randy Crawford, and their accompanying album of the same name. 

 

Peggy Lee - The Singles Collection (4 CD, 2002) [FLAC]

 Peggy Lee was a renaissance woman, a multi-talented singer and composer who achieved popular as well as critical success. Short of a complete recordings box set, The Singles Collection is the best Peggy Lee career anthology yet, and a big improvement over the oddly compiled and sequenced 1998 box set Miss Peggy Lee. The Singles Collection isn't complete -- Lee released hundreds of singles -- and it doesn't come close to compiling all of her hits (in fact, it doesn't even compile all of her Top Ten hits), but it does offer a chronological journey through her catalog from her early days with Benny Goodman and Bob Crosby all the way up to the '70s when she recorded for A&M. Although Capitol Records produced the box set, the selections include cuts from other labels, including Lee's Decca Records period. Nearly half of the box's 110 tracks are new to CD, and collectors will appreciate the glimpse into the studio afforded by a handful of bonus tracks that include false starts and studio chatter. Lee may have enjoyed commercial success with "ethnic" novelties ("Mañana" being the foremost example) and upbeat pop songs, but it is her interpretations of serious jazz and pop tunes that have made her a contender for the title of Best Vocalist of the 20th Century. The Singles Collection follows her artistic growth and demonstrates the breadth of her interpretive abilities, which gives a better picture of Lee's artistry than any single album or inferior anthology could do.

Fats Waller - Chronogical Classics 1922-1940 (10 CD/FLAC)

 

Fats Waller seems never to have suffered from seasickness. Every photograph and eyewitness account of his transatlantic nautical adventures indicates a strong constitution, unfazed by rough seas even if the rest of the passengers were hanging over the rails. When Waller invaded London in August 1938, a team of Anglo and European musicians were assigned the task of accompanying him through the grooves of six phonograph recordings. Known for the rest of time as "Fats Waller & His Continental Rhythm," this band hammered out one amazing performance after the next. "Don't Try Your Jive on Me" and "Ain't Misbehavin'" both feature the organ, cool at first but gradually gathering steam and finishing grandly with horns in the air. "Music, Maestro Please" is late-'30s sentimentality at its finest, with tinkling celeste and even a bit of romantic violin. After Dr. Jekyll goes off to mope behind the potted palms, Mr. Hyde bursts in on a riotous version of Slim Gaillard's "Flat Foot Floogie" and an alarming ode to disappointed hopes with the catchy title "Pent Up in a Penthouse." Here Waller threatens to "step out the window and turn left," a frightening proposition for anyone occupying a suite so many floors up from the street. Fats's maniacal treatment of "A-Tisket A-Tasket" surpasses even the original version, made famous by its composer Ella Fitzgerald. One week after this combustible session, Fats placed himself at the console of a pipe organ, that instrument so dear to his heart. It is a crying shame that no recordings were made when Waller was granted access to the organ of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Fats later said he considered that to have been the greatest moment of his life. Back in London, the organist pointedly concentrated on spirituals, the music his father the Baptist preacher would have preferred. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is gorgeous. Near the end the music, the song seems to become partially composed of light as Waller's fingers create swirling tides of heavenly tonalities. Before the session was over, Fats was given the opportunity to accompany the lovely Adelaide Hall, famous for her wordless vocal on Duke Ellington's original version of "Creole Love Call." Some music critics, unable to enjoy Hall's diva approach, insist that she was "not a jazz singer." This is a very odd assessment considering all the wonderful jazz recordings she made throughout her long life, much of which was spent in Scandinavia, where she always received respectful admiration. Here Fats teases her with quips that help to spice up a very sweet pair of love songs. Back in New York and bolstered by His Rhythm, Fats wrestled with his repertoire, still saddled with droopy titles like "I'll Never Forgive Myself." While "Two Sleepy People" is pleasant, it pales when compared with Waller's lusty V-Disc version of 1943. Here in the waning weeks of 1938, "You Look Good to Me" is the best of the vocal tracks, second only to the bouncy instrumental "Yacht Club Swing."

Benny Carter - Anthology : The Deluxe Collection (Remastered) [3 CD,2020/FLAC]

Benny Carter was a major figure in every decade of the 20th century since the 1920s, and his consistency and longevity were unprecedented. As an altoist, arranger, composer, bandleader, and occasional trumpeter, Carter was at the top of his field since at least 1928, and in the late '90s, Carter was as strong an altoist at the age of 90 as he was in 1936 (when he was merely 28). His gradually evolving style did not change much through the decades, but neither did it become at all stale or predictable except in its excellence. 

James "Blood" Ulmer discography [1977-2009]

Free jazz has not produced many notable guitarists. Experimental musicians drawn to the guitar have had few jazz role models; consequently, they've typically looked to rock-based players for inspiration. James "Blood" Ulmer is one of the few exceptions -- an outside guitarist who has forged a style based largely on the traditions of African-American vernacular music. Ulmer is an adherent of saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman's vaguely defined Harmolodic theory, which essentially subverts jazz's harmonic component in favor of freely improvised, non-tonal, or quasi-modal counterpoint. Ulmer plays with a stuttering, vocalic attack; his lines are frequently texturally and chordally based, inflected with the accent of a soul-jazz tenor saxophonist. That's not to say his sound is untouched by the rock tradition -- the influence of Jimi Hendrix on Ulmer is strong -- but it's mixed with blues, funk, and free jazz elements. The resultant music is an expressive, hard-edged, loudly amplified hybrid that is, at its best, on a level with the finest of the Harmolodic school.

Duke Ellington - Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band [3 CD, 2003]

Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band is a 2003 three-disc compilation combining the master takes of all the recordings by Duke Ellington's Orchestra during the years of 1940 to 1942 with an additional nine tracks, including five alternative takes and four new masters. While essentially an expanded re-release of 1990s The Blanton–Webster Band, the packaging, sound and updated notes make this, according to Allmusic, "truly worth either an initial investment or reinvestment". All About Jazz: New York noted that these performances, from what is often considered "the band in its prime", "not only set the standard for big bands and jazz orchestras, but created an ideal near insurmountable to improve upon". The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this compilation as part of its suggested "Core Collection."

Bassist Jimmy Blanton was only with the Ellington orchestra for two years, retiring in 1941 due to tuberculosis, and dying the following year at the age of 23. Despite this compilation's "Blanton-Webster Band" subtitle, Blanton does not appear on the final 17 tracks of the collection, having been replaced on bass by Alvin "Junior" Raglin. 

Anita O'Day - The Complete Anita O'Day Verve-Clef Sessions (9 CD, 2019) [FLAC]

 

This collection presents everything Anita O'Day recorded for Norman Granz' Clef and Verve labels, including her reunion with Gene Krupa in 1956, and her cameo number in "The Gene Krupa Story". Except that one track is missing - "Get Out Of Town", from the album "Anita O'Day Swings Cole Porter With Billy May", which was track 9 on disc 6 of the original Mosaic box set, is not here. Nevertheless, 197 tracks for just over a tenner is astonishing value. You can find a review of the music in this set here: Anita was a real jazz singer and her interpretations of the great American songbook are much more original than many of the time.