Bud Powell - Mad Bebop

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:29
Size: 90.4 MB
Styles: Bop, Piano jazz
Year: 2004/2009
Art: Front

[3:01] 1. Long Tall Dexter
[3:11] 2. Dexter Rides Again
[3:15] 3. I Can't Escape From You
[2:48] 4. Dexter Digs In (Alt Take)
[2:31] 5. Jay Bird
[2:56] 6. Coppin' The Bop
[3:04] 7. Jay Jay (Alt Take)
[2:38] 8. Mad Bebop
[2:48] 9. Bebop In Pastel
[2:30] 10. Fool's Fancy
[2:31] 11. Serenade To A Square
[2:43] 12. Chasin' The Bird
[2:57] 13. Cheryl
[2:30] 14. Buzzy

Mad Bebop explores four historical sessions marking the development of pianist Bud Powell. Originally recorded for the Savoy label in 1946 and 1947, these 14 tracks were issued under the leaders' names -- Kenny Dorham, Dexter Gordon, J.J. Johnson, and Charlie Parker -- with Powell listed as a sideman. During this period Bird and Powell's development ran parallel to each other, as both were combining incredible speed with limitless improvising dexterity, as heard on "Chasin' the Bird," "Cheryl," and "Buzzy." Those three tracks also mark the amazingly lucid interplay of Powell and Parker before their improvising virtuosity began to deteriorate due to mental illness. Jazz collectors no doubt already own this material but may want to investigate this reissue, as it features state-of-the-art transfers from acetates and tape masters. ~Al Campbell

Mad Bebop

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Vanessa Trouble - The Summer Sessions

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:20
Size: 94.6 MB
Styles: Vintage jazz vocals, Classic swing
Year: 1999
Art: Front

[2:37] 1. I Remember You
[3:30] 2. Come Rain Or Come Shine
[2:36] 3. A Night In Tunisia
[6:26] 4. You Don't Know What Love Is
[2:49] 5. The More I See You
[2:33] 6. Dimonds Are A Girl's Best Friend
[2:50] 7. Walkin' After Midnight
[3:21] 8. Round Midnight
[3:51] 9. Fever
[3:37] 10. Caravan
[3:19] 11. The Cow Cow Boogie
[3:47] 12. Love For Sale

Vanessa Trouble is a popular vocalist and band leader, who maintains a busy schedule performing at top Manhattan jazz hotspots, corporate parties, North Fork Wineries, private celebrations and society benefits. Born and raised in Winona, Minnesota, she has performed all over the country and in Europe and Asia. Vanessa has appeared in a musical tribute to Marilyn Monroe, and currently fronts her New York City based “modern retro” band, The Red Hot Swing. Her steady engagements include Swing 46, Opia Lounge, The Grand Havana Room and The Bubble Lounge in Manhattan, Wolffer Estate Vineyard and Pierre’s in Bridgehampton. Other venues: Tavern on the Green, The Screening Room, Café Deville, Torch, Cibar, Metronome, and The Mansfield Hotel “M” Bar. Festivals include Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA, and the Old Westbury Summer Concert Series and The Ram’s Head Inn. Her CDs include The Summer Sessions (1999) and Too Darn Hot (2004).

The Summer Sessions

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Frank Vignola & Friends - Playing The Standards

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 60:10
Size: 137.7 MB
Styles: Guitar jazz
Year: 2015
Art: Front

[2:10] 1. Moonlight Serenade
[3:16] 2. I'm Confessin'
[1:59] 3. Sheik Of Araby
[3:10] 4. Begin The Beguine
[1:55] 5. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
[3:21] 6. In The Blue Of Evening
[4:13] 7. It Might As Well Be Spring
[2:42] 8. Tico Tico
[3:54] 9. Sway
[2:58] 10. Stardust
[2:36] 11. Glow Worm
[3:27] 12. Serenade In Blue
[3:55] 13. Besame Mucho
[2:41] 14. Paper Moon
[3:03] 15. Whispering
[4:45] 16. If I Had You
[2:14] 17. Deep Purple
[1:49] 18. My Ideal
[4:00] 19. Moonglow
[1:51] 20. You'll Never Know

Frank Vignola (born December 30, 1965 in Long Island) is an American jazz guitarist. Vignola began on guitar at age five. While he never listened to jazz exclusively, he has a wide range of influences, such as Les Paul, Eddie Van Halen and Frank Zappa. He later studied at the Cultural Arts Center of Long Island. He worked extensively as a sideman in the 1980s, with artists such as Madonna, Leon Redbone, and Ringo Starr. In 1993 he signed with Concord Jazz, when he was 27 and has released several albums under his own name since then. He has written 18 instructional guitar books and has recorded multiple instructional CD-ROMs for Truefire.com. Frank lives in New York state. He has four children, all boys, and a wife, Kate.

