Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Blacknuss

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1972
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:41
Size: 98,0 MB
Art: Front

(2:24)  1. Ain't No Sunshine
(3:44)  2. What's Goin' On, Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
(2:47)  3. I Love You Yes I Do
(3:18)  4. Take Me Girl, I'm Ready
(3:04)  5. My Girl
(2:26)  6. Which Way Is It Going
(3:40)  7. One Nation
(4:01)  8. Never Can Say Goodbye
(7:12)  9. Old Rugged Cross
(4:49) 10. Make It with You
(5:11) 11. Blacknuss

From its opening bars, with Bill Salter's bass and Rahsaan's flute passionately playing Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine," you know this isn't an ordinary Kirk album (were any of them?). As the string section, electric piano, percussion, and Cornel Dupree's guitar slip in the back door, one can feel the deep soul groove Kirk is bringing to the jazz fore here. As the tune fades just two and a half minutes later, the scream of Kirk's tenor comes wailing through the intro of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On," with a funk backdrop and no wink in the corner he's serious. With Richard Tee's drums kicking it, the strings developing into a wall of tension in the backing mix, and Charles McGhee's trumpet hurling the long line back at Kirk, all bets are off especially when they medley the mother into "Mercy Mercy Me." By the time they reach the end of the Isleys' "I Love You, Yes I Do," with the whistles, gongs, shouting, soul crooning, deep groove hustling, and greasy funk dripping from every sweet-assed note, the record could be over because the world has already turned over and surrendered and the album is only ten minutes old! Blacknuss, like The Inflated Tear, Volunteered Slavery, Rip, Rig and Panic, and I Talk to the Spirits, is Kirk at his most visionary. He took the pop out of pop and made it Great Black Music. 

He took the jazz world down a peg to make it feel its roots in the people's music, and consequently made great jazz from pop tunes in the same way his forbears did with Broadway show tunes. While the entire album shines like a big black sun, the other standouts include a deeply moving read of "My Girl" and a version of "The Old Rugged Cross" that takes it back forever from those white fundamentalists who took all the blood and sweat from its grain and replaced them with cheap tin and collection plates. On Kirk's version, grace doesn't come cheap, though you can certainly be a poor person to receive it. Ladies and gents, Blacknuss is as deep as a soul record can be and as hot as a jazz record has any right to call itself. A work of sheer blacknuss! ~ Thom Jurek http://www.allmusic.com/album/blacknuss-mw0000101699

Personnel: Rahsaan Roland Kirk (vocals, tenor saxophone, flute, whistle, percussion); Princess Patience Burton, Cissy Houston (vocals); Charles McGhee (trumpet); Dick Griffin (trombone); Sonelius Smith, Richard Tee (piano); Mickey Tucker (organ); Billy Butler, Cornell Dupree, Keith Loving (guitar); Henry Pearson, Bill Salter (bass); Khalil Mhrdi, Bernard Purdie (drums); Arthur Jenkins (congas, cabasa); Richard Landrum (congas); Joe Habad (percussion).

Blacknuss

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Connie Evingson - The Secret Of Christmas

Styles: Vocal, Holiday, Christmas
Year: 2002
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 49:48
Size: 114,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:25)  1. Snowfall/ I Love The Winter Weather
(5:19)  2. Carol Of The Bells
(5:34)  3. Simple Gifts
(5:50)  4. The Christmas Song
(6:41)  5. The Nutcracker Petit Suite
(6:05)  6. Some Children See Him
(4:22)  7. Gesu Bambino
(5:56)  8. The Secret Of Christmas
(5:14)  9. A Cradle In Bethlehem
(1:17) 10. Silent Night

Connie Evingson's set of Christmas jazz has plenty of variety and mood changes. The warm singer performs a medley of "Snowfall" and "I Love the Winter Weather," interacts with guest trumpeter Doc Severinsen on the Latin jazz number "Gesu Bambino," takes a brief "Silent Night" a cappella, and duets with guitarist/vocalist Robert Everest on "A Cradle in Bethehem." Most impressive is "The Nutcracker Petite Suite," which has the singer's lyrics to six parts of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite in a very coherent six-and-a-half-minute story. Mixing together the celebratory with the reverent, The Secret of Christmas is both entertaining and respectful. Recommended for one's Christmas jazz collection. ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-secret-of-christmas-mw0000784579

