Camille Howard - Vol. 1: Rock Me Daddy / Vol. 2: X-Temporaneous Boogie

Album: Vol. 1: Rock Me Daddy

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 62:29

Size: 143.1 MB

Styles: R&B, Jump blues

Year: 1993

Art: Front

[2:12] 1. The Boogie And The Blues

[2:10] 2. You Don't Love Me

[2:24] 3. You Used To Be Mine

[2:44] 4. Unidentified Boogie #1

[2:39] 5. Has Your Love Grown Cold

[2:36] 6. The Mood I'm In

[2:02] 7. Gotta Have A Little Lovin'

[2:32] 8. How Long Can I Go On Like This

[2:28] 9. I'll Cry Over You

[2:20] 10. O Sole Mio Boogie

[2:10] 11. Within This Heart Of Mine

[2:34] 12. Modulation Boogie

[2:36] 13. I'm Blue

[2:44] 14. Rock Me Daddy

[2:31] 15. Broken Memories (Sad And Blue)

[2:33] 16. I Ain't Got The Spirit

[2:45] 17. Shrinking Up Fast

[2:40] 18. Easy

[2:29] 19. Money Blues

[2:25] 20. Schubert's Serenade Boogie

[2:36] 21. You Lied To Me Baby

[2:34] 22. Real Gone Daddy

[2:57] 23. Unidentified Boogie #2

[2:19] 24. Old Baby Boogie

[2:16] 25. Song Of India Boogie

25-song reissue of her 1947-52 Specialty material, about half previously unreleased. Includes "You Don't Love Me" and "Money Blues," but not the chart items "Fiesta In Mexico" and "XTemporaneous Boogie." Perhaps too suave and refined for the R&B/rock era, and as comfortable with jazzy ballads as boogies, Howard was nonetheless an important, and nowadays overlooked, star of the transitional era between jump blues and R&B. ~Richie Unterberger

Vol. 1: Rock Me Daddy

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Album: Vol. 2: X-Temporaneous Boogie

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 61:58

Size: 141.9 MB

Styles: R&B, Jump blues

Year: 1996

Art: Front

[2:19] 1. It's A Hit

[2:53] 2. Thrill Me

[2:03] 3. X-Temperaneous Boogie

[2:27] 4. Sweetheart Of All My Dreams

[2:39] 5. Scat Boogie

[2:46] 6. Sundays With You

[2:24] 7. Viper Boogie

[2:36] 8. Why Did You Do It

[2:18] 9. Fluff Boogie

[2:22] 10. Tired Of Me

[2:29] 11. I'll Cry Over You

[2:42] 12. Peggy's Boogie

[2:46] 13. Maybe It's Best After All

[2:10] 14. Ivory And Pick Boogie

[2:23] 15. I Wonder Who's To Blame

[2:33] 16. Modulation Boogie

[2:45] 17. Fool About You Daddy

[1:10] 18. Terri's Boogie

[2:40] 19. Please Don't Stay Away So Long

[2:56] 20. My Heart Goes Out To You

[2:12] 21. Belmont Boogie

[2:10] 22. Everything He Lacks (Everything You Like)

[2:53] 23. Sutherland Blues

[2:27] 24. Goldberg Boogie

[2:44] 25. Nobody Else

Twenty of these 25 sides, recorded for Specialty between 1947 and 1952, were previously unissued. But there's no difference in quality between these and the better-known ones presented on volume one; the label's decision on what to release was based more on marketing strategies than the level of the performances. Divided between instrumentals and pop-influenced vocal numbers, Howard again proves herself the master of boogie and jump blues piano styles, sometimes slowing things down into a jazzier mode. In addition to the storehouse of vault material, this compilation also includes a couple of late-'40s Top Ten R&B hits, "Thrill Me" and "X-Temporaneous Boogie." ~Richie Unterberger

Vol. 2: X-Temporaneous Boogie

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Stuff Smith Quartet - Swingin' Stuff