Playing The Standards

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Louis Smith - Smithville

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 57:29

Size: 131.6 MB

Styles: Hard bop, Trumpet jazz

Year: 1958/2008

Art: Front

[11:02] 1. Smithville

[ 9:00] 2. Wetu

[ 7:04] 3. Embraceable You

[ 5:31] 4. There Will Never Be Another You

[ 6:25] 5. Later

[ 6:29] 6. Au Privave

[ 6:22] 7. Bakin'

[ 5:32] 8. There Will Never Be Another You

Like his debut, Smithville is another set of thoroughly winning straight-ahead bop from the underappreciated trumpeter Louis Smith. Stylistically, there are no surprises here -- this is mainstream bop and hard bop, comprised of original and contemporary bop numbers, as well as standards ("There'll Never Be Another You," "Embraceable You") -- but since the music is performed so well, it doesn't matter.

There is genuine passion to this music, not only from Smith, but also from pianist Sonny Clark, tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Taylor. It's a first-rate hard bop set that deserves wider distribution than it has received. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Smithville 

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Carmen McRae - I Am Music

Styles: Jazz, Vocal
Year: 1975
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:40
Size: 104,6 MB
Art: Front

(5:01)  1. A Letter For Anna-Lee
(3:45)  2. The Trouble With Hello Is Goodbye
(3:20)  3. Faraway Forever
(3:28)  4. I Ain't Here
(5:19)  5. You Know Who You Are
(5:56)  6. I Have The Feeling I've Been Here Before
(3:14)  7. Who Gave You Permission
(5:56)  8. Like A Lover
(3:19)  9. I Never Lied To You
(4:19) 10. I Am Music

“Life is just too much for me to bear…I guess nobody ever really cared…do you?” Carmen McRae poses that question some four minutes into “A Letter for Anna-Lee,” the Benard Ighner song that opens her 1975 Blue Note album I Am Music. It’s a startling moment of direct address in this sad tale of a man for whom “the business of the day won’t let me be,” adding that “this life’s not meant for me.” The song, its accompaniment led by Dave Grusin’s burbling electric piano, shifts from its third-person narration to a reading of the titular letter, then reveals itself as a first-person account. As McRae’s pain and anguish come to the fore, the smooth backing builds to a dramatic crescendo, strings slashing through the gentility. McRae naturally brings a jazz singer’s vocabulary and phrasing to the song, elongating syllables and thoughts, indulging in the kind of melodic improvisation and exploration only she could do. (Its portrait of the strife lurking under the veil of domesticity actually recalls one of Barry Manilow’s finest songs, “Sandra,” so memorably recorded by another legendarily soulful voice: Dusty Springfield.) Carmen McRae was always among the more burnished and precise, yet bluesy, voices of the American songbook. With I Am Music, she created a hybrid of R&B, soul, and contemporary jazz that set it apart from most other titles in her deep catalogue. Its new reissue from Cherry Red’s Big Break Records label sheds some welcome light on this rare gem.

Big Break has previously reissued 1976’s Would You Believe, with its roster of songs from the worlds of R&B (Bill Withers, Skip Scarborough), modern jazz (Chick Corea), Broadway (Cy Coleman, George Gershwin) and pop-rock (James Taylor). The repertoire on I Am Music takes a different approach, avoiding standards. The songs are less familiar, some newly-written, with five coming from the lyrical pens of Alan and Marilyn Bergman (with various composers), two from Benard Ighner and two from Jelsa Palao. The album is rounded out by a Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller song. And though Blue Note was aggressively courting the modern market, the album is more than just a one-note exercise in updating a legendary chanteuse’s sound for a rock crowd more interested in, say, Alice Cooper than “Alice Blue Gown.” (Though it has its own considerable merits, Would You Believe is more explicitly “contemporary” in feel and material than I Am Music. And Carmen actually covered an Alice Cooper song to good effect on that disc!) Roger Kellaway, once Bobby Darin’s accompanist and a talented composer-arranger in his own right, produced the album after Benard Ighner became indisposed. Kellaway arranged the lion’s share of the disc himself, bringing in Dave Grusin and Byron Olson as well.There’s more after the jump!

