Flora Purim - Stories To Tell

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:59
Size: 91.6 MB
Styles: Fusion, Latin jazz
Year: 1974
Art: Front

[3:40] 1. Stories To Tell
[5:52] 2. Search For Peace
[3:53] 3. Casa Forte
[2:44] 4. Insensatez
[3:14] 5. Mountain Train
[4:03] 6. To Say Goodbye
[5:38] 7. Silver Sword
[4:10] 8. Vera Cruz (Empty Faces)
[6:41] 9. O Cantador I Just Want To Be Here

Though her recordings for Chick Corea's Return to Forever provide a better introduction to her vocal talents, Stories to Tell is an excellent outing by Flora Purim and friends. Assisted by a cast of jazz/fusion all-stars led by husband Airto Moreira, Purim shows off the wide range of her abilities: from wordless vocal soaring to songs with lyrics in English and Portuguese, from uptempo percussion-driven workouts to beautiful ballads. In addition to Airto, the assembled cast includes bassists Miroslav Vitous and Ron Carter, keyboard wunderkind George Duke, guitarists Earl Klugh and Oscar Castro-Neves, and trombonist Raul de Souza. Also, Carlos Santana turns in one of his patented sizzling guitar solos on "Silver Sword." With material from Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vitous, Milton Nascimento, McCoy Tyner, and Purim herself, this is an album worth savoring. ~Jim Newsom

Stories To Tell

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George Harrison - Let It Roll

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 80:03
Size: 183.2 MB
Styles: Contemporary Pop/Rock, Album rock
Year: 2009
Art: Front

[3:50] 1. Got My Mind Set On You
[3:35] 2. Give Me Love
[3:45] 3. Ballad Of Sir Francis Crisp (Let It Roll)
[4:37] 4. My Sweet Lord
[4:46] 5. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
[3:44] 6. All Things Must Pass
[3:50] 7. Any Road
[3:45] 8. This Is Love
[3:43] 9. All Those Years Ago
[3:38] 10. Marwa Blues
[4:20] 11. What Is Life
[5:24] 12. Rising Sun
[3:51] 13. When We Was Fab
[3:10] 14. Something
[3:58] 15. Blow Away
[4:05] 16. Cheer Down
[2:54] 17. Here Comes The Sun
[2:51] 18. I Don't Want To Do It
[7:08] 19. Isn't It A Pity
[2:59] 20. Isn't It A Pity (Demo Vers)

George Harrison had two periods of great commercial success, separated by 15 years and two record labels. This extended gap is the chief reason there hasn't been a career-spanning Harrison collection until 2009's Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison, the first-ever disc to gather songs from George's stints at both Apple and Dark Horse, and only his third-ever hits collection, following 1976's Beatles-heavy The Best of George Harrison and The Best of Dark Horse, released in 1989 in the afterglow of Cloud Nine's comeback success. Let It Roll balances these two periods, swapping any Beatles-era song ("Something," "Here Comes the Sun," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps") for a live version from The Concert for Bangladesh, then mixing it all up chronologically, so the set starts with the pristine bounce of "Got My Mind Set on You" before giving way to "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" If anything jars, it's the sounds of times, as Jeff Lynne's clean, manicured arrangements don't necessarily fit with Phil Spector's lush, magisterial productions, but that's a minor quibble about a useful compilation that consolidates all of Harrison's signature tunes on one very enjoyable disc. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Let It Roll

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Anke Helfrich - Stormproof

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:27
Size: 122.4 MB
Styles: Ciontemporary jazz
Year: 2009
Art: Front

[4:20] 1. Hackensack
[5:57] 2. September Song
[7:30] 3. Stormproof
[5:18] 4. Sehnsucht
[7:03] 5. In Good Times As In Bad
[1:56] 6. After The Rain
[8:22] 7. Circles
[4:54] 8. Swiss Moment
[5:09] 9. Speak Low
[2:53] 10. Little Giant

Bass, Cello, Bass Guitar – Henning Sieverts; Drums, Glockenspiel, Percussion – Dejan Terzić; Trombone – Nils Wogram; Piano, Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes], Harmonium – Anke Helfrich.