Personnel: Connie Evingson (vocals); Robert Everest (vocals, guitar); Dave Karr (flute, clarinet, saxophone); Doc Severinsen (trumpet); Mary Louise Knutson, Sanford Moore (piano); Ricky Peterson (organ); Terry Burns (bass guitar); Steve Jennings, Jay Epstein (drums); Shai Hayo (percussion).

Thank You my Friend!

The Secret Of Christmas

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Bill Evans - Jazzhouse

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1969
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:40
Size: 92,2 MB
Art: Front

(6:01)  1. How Deep Is The Ocean
(4:05)  2. How My Heart Sings
(3:52)  3. Good Bye
(5:48)  4. Autumn Leaves
(3:14)  5. California, Here I Come
(4:33)  6. Sleepin' Bee
(3:51)  7. Polka Dots And Moonbeams
(5:46)  8. Stella By Starlight
(2:27)  9. Five (Theme)

This set is one of two albums (both reissued on CD) recorded by the Bill Evans Trio (with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell) at Copenhagen's Montmartre on one night in 1969 but not released initially until the late '80s. Evans sounds relaxed and swinging playing his usual repertoire. All of the songs (mostly standards) have been recorded by Evans at other times but the pianist's many fans certainly will not mind hearing these "alternate" versions of such tunes as "How Deep Is the Ocean," "How My Heart Sings," "Sleepin' Bee" and a light-hearted "California Here I Come." ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/jazzhouse-mw0000651674

Personnel:  Bill Evans – piano;  Eddie Gómez – bass;  Marty Morell - drums

Jazzhouse

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Kellylee Evans - I Remember When

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:07
Size: 106,8 MB
Art: Front

(3:24)  1. My Name Is
(3:48)  2. I Remember When
(3:20)  3. Désolé
(3:45)  4. And So We Dance
(3:45)  5. If I Was Your Woman
(5:42)  6. Lose Yourself
(3:27)  7. Only You
(4:07)  8. Jungle
(4:18)  9. Ordinary People
(3:16) 10. You Got Me
(4:45) 11. Amazing
(2:25) 12. High

For Kellylee Evans fans in her native Canada (and those south of the 49th parallel willing to pay big bucks for import CDs), I Remember When is nothing new. Fifteen months after its Canadian release, the album has finally made its domestic arrival. And patience has its virtues: The U.S. version deletes two of the weaker tracks and adds three stronger originals. Though the disc follows on the heels of Evans’ album-length tribute to Nina Simone, it is closer in sound, spirit and energy to her jazz-soul gem Fight or Flight? from 2007. But scratch the “jazz.” Evans is now a full-fledged soul singer with freshly sharpened hip-hop influences. The album’s backward-glancing title seems odd. With the exception of a wrenching reading of Gladys Knight’s “If I Were Your Woman,” this is a dynamically forward-looking Evans. For additional covers, she draws on an intriguing cross-section of contemporary songwriters, offsetting a caffeinated treatment of Stromae’s “Alors on danse” and astute reading of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” with a prowling take on Kanye West’s “Amazing” and a gorgeous rendition of John Legend’s “Ordinary People.” The eight remaining tracks, all originals, range from the keen self-actualization of “My Name Is” and survivalist fire of “Jungle” to the clever romanticism of the A Tribe Called Quest-inspired list song “You Got Me.” Most impressive, though, is one of the newly added tracks, “Built to Fly,” an homage to the superheroes within us all, artfully built atop Dr. Dre’s “Big Ego’s.”~ Christopher Loudon http://jazztimes.com/articles/138259-i-remember-when-kellylee-evans