The cover photograph of McRae, cheerfully ready to party with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, might seem a contradiction when considering the dramatic songs on I Am Music. In addition to the restless soul portrayed in “A Letter to Anna-Lee,” she embodies a grieving widow in “Who Gave You Permission” from the Bergmans and the underrated composer Billy Goldenberg. The song was written for the television film Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, which the team later adapted into the Broadway musical Ballroom under the aegis of visionary director Michael Bennett. It’s an odd fit for the album – for any album, really – as it’s essentially a monologue spoken over orchestral accompaniment. The Bergmans and Goldenberg would more fully musicalize their touching story in Ballroom the musical. But McRae finds both the humor and the pathos in “Permission,” verbalizing sentiments familiar to anyone who’s lost a loved one: who gave you permission to go? It’s honest and heartbreaking, and another portrayal of turmoil amidst the mundane. ~ Joe Marchese  http://theseconddisc.com/2013/02/22/review-carmen-mcrae-i-am-music/ (More..)

I Am Music

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Randy Johnston - People Music

Styles: Vocal And Guitar Jazz
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 50:11
Size: 118,6 MB
Art: Front

(4:51)  1. Garden State
(5:22)  2. Nostalgia For What Never Was
(4:19)  3. Parchman Farm
(8:01)  4. Chavez
(5:57)  5. Everyday Heroes
(5:02)  6. Trouble
(4:58)  7. Humpty Dumpty
(6:09)  8. Passing By
(5:27)  9. Cold Duck Time

Perhaps more than any other musical instrument, the guitarists of today come drenched in the music of highly diverse musical genres. The instrument has been a fulcrum of expression, from folk, country and blues to jazz and rock with a smidgen of classical thrown into the mix as well. Thinking about it, the task of developing as a guitarist has got to be daunting, with all of those musical bases to cover.  With People Music, celebrated guitarist Randy Johnston demonstrates that not only has he been exposed deeply to these forms, but that he is truly masterful at exploiting the very best of each. The CD is a stellar showcase, generously displaying Johnston's technical and improvisational virtuosity as well as his breadth. Originally from Detroit that Midwest melting pot of musical forms Johnston grew up from age 13 in Richmond, Virginia. The Motown soul-funk-jazz juices mingled with his Southern blues experiences and the developmental result is an extraordinary talent. A vaunted sideman, he's recorded with artists including Ira Sullivan, Houston Person, Joey DeFrancesco, Etta Jones, and another speedballer, Johnny Griffin.

Johnston's jazz technique is crisp, highly direct and focused. His longer lines mesh intelligently with shorter pulse-bursts and his technique never overshadows musical content. And, when organ phenom Pat Bianchi joins in with his earthy B3 sound, the result is jazz-tinged heavy blues. The paring of Johnston with Bianchi is brilliant, as each plays off the other's significant technical chops. The timbre of Johnston's hard-picked strings with Bianchi's foot bass and blistering hands is a joy. The opening "Garden State" displays foot-pounding drive, while the shuffle blues "Nostalgia for What Never Was" advises that, at its core, Johnston's blood runs blue. The vampish "Chavez," sextuplet-metered and more cerebral than the other cuts here, allows both Johnston and Bianchi to stretch out modally. Johnston offers up two organ-supported vocals with Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm" and "Trouble." While Johnston's singing is not up to his superior guitar playing (how could it be?) these selections offer an earthy funkiness,s with Ray Charles-ian overtones. Johnston's rock-blues style embraces Wes Montgomery and George Benson with his octave work in his solos.

"Everyday Heroes" has a kick-off-the-shoes, "Sittin'-On-the-Dock-of-the-Bay" feel. Drummer Carmen Intorre, Jr. sets up Chick Corea's "Humpty Dumpty," the burner of the date, before Bianchi takes off and demonstrates he can swing and develop cogent "Giant Step-like improvisational ideas superbly. Intorre is wise enough to give support to these cookers without stepping on their toes. Eddie Harris's "Cold Duck Time," a vintage rocker for sure, gets a fun funk revisit and closes out a superior effort. People Music has a sincerity about it that's hard to top. The playing is absolutely first-rate and highly approachable. And there is a solid respect for the jazz and blues: after all, those genres developed from "people music," and the people playing here do so with respect, gusto and consummate soul. ~ Nicholas F.Mondello  http://www.allaboutjazz.com/people-music-randy-johnston-random-act-records-review-by-nicholas-f-mondello.php

Personnel: Randy Johnston: guitar, vocals (3, 6); Pat Bianchi: Hammond Organ; Carmen Intorre, Jr. drums.

