Wild Bill Moore - Bottom Groove

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 76:29

Size: 175.1 MB

Styles: Soul jazz, Saxophone jazz

Year: 1961/2002

Art: Front

[6:45] 1. Heavy Soul

[5:56] 2. A Good 'un

[5:27] 3. Tearin' Out

[6:50] 4. Wild Bill's Beat

[5:10] 5. Things Are Getting Better

[5:17] 6. Bubbles

[5:14] 7. Just You, Just Me

[6:20] 8. Sister Caroline

[5:36] 9. Bottom Groove

[5:34] 10. My Little Girl

[5:35] 11. Down With It

[7:10] 12. Sea Breezes

[5:30] 13. Caravan

Many of the tenor saxophonists who came out of the honker school of the '40s and early '50s had no problem being relevant to the soul-jazz scene of the '60s. That's because '60s soul-jazz was very much an extension of classic honker music; the recordings that big-toned tenor titans like Willis "Gator" Jackson and Arnett Cobb provided in the '60s were not a radical departure from their early sessions. Influenced by Illinois Jacquet and Chu Berry, Wild Bill Moore was the essence of an extroverted, big-toned, hard-blowing honker -- he epitomized what critic Scott Yanow calls "rhythm & jazz" (that is, jazz with strong R&B leanings). This 76-minute CD, which Fantasy assembled in 2002, reissues two Orrin Keepnews-produced albums that Moore recorded for Jazzland in 1961: Bottom Groove and Wild Bill's Beat. Both albums employ Joe Benjamin on upright bass, Ben Riley on drums, and Ray Barretto on congas, but while Wild Bill's Beat features pianist Junior Mance, Bottom Groove is an organ date with Johnny "Hammond" Smith (one of the countless Jimmy Smith-minded organists who was active in the '60s). Despite the fact that one album has a pianist and the other has an organist, they are quite similar. Both are state-of-the-art soul-jazz, and both are highly accessible; people who, in the '60s, felt that a lot of post-swing jazz was too cerebral and abstract for its own good had no problem getting into straightforward players like Moore. Soulful accessibility is the rule whether Moore is playing original material or turning his attention to Nat Adderley's "Sister Caroline" and Duke Ellington's "Caravan." Naturally, there are plenty of 12-bar jazz-blues grooves, and Moore shows listeners how appealing a ballad player he could be on the dreamy "Sea Breezes." This CD is well worth acquiring if you have a taste for '60s soul-jazz. ~Alex Henderson

Bottom Groove

---

The Anita Kerr Singers - Mellow Moods Of Love

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:21
Size: 85.5 MB
Styles: Easy Listening, Vocal harmony group
Year: 1965/2015
Art: Front

[3:33] 1. Street Of Dreams
[2:21] 2. Honeymoon
[2:56] 3. All Of You
[3:50] 4. The Masquerade Is Over
[3:05] 5. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
[3:01] 6. Don't Dream Of Anybody But Me
[2:50] 7. Have I Told You
[2:59] 8. The Good Life
[3:25] 9. People
[3:02] 10. The Girl From Ipanema
[3:21] 11. The Girl That I Marry
[2:53] 12. I Had The Craziest Dream

Anita Kerr is a softly spoken, petite lady from Memphis, Tennessee. Her string of successes in many different styles did not happen by chance. She is one of the most talented and professionally accomplished women in popular music history. Her group the Anita Kerr Singers went on to beat the Beatles (when the Beatles were at the height of their powers) for Best Vocal Group Performance in the 1965 Grammys. Yet she barely gets a mention in most music reference books. Listen to this CD closely, and you will see why she was given the name of America's first lady of music! ~Mr. B. Pugh

Mellow Moods Of Love

---

Ralph Sutton - Easy Street

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 67:02
Size: 153.4 MB
Styles: Piano jazz
Year: 1991/2000
Art: Front

[5:24] 1. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
[3:58] 2. Mary Lou
[4:16] 3. Easy Street
[4:06] 4. Clarinet Marmalade
[4:31] 5. June Night
[7:42] 6. When I Grow Too Old To Dream
[5:24] 7. Wolverine Blues
[5:11] 8. Tea For Two
[5:06] 9. A Hundred Years From Today
[4:43] 10. Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me
[4:35] 11. Handful Of Keys
[6:34] 12. T'ain't So Honey T'ain't So
[5:27] 13. China Boy