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 72:01
Size: 164.9 MB
Styles: Swing
Year: 1965/2005
Art: Front

[7:24] 1. Caravan
[5:08] 2. Take The A Train
[4:26] 3. Old Stinkin' Blues
[3:52] 4. Only Time Will Tell
[4:54] 5. Mack The Knife
[5:45] 6. One O'clock Jump
[5:08] 7. Blues For Timme (Timme's Blues)
[3:45] 8. My Blue Heaven
[3:09] 9. Bugle Blues
[5:10] 10. C Jam Blues
[6:58] 11. Perdido
[7:30] 12. S'posin
[8:47] 13. How High The Moon

Bass – Niels Peterson; Drums – Alex Riel; Piano – Kenny Drew; Violin – Stuff Smith. Recorded Copenhagen Denmark live.

Recorded five days after a similar performance at the Montmartre in Copenhagen by the same personnel (violinist Stuff Smith, pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Niels Pedersen and drummer Alex Riel), Stuff and his quartet are once again heard in top form. Four of the nine songs are repeated from the earlier date, but unfortunately, the music on this LP is currently out of print. On such tunes as "Bugle Blues," "Mack the Knife," "One O'Clock Jump" and "Take the 'A' Train," Stuff Smith shows that he was as hard-swinging an improviser as any horn player and that at the age of 55 he had not run out of gas yet. ~Scott Yanow

Swingin' Stuff

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Alain Pacowski, Alan Chaubert - Double A

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 74:04
Size: 169.5 MB
Styles: Contemporary jazz
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[ 9:09] 1. Children Of The Night
[10:23] 2. Shoshana Et La Valse Des Souvenirs
[ 7:06] 3. Comecar De Novo
[ 9:20] 4. Grande Late
[ 7:09] 5. Strawberry Fields Forever
[10:49] 6. In The Shadow
[11:09] 7. You'll Always Be In My Heart
[ 8:55] 8. Saying Goodbye

Double A Is a jazz quintet co-created by guitarist Alain Pacowski and trumpet player Alan Chaubert both musicians for NYC. Recorded in 2013 with pianist Helio Alves, bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Mark Ferber, this album contains original compositions as well as covers by Wayne Shorter, Ivan Lins and the Beatles. The music is creative and always stays melodic and lyrical with influences ranging from straight ahead modern jazz to folk and indie rock.

Double A

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Buddy DeFranco - Plays Artie Shaw

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:47
Size: 104.8 MB
Styles: Bop, Clarinet jazz
Year: 1957/2005
Art: Front

[5:08] 1. Frenesi
[3:31] 2. Medley Dancing In The Dark Moonglow Time On My Hands
[2:44] 3. Keepin' Myself For You
[4:44] 4. Stardust
[4:31] 5. Summit Ridge Drive
[4:10] 6. My Heart Stood Still
[5:37] 7. Medley It Could Happen To You I Cover The Waterfront Someone To Watch
[4:47] 8. Cross Your Heart
[3:30] 9. Indian Love Call
[7:01] 10. Concerto For Clarinet

Bass – Joe Mondragon; Clarinet – Buddy DeFranco; Drums – Alvin Stoller, Milt Holland; Guitar – Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts; Piano, Harpsichord – Irving Garner, Jimmy Rowles; Trumpet – Ray Linn.

Buddy DeFranco is one of the great clarinetists of all time and, until the rise of Eddie Daniels, he was indisputably the top clarinetist to emerge since 1940. It was DeFranco's misfortune to be the best on an instrument that after the swing era dropped drastically in popularity and, unlike Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, he has never been a household name for the general public.

