Eddie Higgins Quartet Featuring Scott Hamilton - My Funny Valentine

Styles: Piano and Saxophone Jazz

Year: 2004

File: MP3@320K/s

Time: 68:03

Size: 156,7 MB

Art: Front

(7:02)  1. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To

(3:56)  2. I'm A Fool To Want You

(4:55)  3. When Sunny Gets Blue

(7:08)  4. Alone Together

(3:39)  5. My Funny Valentine

(7:53)  6. It's All Right With Me

(7:11)  7. Stardust

(6:45)  8. I Only Have Eyes For You

(7:01)  9. Don't Explain

(7:13) 10. On A Slow Boat To China

(5:19) 11. Imagination

A solid bop-based pianist, Eddie Higgins has never become a major name, but he has been well-respected by his fellow musicians for decades. After growing up in New England, he moved to Chicago, where he played in all types of situations before settling in to a long stint as the leader of the house trio at the London House (1957-1969). Higgins moved back to Massachusetts in 1970 and went on to freelance, often accompanying his wife, vocalist Meredith D'Ambrosio, and appearing at jazz parties and festivals. Eddie Higgins has led sessions of his own for Replica (1958), Vee-Jay (1960), Atlantic, and Sunnyside; back in 1960, he recorded as a sideman for Vee-Jay with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter. Bio ~ Scott Yanow  http://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-higgins-mn0000364205/biography

Personnel: Eddie Higgins (piano); Scott Hamilton (saxophone);  Jay Leonhart (bass); Joe Ascione (drums).

My Funny Valentine

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Mary Cleere Haran - Crazy Rhythm

Styles: Vocal, Cabaret
Year: 2002
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:05
Size: 128,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:56)  1. Medley: Sidewalks of New York/Manhattan
(3:23)  2. Medley - Crazy Rythm, Runnin' Wild
(4:30)  3. Tree In The Park
(1:54) 4. When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam
(2:28)  5. Pack Up Your Sinners And Go To The Devil
(3:28)  6. What'll I Do
(2:15)  7. They're Blaming The Charlston
(4:00)  8. The Half Of It Dearie Blues
(4:25)  9. It Had To Be You
(2:02) 10. Monkey Doodle Doo
(4:10) 11. Harlem On My Mind
(3:26) 12. Poor Little Rich Girl
(2:24) 13. There'll Be Some Changes Made
(4:55) 14. Moanin'Low
(2:50) 15. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
(4:51) 16. Lullaby of Broadway

Early in Mary Cleere Haran's dazzling new cabaret show, ''Crazy Rhythm: Manhattan in the 20's,'' at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, she assures us that the distant decade of jazz, flappers and speakeasies was not a dream. Moments later, as she and her invaluable accompanist and vocal partner, Richard Rodney Bennett, sail into ''Crazy Rhythm,'' a frantically upbeat Charleston by Joseph Meyer, Roger Wolfe Kahn and Irving Caesar, from the 1928 show ''Here's How,'' the essence of what we call the Roaring 20's is revealed to have been a beat. Buoyant and high-stepping, it was a rhythm propelled by a hysterical urge to throw off the chains of the past, live for the moment and if possible become airborne. As she has done in earlier cabaret shows, especially last year's brilliant and moving evocation of the flaming talent that was George Gershwin, Ms. Haran has created an impressionistic mosaic of an era by blending songs, witty quotations and show business lore with funny self-explanatory asides. Among the personalities she sketches are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and the brassy speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan.

Leading ''Crazy Rhythm's'' list of musical revelations are its numbers that reveal the friskier, racier side of the young Irving Berlin. ''Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil,'' a comic gem from the 1922 edition of his ''Music Box Revue,'' is a hilarious pitch for the superior life style of the netherworld, a place awash with jazz and where no ''old reformers in heaven'' are making you ''go to bed at 11.'' It is matched in lighthearted subversion by ''The Monkey Doodle-Doo,'' from the 1925 Marx Brothers show ''The Cocoanuts,'' in which Berlin gleefully alludes to the Scopes trial and the fad for injecting monkey glands to restore flagging virility. The song caps a smart monologue in which Ms. Haran suggests how deeply the writings of Freud and Darwin influenced the era's erotic climate. Anyone who thinks that the denunciation of contemporary pop by finger-pointing moralists is a relatively recent phenomenon should appreciate Berlin's ''They're Blaming the Charleston,'' an irresistible upbeat retort to 1920's cultural alarmists.

Grounding this merriment are classic ballads that Ms. Haran delivers in her signature style, stripping away the sentimentality to uncover the lyrics' private, heartfelt truths with an unadorned simplicity. ''It Had to Be You,'' a number most singers breeze through without much thought is slowed down and delivered as a pensive reflection on romantic destiny. Berlin's ''Harlem on My Mind,'' inflected with a period nasality, is a tour de force of restrained belting. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/10/arts/cabaret-review-mary-cleere-haran-jazz-baby-roaring-through-the-20-s.html

Personnel: Mary Cleere Haran (vocals); Richard Rodney Bennett (arranger, piano, background vocals); Linc Milliman (bass).

