Palmyra & Levita, Joao Donato - Here's That Rainy Bossa Day

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:37
Size: 99.9 MB
Styles: Bossa Nova, Brazilian jazz
Year: 2013
Art: Front

[3:27] 1. Tea For Two
[2:46] 2. Fotografia
[2:32] 3. Here's That Rainy Day
[2:44] 4. Vivo Sonhando (Dreamer)
[4:06] 5. September In The Rain
[3:04] 6. Inútil Paisagem (Useless Landscape)
[3:39] 7. Stormy Weather
[2:29] 8. Você (You)
[2:31] 9. What A Diff'rence A Day Made
[2:35] 10. Corcovado (Quiet Nights)
[2:12] 11. O Sapo (The Frog)
[3:31] 12. Bahia
[3:30] 13. A Namorada (Girlfriend)
[4:24] 14. Rapunzel

Light and lovely work from the team of Palmyra & Levita -- made even better by piano from Joao Donato! Palmyra's a sweet-voiced female vocalist with a style that stretches back to include influences from American torch singers of years past, and some of the warmer voices of the 60s bossa era in Brazil. Levita plays acoustic guitar with a light and jazzy touch -- and works here with some spare but wonderfully effective piano from bossa maestro Joao Donato -- to create a cool and gentle backdrop for the sweet lead vocals in the set. ~dustygroove.com

Here's That Rainy Bossa Day

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Virginia Constantine & The Little Big Band - The Bumpy Road To Love

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:37
Size: 125.0 MB
Styles: Vocal jazz
Year: 2007
Art: Front

[5:26] 1. When Sunny Gets Blue
[4:04] 2. All The Things You Are
[3:07] 3. An Occasional Man
[5:00] 4. You Don't Know What Love Is
[3:25] 5. Strange Divine
[4:41] 6. Nature Boy
[3:29] 7. I Won't Dance
[2:36] 8. They Can't Take That Away From Me
[4:49] 9. The Very Thought Of You
[3:46] 10. I Remember You
[2:47] 11. Everytime We Say Goodbye
[2:01] 12. Almost Like Being In Love
[3:46] 13. I'm Beginning To See The Light
[5:34] 14. Sophisticated Lady

Virginia Constantine comes from a line of famous French artists. Back in the 50s and 60s, her dad shared the bill with Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker at the famous Olympia theatre in Paris; he was a great Jazz pianist and song-writer. Mum sang at the Sands Hotel in New-York where she met many of her heroes: Nat king Cole, Orson Wells, Marilyn Monroe...Which led to her being offered a contract with MGM, which she turned down! So she headed back to France and some years later :-), Virginia was born... While performing the Paris jazz club circuit, she met up with a very talented British pianist/composer, Brendan Walsh and the two of them decided to move to the UK, never leave each other :-) and make music together; that's how the album "The Bumpy Road to Love" came to be...
It's a labour of love and fun, as the people playing on it are all UK top musicians and dedicated their precious time to the project.The drummer and percussionist is no other than Virginia's brother who traveled from Paris to lend his fiery swing to the band... One could say the overall sound is slightly different from the smooth & polished approach that usually comes with standard Jazz recordings.While the smoothness can be found in Virginia's vocals, Jim Mullen's magical guitar licks or Gary Barnacle's warm & powerful saxophone lines,a lot went on in the post- production room, which allowed the "little big band" to experiment with added sounds and effects to try and give each song its own unique character; sometimes a bit wild and crazy, sometimes classical and emotional.... So come and enjoy the ride on this” Bumpy road to Love”……

The Bumpy Road To Love

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Grant Green - Standards

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:45
Size: 129.9 MB
Styles: Hard bop, Jazz-Soul, Guitar jazz
Year: 1998
Art: Front

[4:55] 1. You Stepped Out Of A Dream
[6:31] 2. Love Walked In
[7:06] 3. If I Had You
[9:05] 4. I'll Remember April
[8:11] 5. You And The Night And The Music
[8:12] 6. All The Things You Are
[5:32] 7. I Remember You
[7:09] 8. If I Had You (Alt Take)

In 1998, Blue Note released several CDs of previously unavailable (at least domestically) material from its prime years under the title of Standards. Some are not up to the level of the label's best output, but this outing is a definite exception. Guitarist Grant Green is heard in prime form in a sparse trio with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Al Harewood. Six of the eight performances were previously available in Japan as an LP but never before in the U.S. Because Green rarely ever played chords, sticking to single-note lines, hearing him in this setting is similar to hearing a tenor in a pianoless trio. Highlights include "Love Walked In," "I'll Remember April," "All the Things You Are," and two versions of "If I Had You." Recommended. ~Scott Yanow