When he was 14, DeFranco won an amateur swing contest sponsored by Tommy Dorsey. After working with the big bands of Gene Krupa (1941-1942) and Charlie Barnet (1943-1944), he was with TD on and off during 1944-1948. DeFranco, other than spending part of 1950 with Count Basie's septet, was mostly a bandleader from then on. Among the few clarinetists to transfer the language of Charlie Parker onto his instrument, DeFranco has won a countless number of polls and appeared with the Metronome All-Stars in the late '40s. He recorded frequently in the '50s (among his sidemen were Art Blakey, Kenny Drew, and Sonny Clark) and participated in some of Norman Granz's Verve jam session. During 1960-1963 DeFranco led a quartet that also featured the accordion of Tommy Gumina and he recorded an album with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers on which he played bass clarinet. Work, however, was difficult to find in the '60s, leading DeFranco to accept the assignment of leading the Glenn Miller ghost band (1966-1974). He has found more artistic success co-leading a quintet with Terry Gibbs off and on since the early '80s and has recorded throughout the decades for many labels. ~bio by Scott Yanow

Plays Artie Shaw

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Joel Press - Live at Smalls

Styles: Saxophone Jazz, Bop
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 68:55
Size: 158,9 MB
Art: Front

(7:27)  1. There Will Never Be Another You
(4:46)  2. I Never Knew
(7:41)  3. All of Me
(7:52)  4. I Hear a Rhapsody
(6:32)  5. Lover Man
(7:10)  6. All the Things You Are
(4:10)  7. On a Slow Boat To China
(8:51)  8. That Old Feeling
(7:58)  9. Sunrise
(6:26) 10. It's You or No One At All

Saxophonist Joel Press is a versatile musician who has performed with such diverse players as pianist Jaki Byard, bassist Jimmy Garrison of the John Coltrane Quartet, vocalist Sheila Jordan and Duke Ellington's ubiquitous cornetist/ violinist/ vocalist Ray Nance. A native New Yorker, he pursued classical studies at The Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a Master's degree. Joel Press speaks the language of swing based, post-World War II jazz in as singular a fashion as any living saxophonist. He has been listening to this music all of his life, and playing it for almost a half century. In recognition of the scope of his artistry, Cadence Jazz Records which released his Cd, Mainstream Extensions, included his Music From a Passionate Time in their historical series. The latter is a unique sampling of multi-track recordings of compositions and improvisations written for dance and film in the early 1970s. While reflecting his mainstream roots, this music is of a distinctly avant garde nature, a language which Press continues to explore in his duo and quartet performances with pianist Kyle Aho.

National Public Radio recently described Press as "The legendary Boston jazz musician." (He relocated to Boston in the late 1970s.) Grammy award winner, Bob Blumenthal wrote in his review of The Boston Globe Jazz Festival 's, Tribute to Lady Day and Prez, for which Joel served as music director: "All three tenors played well throughout and got better as the evening wore on. Press, closest to the source, took the coolest approach, but all burned in their own manner". In a subsequent concert review, Arthur Hepner, of The Boston Globe wrote" Solid techniques, rich sounds, imaginative improvisations and well meshed interplay yielded fine embroideries of music by Johnny Green, Cole Porter and others. Press's supple work on Body And Soul constituted the high point.

Personnel:  Joel Press - Tenor Saxophone;  Mike Kanan – Piano;  Spike Wilner - Piano (tracks 2, 5 & 7);  Chris Haney – Bass;  Boots Maleson - Bass (tracks 2, 5 & 7);  Fukushi Tainaka – Drums;  Steve Little - Drums (tracks 2, 5 & 7)

Live at Smalls

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Nils Lindberg & Margareta Bengtson - As We Are

Styles: Vocal And Piano Jazz
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:42
Size: 134,7 MB
Art: Front

(5:24)  1. Remember
(4:40)  2. B.B. Blues
(5:31)  3. As You Are
(6:00)  4. Springtime
(3:29)  5. I Remember Karelia
(2:45)  6. Santa Barbara
(4:49)  7. Skylark
(4:26)  8. Tingsmarschen
(4:56)  9. Tomorrow
(4:08) 10. Dry Martini
(4:45) 11. Blues For Bill
(4:51) 12. Shall I Compare Thee
(2:52) 13. Epilogue