Crazy Rhythm

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Stan Getz - Sweet Rain

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1967
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:39
Size: 86,3 MB
Art: Front

(8:33)  1. Litha
(4:45)  2. O Grande Amor
(7:12)  3. Sweet Rain
(8:08)  4. Con Alma
(8:58)  5. Windows

One of Stan Getz's all-time greatest albums, Sweet Rain was his first major artistic coup after he closed the book on his bossa nova period, featuring an adventurous young group that pushed him to new heights in his solo statements. Pianist Chick Corea, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Grady Tate were all schooled in '60s concepts of rhythm-section freedom, and their continually stimulating interplay helps open things up for Getz to embark on some long, soulful explorations (four of the five tracks are over seven minutes). The neat trick of Sweet Rain is that the advanced rhythm section work remains balanced with Getz's customary loveliness and lyricism. Indeed, Getz plays with a searching, aching passion throughout the date, which undoubtedly helped Mike Gibbs' title track become a standard after Getz's tender treatment here. Technical perfectionists will hear a few squeaks on the LP's second half (Getz's drug problems were reputedly affecting his articulation somewhat), but Getz was such a master of mood, tone, and pacing that his ideas and emotions are communicated far too clearly to nit-pick. 

Corea's spare, understated work leaves plenty of room for Getz's lines and the busily shifting rhythms of the bass and drums, heard to best effect in Corea's challenging opener "Litha." Aside from that and the title track, the repertoire features another Corea original ("Windows"), the typically lovely Jobim tune "O Grande Amor," and Dizzy Gillespie's Latin-flavored "Con Alma." The quartet's level of musicianship remains high on every selection, and the marvelously consistent atmosphere the album evokes places it among Getz's very best. A surefire classic. ~ Steve Huey http://www.allmusic.com/album/sweet-rain-mw0000188080

Personnel: Stan Getz (tenor saxophone); Albert Daily (piano); Chick Corea (electric piano); Stanley Clarke, George Mraz (bass); Tony Williams, Billy Hart (drums).

Sweet Rain

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Ornette Coleman - Tomorrow Is The Question!

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1959
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:43
Size: 98,6 MB
Art: Front

(3:12)  1. Tomorrow Is The Question!
(5:03)  2. Tears Inside
(3:11)  3. Mind And Time
(4:38)  4. Compassion
(3:21)  5. Giggin'
(4:04)  6. Rejoicing
(5:58)  7. Lorraine
(7:54)  8. Turnaround
(5:19)  9. Endless

Shaking out of the contractual obligation forcing him to employ a pianist on his debut, Something Else!!!! (Contemporary, 1958), alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman dispensed with the instrument altogether on 1959's Tomorrow is the Question!, causing a bit of consternation on the part of the mainstream jazz media. This was Coleman's committed step forward toward a harmonically less restrictive sound, en route to the joyful chaos of Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1961). Following, in form, Gerry Mulligan's famous piano-less quartet of the early 1950s, Coleman greatly liberated his solo and rhythm instruments, taking a quantum greater advantage of this freedom compared with Mulligan, had the baritone saxophonist been so inclined. At the same time, the ensemble writing on Tomorrow is the Question! comes off more precise and filigreed than on Something Else!!!! and considerably more musical. Heard by today's ears, it is not so jarring a progression. Novel at the time was Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry's tearing loose from harmonic convention in their solos, like Coleman's refractive muse on the title piece (sounding like a Jungian analysis of traditional New Orleans jazz) and, "Mind and Time" (an angular Thelonious Monk-like piece taken to the next level). Coleman shares his space with Cherry, who tends to stay melodically closer to home, providing a tether to Coleman's dissonant flights of fancy and imagination. Tenor saxophonist John Coltrane's later path to harmonic freedom followed approximately this same arc, from Live at Birdland (Impulse!, 1963) through A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1964),, on to Ascension (Impulse!, 1965).

"Tears Inside" approximates the funk achieved by tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley on his "Funk in the Deep Freeze," from Hank Mobley Quintet (Blue Note, 1957). A jangling head gives way to a blues well-grounded by drummer Shelly Manne and bassist Jimmy Heath, both playing more conservatively than Coleman or Cherry. The piece was also covered shortly after by saxophonist Art Pepper on his ironically titled Smack Up (Contemporary, 1960), the altoist straightening out Coleman's crooks, casting the piece as a straight-ahead blues and possibly offering a window into Coleman's otherwise enigmatic composing and playing. "Compassion" echoes pianist Dave Brubeck's 1959 "Blue Rondo a la Turk," From Time Out (Columbia, 1959), with its off-time playing alternating with the straight 4/4. 

It is a bit of complicated playing that mixes up the rhythm direction without steering the show off the road. The presence of Manne and Heath somewhat grounds Coleman in a way bassist Don Payne and drummer Billy Higgins resisted on Something Else!!!!, with the pair finally loosening up on the jubilant "Rejoicing." Bassist Red Mitchell replaces Heath on the disc's final three cuts. "Lorraine" could be classified as a ballad, but it would be one of a new variety, differing in temperament to the conventional ballad. Coleman's alto playing turns blue on this piece, with Cherry's tart trumpet curling the edges of the charts. "Lorraine" prepares the recording for its bluest moment, "Turnabout." Coleman elongates his solo notes into primal screams as opposed to furious flurries of manically expressed ideas, reaching a groove and maintaining it.

The disc closer, "Endless," bounces back to bebop, while breaking completely from the clean turnarounds and brief, pungent solos. Coleman and Cherry reveal that they are not going back to the old ways, but that they are carefully considering where they are going and how they are changing jazz music. Much here sounds like standard bebop/hard bop of the period, but there is an undercurrent of creative anxiety, a nervous tension that continues to build progressively and would be heard more clearly in Coleman's later recordings. ~ C.Michael Bailey http://www.allaboutjazz.com/ornette-coleman-tomorrow-is-the-question-ornette-coleman-by-c-michael-bailey.php

Personnel: Ornette Coleman: alto saxophone; Don Cherry: trumpet; Percy Heath: bass (1-6); Red Mitchell: bass (7-9); Shelly Mann: drums.

Tomorrow Is The Question!

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