Standards

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Gloria Reuben - Just For You

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:14
Size: 85,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:05)  1. Who
(4:31)  2. This Dream Is Real
(3:41)  3. Walk Away
(5:23)  4. Difficult Kind
(3:52)  5. Heart Strings
(3:52)  6. I Can't Make You Love Me
(3:55)  7. Sweet Thing
(3:57)  8. Angel Eyes
(3:54)  9. Just for You

Gloria Reuben is an actress, singer and social activist who has amassed impressive credentials in television, film, theater and music. Many will remember Gloria as the HIV+ health care professional “Jeanie Boulet”on the hit NBC series ER, a role that garnered her two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe nomination.   Since then, she has had multiple regular starring roles in a variety of other television series, including RAISING THE BAR and FALLING SKIES. Most recently Gloria starred in the Lifetime movie HAPPY FACE KILLER opposite David Arquette, portrayed “Elizabeth Keckley”alongside Daniel Day-Lewis & Sally Field in the Steven Spielberg film LINCOLN, appeared alongside Paul Rudd and Tina Fey in Paul Weitz’s ADMISSION, and starred opposite Samuel L. 

Jackson in REASONABLE DOUBT. Gloria’s portrayal of Condoleezza Rice in David Hare’s play STUFF HAPPENS at the Public Theater garnered her a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actress. Her music career includes being a backup singer for Tina Turner in 2000, which led her to record her solo record Just For You. She is currently performing with her jazz quartet and is scheduled to record a new album in the fall of 2014.  Gloria is also an activist, committing her time to the global climate change crisis through her participation with The Climate Reality Project, and to human rights issues with the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. ~ Bio  http://officialgloriareuben.com/about/

Just For You

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BB King, Pat Metheny, Dave Brubeck - Move to the Groove

Styles: Jazz/Blues
Year: 1983
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:05
Size: 105,9 MB
Art: Front

(0:48)  1. Introduction
(7:19)  2. Move to the groove
(7:28)  3. Lover man
(7:07)  4. Blue rondo a la turk
(6:24)  5. Ol' Bill Basie
(4:59)  6. The thrill is gone
(5:47)  7. Guess who
(6:09)  8. Payin' the cost to be the boss

Universally hailed as the reigning king of the blues, the legendary B.B. King is without a doubt the single most important electric guitarist of the last half century. His bent notes and staccato picking style have influenced legions of contemporary bluesmen, while his gritty and confident voice capable of wringing every nuance from any lyric provides a worthy match for his passionate playing. Between 1951 and 1985, King notched an impressive 74 entries on Billboard's R&B charts, and he was one of the few full-fledged blues artists to score a major pop hit when his 1970 smash "The Thrill Is Gone" crossed over to mainstream success (engendering memorable appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand). Since that time, he has partnered with such musicians as Eric Clapton and U2 while managing his own acclaimed solo career, all the while maintaining his immediately recognizable style on the electric guitar. The seeds of Riley B. King's enduring talent were sown deep in the blues-rich Mississippi Delta, where he was born in 1925 near the town of Itta Bena. He was shuttled between his mother's home and his grandmother's residence as a child, his father having left the family when King was very young. The youth put in long days working as a sharecropper and devoutly sang the Lord's praises at church before moving to Indianola another town located in the heart of the Delta in 1943.

Country and gospel music left an indelible impression on King's musical mindset as he matured, along with the styles of blues greats (T-Bone Walker and Lonnie Johnson) and jazz geniuses (Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt). In 1946, he set off for Memphis to look up his cousin, a rough-edged country blues guitarist named Bukka White. For ten invaluable months, White taught his eager young relative the finer points of playing blues guitar. After returning briefly to Indianola and the sharecropper's eternal struggle with his wife Martha, King returned to Memphis in late 1948. This time, he stuck around for a while. King was soon broadcasting his music live via Memphis radio station WDIA, a frequency that had only recently switched to a pioneering all-black format. Local club owners preferred that their attractions also held down radio gigs so they could plug their nightly appearances on the air. When WDIA DJ Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert exited his air shift, King took over his record-spinning duties. At first tagged "The Peptikon Boy" (an alcohol-loaded elixir that rivaled Hadacol) when WDIA put him on the air, King's on-air handle became "The Beale Street Blues Boy," later shortened to Blues Boy and then a far snappier B.B.