During a 1991 tour of Australia, the great stride pianist Ralph Sutton teamed up with the talented cornetist Bob Barnard and drummer Len Barnard. There are a pair of duets apiece by Sutton with just one Barnard at a time and the pianist takes Fats Waller's "Handful of Keys" unaccompanied in addition to performing eight trio numbers. Sutton mixes together obscurities (such as J. Russell Robinson's "Mary Lou" and "June Night") and more familiar but superior numbers such as "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone," "Wolverine Blues" and "China Boy." Bob Barnard sounds in particularly inspired form, making this a delightful set that classic jazz fans will certainly enjoy. ~Scott Yanow

Easy Street

---

Joe Beck Trio - Girl Talk

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 2003
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:37
Size: 134,7 MB
Art: Front

(8:01)  1. Gingi
(7:06)  2. Emily
(7:17)  3. Girl Talk
(6:52)  4. Have You Met Miss Jones?
(4:08)  5. Laura
(5:17)  6. Little Girl Blue
(5:41)  7. Nica's Dream
(5:21)  8. Ruby
(4:50)  9. Sophisticated Lady
(3:59) 10. Stella By Starlight

Studio and session guitarist Joe Beck was well known for hits when backing vocalist Esther Phillips on Kudu in the '70s, although his session credentials over the years also included the likes of Miles Davis, James Brown, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, and Gil Evans. During the '80s he made a series of competent fusion and pop-jazz recordings for DMP and had a big hit recording with Dave Sanborn on CTI in 1975. His career continued into the '90s and beyond with albums like 1991's Relaxin', 1997's Alto, and his 2000 collaboration with Jimmy Bruno, Polarity. Beck was active throughout most of the new millennium’s first decade with recordings on a variety of labels, including a number of CDs on Whaling City Sound, such as 2002's Just Friends, 2007's Tri07, 2008's Coincidence (a duo recording with John Abercrombie), and 2009's Golden Earrings. 

The latter album, featuring Beck and singer Laura Theodore performing music made famous by singer Peggy Lee, proved to be Beck’s final recording the guitarist was diagnosed with lung cancer soon after work on Golden Earrings had been completed and died from complications of the disease in July 2008 at age 62. ~ Ron Wynn http://www.allmusic.com/artist/joe-beck-mn0000140752/biography

Personnel: Joe Beck (guitar); Joey DeFrancesco (organ); Idris Muhammad (drums).

Girl Talk

---

Jackie McLean & The Cosmic Brotherhood - New York Calling

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1974
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 59:20
Size: 136,3 MB
Art: Front

(10:14)  1. New York Calling
(12:25)  2. Star Dancer
( 8:53)  3. Camel Driver
( 8:03)  4. Some Other Time
( 8:52)  5. Adrians Dance
(10:50)  6. New York Calling (Take 3)

Jackie McLean's band on New York Calling, the Cosmic Brotherhood, plays with uncompromising passion, fury, and intelligence. The group, a generation younger than the leader, has a sound that is definitive '70s advanced hard bop. Although not as well-known as some of their contemporaries, by the time of this 1974 recording, the members of McLean's quintet had logged playing time with many of the leaders of the hard bop scene: McCoy Tyner, Gary Bartz, Sam Rivers, Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, and others. In addition to exceptional chops, the band has strong writers in trumpeter Billy Skinner and pianist Billy Gault. Their tightly voiced arrangements, punctuated by roiling power surges from the rhythm section, call to mind the work of Woody Shaw, whose classic Moontrane was also recorded in 1974. However, where Shaw's music possesses an urbane, majestic poise, Skinner and Gault go for a skittering, street-level urgency. McLean, recognizing the powerful talents in his midst including McLean's son, René, on tenor, alto, and soprano sax comes across as one among equals. It's to McLean's credit that the date bears the stamp of his band's artistry as much as it does his own. ~ Jim Todd http://www.allmusic.com/album/new-york-calling-mw0000181408

Personnel: Jackie McLean (alto saxophone, tenor saxophone); Rene McLean (soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone); Billy Skinner (trumpet); Billy Gault (piano); Thabo Michael Carvin, Michael Carvin (drums); James Fish Benjamin (bass).

