Rondi Charleston - Signs of Life

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:15
Size: 106,5 MB
Art: Front

(4:37)  1. DNA
(4:36)  2. Signs of Life
(5:37)  3. How the River Flows
(4:19)  4. The Wind Speaks
(4:12)  5. Footprints
(3:17)  6. Spirit Voices
(3:32)  7. In These Hours
(4:38)  8. Reflections
(2:55)  9. Babe's Blues
(3:22) 10. Chega de Saudade
(3:04) 11. The Cave Knows

Motéma Music recording artist, Rondi Charleston, is an award winning jazz singer/lyricist/composer whose work has appeared in film, TV and on stage throughout the U.S. and Europe. Her most recent album, Signs of Life, climbed the Jazz Week charts for ten consecutive weeks and has critics raving; JazzTimes says “she is a songwriter whose poetic, narrative, and compositional skills are comparable to such modern masters as Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon.”Touring nationally in support of Signs of Life, Rondi and her all-star band gave sold out performances from coast to coast from Yoshi’s in San Francisco to Mayne Stage in Chicago to Joe’s Pub in New York with TV appearances on such prestigious stations as PBS Chicago Tonight and ABC’s Windy City Live. She has collaborated with some of the foremost jazz luminaries of our time including Fred Hersch, Lynne Arriale and Dave Stryker. Rondi was chosen for the Women in Jazz Festival at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and has played Birdland and BlueNote with her quartet in New York City. Her original song, “The Cave Knows”, for the film, No Place on Earth, is currently featured on The History Channel as well as in worldwide theatrical release. In addition Rondi is a Juilliard graduate, Emmy and Peabody award winning journalist at ABC News Primetime Live. Bio ~ http://motema.com/artists/rondi-charleston/

Signs of Life

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Sonny Red - Red, Blue & Green

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1961
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 77:06
Size: 176,9 MB
Art: Front

(6:16)  1. Moon River
(4:24)  2. I Like the Likes of You
(5:38)  3. Super-20
(4:36)  4. Bye, Bye Blues
(8:55)  5. The Mode
(6:34)  6. Never, Never Land
(4:18)  7. Ko-Kee
(6:34)  8. Images
(4:50)  9. Blues for Donna
(5:22) 10. Dodge City
(8:33) 11. Blue Sonny
(5:14) 12. The Rhythm Thing
(5:46) 13. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Sylvester “Sonny Red” Kyner, Jr. was part of the fruitful exodus of Detroit jazzmen to New York in the late 1950s. Though his style was steeped in the deft architectures of Bebop his sound and approach also incorporated a healthy fascination with earlier traditions. This disc dusts off two of his sessions for the Jazzland label and delivers a substantial program of mainly originals from a player who should have recorded more often. A strong team of sidemen fronted by guitarist Grant Green (on leave from Blue Note) is on board to assist. Throughout the disc Green’s guitar is unusually dry in terms of amplification making his single note lines seem all the more carefully chosen. “The Mode,” an up tempo swinger contrary to the connotation of its title, is positively charged by crystal clean solos from Red, Green, Harris and Tucker. 

“Never, Never Land” opens with a bright piano fantasia by Walton followed by Red’s reflective horn above a pillowy rhythm. “Ko-Kee” works off a swaggering set of blues-inflected changes and an authoritative core statement by Walton. The hard bop flag waves more prominently on the next several tunes, which trade up Green for the crisp trumpet stylings of Blue Mitchell. The brassman’s vivacious tone is especially effective on the rollicking “Blues For Donna” and his agile phrases work as a fine foil for bringing out Red’s more extroverted side. Green reconvenes with Humphries in tow for the final three tracks and the drummer even takes a few blistering choruses on the aptly titled “The Rhythm Thing.” Tucker’s tiptoe bass preface to “Blue Sonny” serves as another highlight of the final stretch and sets the stage smoothly for one of Red’s most creative solos of the entire disc. One thing that really moves these sessions beyond the scope of the usual hard bop chaff of their vintage is the way Red’s various rhythm sections react to and support his own fluid inventions. 

Tucker was a vastly underrated session bassist who possessed the requisite chops for a leadership role, but always seems to favor lending his prodigious talent to the causes of others. Harris and Walton weren’t as uniformly altruistic, each carving out satisfying solo careers of their own. As for the drummers, Cobb served at the rhythmic core of one of Miles Davis’ most famous aggregations- the Kind of Blue ensemble, and Humphries eked out paychecks working behind the likes of Donald Byrd, Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. Albert “Tootie” Heath is also listed in the original liners, but is absent on the tray card roster so it’s unclear whether or not his sticks actually in service on any of the dates. Red’s discography as a leader is fairly slight to begin with and since his Blue Note material ( Out of the Blue ) once again out of circulation this generous Fantasy two-fer becomes something of an essential purchase for listeners hungry to hear the unsung hard bop hero’s work. ~ Derek Taylor http://www.allaboutjazz.com/red-blue-and-green-sonny-red-fantasy-jazz-review-by-derek-taylor.php
 

Personnel: Sonny Red- alto saxophone (all tracks); Grant Green- guitar (1, 3, 5, 8-13); Barry Harris- piano (1, 3, 5, 8-13); George Tucker- bass (all tracks); Jimmy Cobb- drums (1-7, 11-13); Cedar Walton- piano (2, 4, 6-7); Lex Humpries- drums (8-10).