With climate change and recent weather, the Shakespearean sonnet "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" would seem to have become a trifle outmoded. Still, where there's a Will there's a way and Nils Lindberg has set the piece to music. Lindberg is a true Renaissance man. From his home in Gagnef, a small village deep in the forests of the Swedish province of Dalecarlia, he emerges every now and again to dazzle us ordinary mortals with his many talents. Best known as a composer and arranger, he refuses to accept categorization and works with choirs, jazz bands, and symphony orchestras at will. Lindberg was the eminence grise behind Duke Ellington's favorite vocalist, Alice Babs. He wrote arrangements for Duke and composed a number of works for the Hanover Symphony Orchestra. He also, without batting an eyelid, collaborated with Josephine Baker, one-time infamous Jazz Age stripper and Judy Garland, who was as American as apple pie. In 1986 Lindberg performed his own works at the funeral service for Olof Palme, Sweden's assassinated prime minister. Three years later he wrote the music for a service given by the Pope in Uppsala Cathedral. He also found time to bring the lilting, melancholic strains of Dalecarlian folk music to the attention of a wider world in a memorable series of concerts and records.

At the age of 75, this remarkable man has once more left Gagnef to record As We Are. It is more jazz than anything else and launches the solo career of Margareta Bengtson (ex-The Real Group), the Swedish soprano most likely to take over the mantle of Alice Babs on the world stage. Out of his (loosely) classical bag, along with his Shakespearean foray, Lindberg has put music to "Remember," a haunting (and still pertinent) piece by 19th century English metaphysical poet Christina Rosetti. It's one of the album's best tracks. Had just a little more attention been paid to the clarity of the words, it might even have achieved greatness. Unfortunately Bengtson "swallows" some of them. Unlike the Muppet cook, Swedes actually do English exceedingly well, but as non-native speakers they're bound to get small things wrong and God is in the detail. Especially when it comes to poetry. No such problems on the jazz front. "B.B. Blues" (BB = Baritone Bass) and its brother "Blues for Bill" provide a chance for Bengtson to shine at wordless scatting. She makes a nice job too of the ballad "As You Are," probably Lindberg's best known composition, with words by American bassist Red Mitchell. The attractive ballad "Tomorrow" is by Jan Ohman, a Dalecarlian neighbor of Lindberg's. "Springtime" and "Dry Martini" are kinda-Dukish, "Santa Barbara" kinda-Bossa Nova.

Folk music is represented by an irreverently jazzy arrangement of the Finnish anthem "I Remember Karelia" with good work by Anders Paulsson on soprano saxophone. On "Tingsmarschen," a Dalecarlian marching tune, Lindberg takes a piano break to remind you that he's also no slouch as an instrumentalist. It's infuriating just how talented this man is! At his age, it can only be hoped that he did not intend the closer, the piano solo "Epilogue," as a reference to his life's work. His music is both experimental and intensely melodic, angularly lyrical if there is such a thing. It refuses politely but very firmly to sit comfortably in the background. In this day and age we need more of that sort of thing. ~ Chris Mosey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/as-we-are-nils-lindberg-prophone-records-review-by-chris-mosey.php

Personnel: Nils Lindberg: piano, arranger, composer, conductor; Margareta Bengtson: vocals; Jan Allan: trumpet; Anders Paulsson: soprano, tenor saxophones; Alberto Pinton: baritone saxophone; Joakim Milder: tenor saxopPhone; Hans Akesson, Hakan Brostrom: alto saxophone; Jan Adefelt: bass; Bengt Stark: drums.