German pianist Anke Helfrich has absorbed the influence of everyone from Thelonious Monk to Les McCann and channeled it into an original style that's rooted but not retro. On STORMPROOF, she covers Monk's "Hackensack," and its knotty harmonies and angular feel suit her singular style, but she really stretches out on her own compositions, where her approach feels completely contemporary. She doesn't stick strictly to the 88s, either; she occasionally moves over to electric piano and even harmonium. And while her thoughtful melodic statements are clearly the focus here, trombonist Nils Wogram offers some striking moments of his own throughout this, Helfrich's third release as a leader. ~Jim Allen

Stormproof

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Natalie Cressman & Secret Garden - Unfolding

Styles: Trombone Jazz
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:27
Size: 144,6 MB
Art: Front

(6:33)  1. Flip
(8:01)  2. Whistle Song
(4:10)  3. Honeysuckle Rose
(6:11)  4. Echo
(5:57)  5. Skylight
(7:51)  6. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
(8:33)  7. Waking
(5:19)  8. Reaching For Home
(9:47)  9. That Kind

Looking for antecedents for trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman? All About Jazz's C. Michael Bailey correctly points us to Jack Teagarden, the original singing trombonist. And, in fact, Cressman finds plenty of opportunity in the funkier passages of Unfolding, her debut album, to deploy a fluid and full Teagarden-like sound on the instrument. But Cressman twenty years old and a student at the Manhattan School of Music at the time of Unfolding's release also suggests a more contemporary reference: Esperanza Spalding, the superstar singing bassist. As with much of Spalding's vocals on her first record the fine Junjo (Ayva Musica, 2006) Cressman's wordless and vaguely Brazilian vocals on the madrigal-like "Echo" sound like sonic accents, not the stuff of a "lead singer." That said, other examples of singing on this record sound more like Spalding's subsequent albums, wherein she established herself as a bona fide singer. Cressman even pays homage here to Joni Mitchell, with a thoughtful and successfully rearranged version of Mitchell's vocal version of Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." It's a great reach back, from the vantage point of 2012, through Mitchell's 1979 version, to Mingus' 1959 original (Mitchell's version can be found on her Mingus (Asylum, 1979); it's closely based on Mingus' from his Mingus Ah Um (Columbia, 1959), and follows both Mingus' composed melody as well as John Handy's tenor sax solo).

Cressman's vocal agility is furthermore on display in the difficult leaps and intervals of several compositions, her tone clear and true and unadorned. Pianist Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose," meanwhile, is given a funk makeover not unlike the music of pianist Robert Glasper's Experiment; indeed, the comparison also reveals the attractive, Glasper-like qualities in pianist Pascal Le Boeuf's playing here (Le Boeuf, 25 years old for the session, is the oldest member of Cressman's Secret Garden band). The band is well-rehearsed and dominated, in a way, by the unsubtly forward drummer Jake Goldblas; he doesn't take much prompting to boil over, and it can be pretty exciting. Saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum like Cressman, a traveler on the Bay Area/New York jazz corridor guests for a fiery solo on "That Kind." 

Throughout, the sound is mostly acoustic, mostly mainstream with hints of Latin and rock. Unfolding shares the strengths and weaknesses of a lot of very strong debuts: highly attentive solos, carefully crafted arrangements and spirited performances on the plus side; coupled with a certain lack of focus and melodic interest in the original compositions. Cressman will only get better, as trombonist, singer, composer and leader, and that process will be accelerated with further apprenticeship with more seasoned leaders. With the release of Unfolding, her phone should be ringing off the hook. ~ Jeff Dayton Johnson https://www.allaboutjazz.com/unfolding-natalie-cressman-self-produced-review-by-jeff-dayton-johnson.php
 

Personnel: Natalie Cressman: trombone, vocals; Ivan Rosenberg: trumpet; Chad Lefkowitz-Brown: tenor saxophone (1-8); Peter Apfelbaum: tenor saxophone (9); Pascal Le Boeuf: piano, Fender Rhodes, claps; Ruben Samama: acoustic bass, claps; Jake Goldblas: drums, percussion, claps; Zach Gould: claps.