Red, Blue & Green

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Claudio Roditi, Klaus Ignatzek, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse - Smile

Styles: Trumpet And Piano Jazz
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 67:50
Size: 155,7 MB
Art: Front

(6:24)  1. Light In The Dark
(6:46)  2. Little Sunflower
(5:05)  3. Eu e a Brisa
(3:34)  4. Believe It Or Not
(6:12)  5. Corcovado
(3:28)  6. Cantaloupe Island
(6:45)  7. Misty
(4:19)  8. The Shadow Of Your Smile
(7:19)  9. The Monster And The Flower
(4:27) 10. Obrigado
(5:22) 11. Moonlight And Tears
(8:04) 12. The Girl From Ipanema

The trio of Brazilian-born trumpeter Claudio Roditi, German pianist Klaus Ignatzek and Belgian bassist Jean-Louis Rassinfosse has been working together for some years now. Roditi has been based in New York since 1976, after study at Berklee, and has a considerable and well-deserved reputation as a trumpeter within both hard-bop and Latin-jazz traditions; he has worked with, amongst many others, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner. He worked for some time with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra and then with the Jazz Masters, Slide Hampton’s Gillespie tribute band. His work with Cuban reed player Paquito D’Rivera attracted many plaudits.

 Klaus Ignatzek is a thoroughly accomplished pianist, equally at home in bop and hard-bop idioms, who has extensive experience working with European and American greats. Rassinfosse is another European musician who has worked successfully with a whole catalogue of masters, both European (such as Tete Montoliu and Michel Petrucciani) and American (e.g. Pepper Adams and Clifford Jordan). For ten years he worked and recorded with Chet Baker  so he knows a thing or two about accompanying a trumpeter. The three have recorded some beautiful trio albums for the Nagel Hayer label  Three for One (recorded 2002, NH 2028), Light in the Dark (recorded 2004, NH 2004) and Reflections (recorded 2005, NH 2065). On these drumless recordings, the sense of space and transparency allows the interplay of instruments to be heard with exceptional clarity; there is an intimacy of mutual attention and subtlety of exchange which makes the recordings chamber jazz of a high order. Here the trio has been supplemented by the addition of Dutch drummer Hans Dekker and a body of strings arranged and conducted by Steffen Drabek. 

The resulting live recording comes, unfortunately, as something of a disappointment. Dekker is a good drummer, and he doesn’t, in any crude sense, swamp the work of Roditi, Ignatzek and Rassinfosse; but he does, unavoidably, change the nature of their musical conversation, particularly rhythmically, and the change isn’t for the better, since the rhythms have become much more homogenous. But the real problem lies with the strings. Mixing jazz soloists with stings has never been an easy thing to bring off  it is easy to think of many attempts which failed and hard to think of many that succeeded (Clifford Brown with Neil Hefti’s arrangements?, Art Pepper with Bill Holman’s arrangements?). The strings here largely have the effect of muddying the textures still further; some of the writing is rather oversweet and there are times when there seems to be little real connection between what the four jazz musicians are doing and what the strings are doing. Nor does the recording balance really integrate them consistently. Roditi, in any case, doesn’t seem to be on his very best form. Ignatzek is excellent; indeed, some of his solos are the best reason for listening to the album, and will probably be the reason I shall make occasional future returns to it. 

The best of Roditi-Ignatzek-Rossinfosse is to be heard on their ‘pure’ trio albums, not on this rather unsatisfying, if well intentioned, creation . ~ Glyn Pursglove  http://www.musicweb-international.com/jazz/2007/Roditi_smile_2072.htm

Personnel :  Claudio Roditi (Trumpet, flugelhorn, vocals), Klaus Ignatzek (piano), Jean-Louis Rassinfosse (bass), Hans Dekker (drums), Bremen Philharmonic Strings, Steffen Drabek (conductor, arranger)

Smile

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Oliver Jones - Second Time Around

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:08
Size: 122,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:30)  1. Broadway
(2:53)  2. Remembering Chris
(6:00)  3. When I Fall In Love
(7:56)  4. Simple Blues
(4:29)  5. Museric Waltz
(4:26)  6. D for Doxas
(7:08)  7. Misty
(4:11)  8. Surrey With a Fringe On Top
(4:21)  9. Dizzy-Nest
(7:11) 10. Angel and Mr. Jones

Oliver Jones was already in his fifties when he was discovered by the jazz world. He had started playing piano when he was seven and at nine, he studied with Oscar Peterson's sister Daisy; the Peterson influence is still felt in his style. Jones played with show bands and worked with pop singer Ken Hamilton (1963-1980), much of the time in Puerto Rico. It was not until he returned to Montreal in 1980 that he committed himself to playing jazz full-time. Since the mid-'80s, Oliver Jones has recorded extensively for Justin Time and established himself as a major modern mainstream player with impressive technique and a hard-swinging style. ~ Bio  https://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/oliver-jones/id29498006#fullText

Second Time Around

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