As We Are

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Marion Meadows - Dressed to Chill

Styles: Saxophone Jazz, Smooth Jazz
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:33
Size: 130,1 MB
Art: Front

(4:01)  1. Dressed to Chill
(4:17)  2. Remember Me
(4:44)  3. Dance with My Daughter
(4:35)  4. Miss Know It All
(4:32)  5. Bounce
(4:36)  6. I Believe I Can Fly
(4:20)  7. Coco Flow
(4:31)  8. Just My Style
(5:21)  9. Scent of a Woman
(4:05) 10. Steppers...Let's Do This
(6:09) 11. 1000 Dreams
(5:17) 12. To Love Her

Soprano saxist Marion Meadows has been a crown prince in the smooth jazz court for so long, it's easy to wonder if he remembers his days woodshedding with Joe Henderson and Norman Connors' Starship Orchestra. He's been wildly successful, and his time with the Heads Up label has hardly been wasted; his rep is deep and wide, and his records move. Unlike a better selling counterpart on the same instrument, Meadows has a keen sense of rhythm and pitch, and his tonal control is top-notch. Given the tunes here, interchangeable deep relaxing grooves that borrow on everything from trip-hop to jazz, and house to Wes Montgomery's early experiments check "Remember Me," for evidence of the latter it's easy to forget the individuality Meadows possesses not only on soprano, but also on tenor and flute (he employs all three on "Coco Flow,") as well as alto on the opening title track. He duets with himself on soprano and tenor on "Bounce" and "Remember Me." Meadows' key collaborator here is composer, programmer, and keyboard whiz Mike Broening. He's the guy who comes up with the skeletal, wispy rhythm loops leaving the need for a drummer non-existent. There are three tracks with vocals here, "Miss Know It All," an urban soul ballad with Will Brock doing his best Terence Trent D'Arby, and "1000 Dreams" with Caji Da Bahia, an overblown sunstorm of loaded overdubbing. The cover of R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" is an understated ballad with some beautiful phrasing by Meadows, even when the all too familiar chorus kicks in. When the backing vocalists Vanessa and Lori Williams and Raymond Reeder enter, they are so utterly masked by production technique, it's hard to tell they are real singers. But it works, especially in the bridge when Meadows actually plays some blues lines. Meadows is a seriously gifted if unchallenged musician. He could use a new writing partner, but that doesn't mean that Dressed to Chill won't satisfy fans; it most certainly will. ~ Thom Jurek http://www.allmusic.com/album/dressed-to-chill-mw0000534068

Personnel: Marion Meadows (flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone); Will Brock (vocals); Freddie Fox (guitar, electric guitar, flugelhorn); Chuck Loeb, Randy Bowland (guitar); Thano Sahnas (acoustic guitar); Mike Broening (piano, keyboards, programming); Lori Williams, Raymond Reeder (background vocals).

Dressed to Chill

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Greg Manning - Sugar & Spice

Styles: Jazz, Smooth Jazz
Year: 2016
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:52
Size: 98,7 MB
Art: Front

(4:11)  1. Sugar & Spice (feat. Donald Hayes)
(4:36)  2. Round 'N'Round (feat. J. Reid)
(4:46)  3. I Need to Know (feat. Adam Hawley)
(4:57)  4. When You Love Someone (feat. Gabriel Hasselbach)
(3:42)  5. Caribbean Breeze
(4:44)  6. Les Étoiles de Paris (feat. Patrick Bettison)
(4:12)  7. Esperanza
(2:30)  8. The Beauty Within
(5:04)  9. Happy (feat. Donald Hayes)
(4:05) 10. Before the Dawn

Born in Nigeria and brought up in Switzerland, composer producer and keyboard player Greg Manning moved to Los Angeles in the nineties. Since then he has been building a niche position within the annals of contemporary jazz not only through his collaborations with Mindi Abair and Jonathan Butler but also with his own ever-expanding discography. His 2010 project, ‘The Calling’, quickly got the ball rolling and he followed up four years later with the excellent ‘Dance With You’.  Now, with a release date of July 22, comes ‘Sugar & Spice’ from which the title cut is already blazing a trail to radio. http://smoothjazztherapy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2016/06/greg-manning-sugar-spice.html

Sugar & Spice

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