Personnel:  Kellylee Evans – vocals;  Eric Legnini - piano, keys, Wurlitzer, compositions;  Boris Pocora - saxophones, flute, bass clarinet;  Raphael Debacker – piano;  Eric Löhrer – guitar;  Sylvain Romano – bass;  Fabrice Moreau – drums;  Stephane Belmondo - bass trumpet, flugelhorn;  Stephane Edouard - percussions

I Remember When

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Old Time Musketry - Different Times

Styles: Jazz, Big Band
Year: 2013
File: MP3@224K/s
Time: 53:06
Size: 87,3 MB
Art: Front

(5:27)  1. Star Insignia
(6:28)  2. Parade
(5:01)  3. Different Times
(5:50)  4. Cadets
(8:34)  5. Hope for Something More
(5:43)  6. Anger Dance
(4:31)  7. Highly Questionable
(5:28)  8. Underwater Volcano
(5:59)  9. Floating Vision

Brooklyn-based Old Time Musketry is a band whose moniker foreshadows one aspect of the sound it's after, steeped in folk music and Americana. But the quartet's debut, Different Times, contains so much more. First and foremost, Old Time Musketry is a jazz quartet. Sure there's quite a bit of accordion and clarinet on this recording, but these guys are jazz guys. Mostly. The title track, with its rhapsodic tenor and piano melody sprawling over pattering free-ish rhythms, evokes memories of '70s-era pianist Keith Jarrett and his quartet with saxophonist Dewey Redman. On "Underwater Volcano," saxophonist Adam Schneit's tenor rides a headlong rush of crisp drums and funky Wurlitzer piano like a crazy surfer. Different Times' most memorable tune, "Parade," marries a truly jaunty lead line to a chugging second line rhythm. Here, pianist JP Schlegelmilch's rapier sharp solo invokes Monk, Don Pullen and Jarrett without imitating. The CD's two ballads "Hope for Something More" and "Floating Vision" have a yearning sort of sound and loping rhythms that lapse into a slow-rock feel. "Hope for Something More" has an especially lovely, almost stark, melody that's echoed by Schlegelmich's oddball keys, with Schneit's understated clarinet drifting over the rhythm section like a lonely bird.

The rootsy, Americana side of the band if it could even be called that comes to the fore on the album's remaining tracks. It's not a straight-up, Ken Burns style of Americana; instead, Old Time Musketry deals in the odd, the difficult, and the spooky. Musical kindred spirits include artists such as guitarist Bill Frisell, percussionist John Hollenbeck, and clarinetist Andy Biskin all of whom have constructed complex, multihued musical worlds that embrace the entirety of American music. Composer Charles Ives and pianist Cecil Taylor. Pianist Duke Ellington and singer Woody Guthrie. The one thing these pieces have in common is the extensive use of clarinet and accordion, instrumentation that really lends itself to a sort of "otherness" that associates itself with old-time music as well as Eastern European ethnic music. It's practically archetypal. "Star Insignia," with its plodding rhythm and accordion drone, seems an odd choice for an opening track, but the tune builds and grows dramatically, providing a fine example of Old Time Musketry's stellar song-craft. Before veering off into some fairly abstract territory, "Cadets" features a strong melody and really interesting changes that recall some of Hollenbeck's work with Claudia Quintet. "Anger Dance" and "Highly Questionable" both seem to draw some inspiration from Klezmer and Eastern European music without being purely ethnographic explorations. As its title implies, "Anger Dance" gets pretty aggressive, tottering on the edge of free jazz before going off in an entirely different direction. Really, that's what Old Time Musketry seems to be about: confounding expectations; not just going to unexpected places, but finding something unexpected in places that might be seem all too familiar. Different Times is a beautifully realized snapshot of a fully matured band with massive compositional and instrumental chops, and, most importantly, some very interesting ideas. ~ Dave Wayne https://www.allaboutjazz.com/different-times-old-time-musketry-steeplechase-lookout-review-by-dave-wayne.php

Personnel: Adam Schneit: saxophones, clarinet; J. P. Schlegelmilch: piano, Wurlitzer, accordion, glockenspiel, synthesizer; Phil Rowan: bass; Max Goldman: drums, melodica.

Different Times

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