King had a four-star breakthrough year in 1949. He cut his first four tracks for Jim Bulleit's Bullet Records (including a number entitled "Miss Martha King" after his wife), then signed a contract with the Bihari Brothers' Los Angeles-based RPM Records. King cut a plethora of sides in Memphis over the next couple of years for RPM, many of them produced by a relative newcomer named Sam Phillips (whose Sun Records was still a distant dream at that point in time). Phillips was independently producing sides for both the Biharis and Chess; his stable also included Howlin' Wolf, Rosco Gordon, and fellow WDIA personality Rufus Thomas. the Biharis also recorded some of King's early output themselves, erecting portable recording equipment wherever they could locate a suitable facility. King's first national R&B chart-topper in 1951, "Three O'Clock Blues" (previously waxed by Lowell Fulson), was cut at a Memphis YMCA. King's Memphis running partners included vocalist Bobby Bland, drummer Earl Forest, and ballad-singing pianist Johnny Ace. When King hit the road to promote "Three O'Clock Blues," he handed the group, known as the Beale Streeters, over to Ace. It was during this era that King first named his beloved guitar "Lucille." Seems that while he was playing a joint in a little Arkansas town called Twist, fisticuffs broke out between two jealous suitors over a lady. The brawlers knocked over a kerosene-filled garbage pail that was heating the place, setting the room ablaze. In the frantic scramble to escape the flames, King left his guitar inside. He foolishly ran back in to retrieve it, dodging the flames and almost losing his life. When the smoke had cleared, King learned that the lady who had inspired such violent passion was named Lucille. Plenty of Lucilles have passed through his hands since; Gibson has even marketed a B.B.-approved guitar model under the name.

The 1950s saw King establish himself as a perennially formidable hitmaking force in the R&B field. Recording mostly in L.A. (the WDIA air shift became impossible to maintain by 1953 due to King's endless touring) for RPM and its successor Kent, King scored 20 chart items during that musically tumultuous decade, including such memorable efforts as "You Know I Love You" (1952); "Woke Up This Morning" and "Please Love Me" (1953); "When My Heart Beats like a Hammer," "Whole Lotta' Love," and "You Upset Me Baby" (1954); "Every Day I Have the Blues" (another Fulson remake), the dreamy blues ballad "Sneakin' Around," and "Ten Long Years" (1955); "Bad Luck," "Sweet Little Angel," and a Platters-like "On My Word of Honor" (1956); and "Please Accept My Love" (first cut by Jimmy Wilson) in 1958. King's guitar attack grew more aggressive and pointed as the decade progressed, influencing a legion of up-and-coming axemen across the nation. In 1960, King's impassioned two-sided revival of Joe Turner's "Sweet Sixteen" became another mammoth seller, and his "Got a Right to Love My Baby" and "Partin' Time" weren't far behind. But Kent couldn't hang onto a star like King forever (and he may have been tired of watching his new LPs consigned directly into the 99-cent bins on the Biharis' cheapo Crown logo). King moved over to ABC-Paramount Records in 1962, following the lead of Lloyd Price, Ray Charles, and before long, Fats Domino. More Bio ~ Bill Dahl  http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bb-king-mn0000059156/biography

R.I.P.  

Born: September 16, 1925 (age 89), Berclair, Mississippi, United States

Died: May 14, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Move to the Groove

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Martial Solal - Just Friends

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1998
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:12
Size: 115,4 MB
Art: Front

(6:34)  1. Just Friends
(6:40)  2. Coming Yesterday
(3:51)  3. Willow Weep For Me
(5:34)  4. You Stepped Out Of A Dream
(2:39)  5. Hommage a Frederic Chopin
(7:20)  6. Sapristi
(5:35)  7. Summertime
(4:33)  8. Sacrebleu
(7:22)  9. I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

The liner notes quote pianist Solal as saying, "With Paul and Gary I feel as if I am at the wheel of a high-powered racing car that's running perfectly." Paul and Gary are the drummer Paul Motian and the bassist Gary Peacock. It would be difficult to improve on the pianist's description of the sensation of rhythmic inevitability the three generate. In some of these pieces the swing of linear motion is not the sole issue; Peacock's virtuoso solos on "Willow Weep For Me" and "Summertime" and Motian's exquisite cymbal fills behind Solal's out-of-tempo on "Hommage a Frederic Chopin" speak of other attributes. When the three are swinging, though, it is a visceral thrill. In many of their recordings, Peacock and Motian traffic in complexity, density and rubato avant garde adventurism. 