People Music

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Spencer Day - Vagabond

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2009
File: MP3@256K/s
Time: 52:16
Size: 96,1 MB
Art: Front

(4:14)  1. Till You Come To Me
(3:20)  2. Someday
(3:24)  3. Everybody Knows (The Family Skeleton)
(4:25)  4. Weeping Willow
(4:06)  5. Joe
(3:45)  6. Vagabond
(4:37)  7. Summer
(0:44)  8. Vagabond (Reprise)
(3:51)  9. Little Soldier
(4:45) 10. Out Of My Hands
(3:45) 11. I Got A Mind To Tell You
(3:07) 12. Maybe (Tuesday Morning)
(4:03) 13. 25
(4:02) 14. Better Way

Jazz-influenced singer/songwriter Spencer Day's third studio effort and debut for Concord Records, 2009's Vagabond is a softly cinematic piece of crossover pop that positions Day as a kind of thinking man's crooner, or at least a crooning storyteller. A piano player with a burnished baritone voice and a knack for literate moody ballads, Day will of course draw quick and easy comparisons to other similarly inclined contemporaries like Peter Cincotti, Jamie Cullum, and Norah Jones which, though true enough, slightly reduces Day's own weighty album presence. Vocally, Day has a bit of the emotional swagger of Michael Bublé leavened with just enough downtrodden urban skew as to make one think Day has, at the least, listened to Tom Waits. 

This is especially true on such cathartic pop moments as the character song "Joe" and the lilting and soulful title track. Elsewhere, Day evinces a kind of '60s Elvis quality on the slippery-slick opening number, "Till You Come to Me," and brings to mind a young Harry Connick, Jr. on the slow swinger "I Got a Mind to Tell You." However, it is such superb tunes as the yearning love song "Out of My Hands" and the would-be classic "Maybe (Tuesday Morning)" that help Vagabond rise above the crossover fray and reach toward something more akin to the best of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman. Ultimately, all of Vagabond is immaculately produced, and a steady mix of strings, horns, and other "old-school" elements combined with Day's own creative merits helps color the album as a kind of latter-day traditional pop love letter. ~ Matt Collar  http://www.allmusic.com/album/vagabond-mw0000822881

Vagabond

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The Western Swing Authority - The Western Swing Authority

Styles: Country
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:46
Size: 104,9 MB
Art: Front

(3:17)  1. Stay All Night
(4:06)  2. All of Me
(4:13)  3. Panhandle
(4:50)  4. Faded Love
(3:20)  5. Miles and Miles of Texas
(5:01)  6. Blues for Dixie
(2:58)  7. Leaving and Saying Goodbye
(5:05)  8. Honeysuckle Rose
(3:32)  9. Cherokee Maiden
(6:57) 10. Sweet Memories
(2:22) 11. Redwing

The Western Swing Authority is a unique collaboration of some of Canada’s top studio and touring musicians. Their common love of Western Swing and “new classic’ original songs pay homage to the roots of traditional music. Audiences agree that the fun they have onstage together is infectious. Their live shows are upbeat and the musicianship is top-level, making The Western Swing Authority a favourite with music lovers of all genres and ages. Though individually the members’ touring and recording credits are impressive, it is the sound that the band is creating as a whole that is garnering attention and recognition worldwide. Recently signed to eONE Music Canada, The Western Swing Authority’s third album, “NOW PLAYING” was brought to life this past Feb 2015. Fans all over the world, including Texas ( the birthplace of Western Swing) have revered the band’s fresh take on classics, and their original material alike. http://www.thewesternswingauthority.com/bio/

“As Merle Haggard brought the music of Bob Wills and Western Swing to a new generation of listeners, The Western Swing Authority is paying it forward not only by recording and performing these classics, but also writing new material proudly carrying on the style of traditional Western Swing music.”  “It’s impossible to listen to this record and not feel happy afterwards.” ~ Country Perspective

“A retro treat” ~ New Canadian Music

“Lush and fabulous. ” ~ Robert Oermann, Music Row Magazine

“Perhaps the finest album I have heard for some time” ~ Russell Hill Maverick Magazine

The Western Swing Authority

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