New York Calling

---

Ramon Valle Trio - Playground

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 76:03
Size: 188,2 MB
Art: Front

(3:59)  1. Playground
(5:33)  2. El reto
(7:52)  3. Fabio
(6:31)  4. Zwana
(5:52)  5. Siboney
(5:43)  6. Laberinto
(6:36)  7. Cinco hermanas
(4:41)  8. The trio
(9:36)  9. Free at last
(6:14) 10. Baila Harold, baila
(9:09) 11. Dilsberg morning light
(4:12) 12. Reverso

Born Luis Ramón Valle Sánchez, 29 October 1964, Holguín, Cuba. Valle began playing piano at the age of seven. His studies were first at the Escuela Provincial de Arte in Holguín and he then attended the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana, graduating from there in 1984. He worked as a music teacher for some years in the mid-80s. A duo concert with fellow Cuban pianist Emiliano Salvador in 1985 brought him to the attention of audiences and critics. Valle subsequently performed at numerous festivals in Central American and Caribbean venues, both as solo artist and as leader of the quartet Brújula. He also worked in bands such as Ramón Huerta’s Grupo Galaxia. In the early 90s he spent two years with Silvio Rodríguez’s band, Diákara. He first performed in Europe at the Jamboree Jazz Club in Barcelona where his success led to more European engagements, including appearances in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin and Paris. In 1998, he settled in Europe and thereafter he toured Germany, Spain and Scandinavia to great acclaim and appeared at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2000 and 2001. 

On the second of these occasions, saxophonist Jane Bunnett augmented Valle’s quartet. The following year Valle played at the Montreux International Jazz Festival and also at festivals elsewhere in Europe and in his homeland. Early in 2003, Valle premiered at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam a work commissioned by the city’s Foundation for the Arts, ‘Mixed-up Mokum’. This four-movement piece, written for a 10-piece ensemble, blends jazz and improvised music and is overlaid with classical form. Later that same year, Valle returned to the North Sea Jazz Festival, this time with trumpeter Roy Hargrove joining the band. Technically, Valle is highly proficient and delivers much of his repertoire with fire and dash although his high energy playing is leavened by a gentle touch with ballads. Rooted though he is in the music of his Cuban heritage, Valle seamlessly blends these forms with contemporary jazz styling and occasional touches of the classical music that formed a part of his education. His Danza Negra (2002), on which he is joined by Perico Sambeat (alto saxophone) and Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernández (percussion), displays many of these qualities in a set comprising the music of Ernesto Lecuona that has been adapted by Valle to a Cuban jazz sound. The lineage of outstanding Cuban jazz pianists has been ably extended through Valle’s work. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/ram%C3%B3n-valle-mn0000336056/biography

Personnel:  Ramon Valle (piano); Omar Rodríguez Calvo (bass), Owen Hart, Jr. (drums).

Playground

---

Billy Harper - Somalia

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1995
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 60:32
Size: 141,7 MB
Art: Front

(13:36)  1. Somalia
(21:56)  2. Thy Will Be Done
(12:45)  3. Quest
( 7:59)  4. Light Within
( 4:15)  5. Quest In 3

The passionate tenor saxophonist Billy Harper had not been heard on record as a leader in quite a few years when this superlative Evidence CD was released in 1995. Harper (who is joined by trumpeter Eddie Henderson, pianist Francesca Tanksley, bassist Louie Spears, and both Newman Taylor Baker and Horace Arnold on drums) brings back the spirit of John Coltrane, performing a very spiritual and generally intense set of music. The five originals are highlighted by the title cut, "Quest" and the nearly 22-minute "Thy Will Be Done." This CD contains some of Billy Harper's finest playing in years. ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/somalia-mw0000646635

Personnel: Billy Harper (tenor saxophone, cowbell, vocals); Eddie Henderson (trumpet); Francesca Tanksley (piano); Louie "Mbiki" Spears (bass); Newman Taylor Baker, Horacee Arnold (drums); Madeleine Yayodele Nelson (shekere).

Somalia

---