They do some of that with the astonishing Solal, notably on his composition "Sapristi." The three do an equal amount of straight-ahead cooking. All of it has Solal's remarkable facility and harmonic imagination, including a delicious retrofitting of "Summertime" with new chords. The elements of his solos come from sources as varied as Ravel, Monk, Evans and, of course, Chopin. He never merely stirs them into an improvisational stew. Solal's celebrated sense of form selects and marshals them, so to speak, into admirable coherence. ~ Doug Ramsey  http://jazztimes.com/articles/8751-just-friends-martial-solal

Personnel: Martial Solal (piano); Gary Peacock (bass); Paul Motian (drums).

Just Friends

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Sheena Davis Group - Young At Heart

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:06
Size: 115,1 MB
Art: Front

(4:30)  1. Young at Heart
(3:30)  2. It Must Be Love
(4:57)  3. Seasonal Memories
(3:07)  4. Got A Feeling
(3:30)  5. I Cried for You
(5:51)  6. Sentimental Journey
(3:54)  7. Sway
(5:16)  8. Only You
(4:07)  9. Up On The Roof
(1:58) 10. When I Grow Too Old To Dream
(4:02) 11. But Hey! That's Love
(5:18) 12. When You Wish Upon a Star

In his liner notes for the second album by the Sheena Davis Group, Richard Niles of BBC Radio 2 praises songstress Davis’s “perfect intonation, groove-laden emotive phrasing, charming vibrato and tone as clear as a cloudless sky.” Having given the group’s earlier album a generally lukewarm review, I’d say this one is roughly its equivalent. While Davis does have some sharp tools to work with, she remains a work in progress, sounding bright and confident on some numbers (“I Cried for You,” “Only You,” “When I Grow Too Old to Dream”) but less inspired on others, including the title selection, whose reading left me unmoved, as did the ballads “Sentimental Journey“ and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” The “perfect intonation” is in evidence much of the time but articulation can and does present a problem, especially at faster tempos (“Got a Feeling,” “Sway,“ “It Must Be Love”).

Davis and bassist Robert Rickenberg co-wrote “Seasonal Memories,” "Got a Feeling” and “But Hey! That’s Love,” and they’re pleasant enough tunes but no more than that. Rickenberg and drummer Pete Cater, both back from the earlier album, and Steve Holness, replacing fellow NYJO alumnus Tom Cawley at the piano, comprise a sturdy and empathetic back-up crew. Another returnee, guitarist Jim Mullen, blends in nicely on “It Must Be Love,” "Sentimental Journey” and “But Hey! That’s Love,” while another talented guest, trumpeter Guy Barker, is heard on “Seasonal Memories,” “I Cried for You” and “Only You.”  Returning to the liner notes, I’ve long wondered about their purpose. Is it promotional or informational? Niles begins his by asking, “Will anyone buy this record? More specifically, will you buy this record?” Well, if one is reading the liner notes he or she must have already done so, or else received a comp copy, as we reviewers do. So what’s the point of asking? Just thought I’d ask. As to whether the record is worth investigating, my answer would be a qualified yes, as the pluses do outweigh the minuses and it is by and large an enjoyable session, as was the group’s earlier album, Smile. ~ Jack Bowers  http://www.allaboutjazz.com/young-at-heart-sheena-davis-jazzizit-review-by-jack-bowers.php

Personnel: Sheena Davis, vocals; Steve Holness, piano; Robert Rickenberg, bass; Pete Cater, drums.

Young At Heart

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Mark Elf - New York Cats

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 1998
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 64:49
Size: 148,7 MB
Art: Front

(5:03)  1. Brownie Speaks
(6:41)  2. Blues In The Night
(2:34)  3. From This Moment On
(4:41)  4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
(4:59)  5. No More Blues
(6:50)  6. The Conflict
(6:52)  7. Stompin' At The Savoy
(5:35)  8. Heartfelt
(7:45)  9. Walker's Walk
(5:07) 10. Pemble's Tremble
(2:51) 11. Lady Be Good
(5:46) 12. Blues For Jenny

Lovers of mainstream jazz guitar will go crazy for this one! Elf has a sturdy, straight-ahead tone that recalls jazz guitar masters Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino. The tunes are a lively mix of jazz standards/classics and originals. There's a sense of unhurried forward-motion to this set; it's relaxed without being "sleepy." 

The nimble bass and swinging drums compliment Elf's playing to perfection. Elf is a player who can dazzle with a barrage of long phrases, then tease you with one or two well-placed notes. No new ground broken here--just fine, end-of-the-day relaxation-jazz with considerable substance. 

http://www.allmusic.com/album/new-york-cats-mw0000047718

Personnel: Mark Elf (guitar, chimes, sound effects); Jay Leonhart (bass); Dennis Mackrel (drums, shaker); Kevin Burrell (percussion).

New York Cats

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