Unfolding

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Jaimee Paul - Melancholy Baby

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2011
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 55:33
Size: 127,7 MB
Art: Front

(4:12)  1. Don't cry baby
(4:26)  2. Ain't no sunshine
(4:38)  3. Come rain or come shine
(3:07)  4. want a little sugar in my bowl
(4:58)  5. You've changed
(3:53)  6. I still haven't found what i'm looking for
(4:35)  7. A sunday kind of love
(3:26)  8. Big spender
(4:49)  9. Don't explain
(3:54) 10. What'll I do
(3:44) 11. People get ready
(4:37) 12. Smile
(5:09) 13. My melancholy baby (feat. beegie adair)

Jazz vocal maven, Jaimee Paul, lends her sultry, bluesy pipes to an eclectic collection of jazz, blues and pop standards. 

While delivering impressive tributes to the likes of Billie Holiday ("Don't Explain", "You've Changed"), Etta James ("Don't Cry Baby", "A Sunday Kind of Love"), Nina Simone ("I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl"), Paul also puts her unique spin on such contemporary classics as U2's, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", Curtis Mayfield's, "People Get Ready", and Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine." ~ Editorial Reviews https://www.amazon.com/Melancholy-Baby-Jaimee-Paul/dp/B004GFGUE0

Melancholy Baby

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Herbie Mann & Bobby Jaspar - Flute Soufflé

Styles: Flute And Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1957
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:21
Size: 83,4 MB
Art: Front

(14:43)  1. Tel Aviv
( 5:58)  2. Somewhere Else
( 7:26)  3. Let's March
( 8:13)  4. Chasing The Bird

At the time of this Prestige set (reissued on CD), Herbie Mann was a flutist who occasionally played tenor and Bobby Jaspar a tenor-saxophonist who doubled on flute. Two of the four songs find them switching back and forth while the other two are strictly flute features. With pianist Tommy Flanagan, guitarist Joe Puma, bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Bobby Donaldson contributing quiet support, the two lead voices constantly interact and trade off during this enjoyable performance. Highpoints are the haunting "Tel Aviv" and a delightful version of "Chasing the Bird." ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/flute-souffle-mw0000617313

Personnel:  Herbie Mann, Bobby Jaspar - flute, tenor saxophone;  Tommy Flanagan – piano;  Joe Puma – guitar;  Wendell Marshall – bass;  Bobby Donaldson - drums

Flute Soufflé

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George Wallington - Jazz at Hotchkiss

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1957
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 40:08
Size: 92,1 MB
Art: Front

( 6:53)  1. Dance of the Infidels
( 8:46)  2. Strange Music
( 5:57)  3. Before Dawn
(10:35)  4. Ow
( 7:57)  5. 'S Make 'T

This LP-length CD reissue features pianist George Wallington and his 1957 quintet (which consists of trumpeter Donald Byrd, altoist Phil Woods, bassist Knobby Totah and drummer Nick Stabulas) stretching out on five numbers. 

The repertoire is highlighted by Bud Powell's "Dance of the Infidels" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Ow." Both Woods and Byrd (two up-and-coming players) are in excellent form, making this an enjoyable outing for bop fans. ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/jazz-at-hotchkiss-mw0000237669

Personnel: George Wallington (piano), Phil Woods (alto saxophone), Donald Byrd (trumpet), Knobby Totah (bass), Nick Stabulas (drums).

Jazz at Hotchkiss

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