Ron Levy's Wild Kingdom - Green Eyed Soul

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 63:03
Size: 144.3 MB
Styles: B3 Organ Jazz/Soul/Blues/Funk
Year: 2004
Art: Front

[7:22] 1. Always Outnumbered
[7:18] 2. The Soulside
[6:18] 3. Like, Like Dope
[5:25] 4. Lovin' You Again
[7:44] 5. Green Eyed Soul
[7:18] 6. Silver Plated
[5:11] 7. Soulard Soul Stew
[7:12] 8. Yo Bro Youssel
[9:11] 9. El Fuego De Lowell

A tasty bit of organ jazz from Ron Levy -- an unsung hero of the Hammond, and one of the leading lights of the Northeast scene! Ron's playing is steeped in the classic styles of the 60s -- some nice Jack McDuff touches on the keys at times, but overall with a heavier approach to the funk that reminds us more of some of the heavy-hitters in the Prestige jazz funk early 70s years -- like Leon Spencer or Groove Holmes. The album's got a surprisingly classic feel -- no gimmicks, no "jam too much" playing -- just tight, right, and outta site funky jazz -- played in a style that really appreciates the classics, but which gives it the kind of energy that we first heard getting pumped back into the music from the Desco/Daptone crew!

Green Eyed Soul

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Gene Ammons - A Stranger In Town

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 67:51

Size: 155.3 MB

Styles: Bop, Saxophone jazz

Year: 2002

Art: Front

[9:41] 1. The Song Is You

[3:59] 2. Light'n Up

[3:32] 3. Short Stop

[3:58] 4. They Say You're Laughing At Me

[4:13] 5. Salome's Tune

[4:10] 6. Blue Coolade

[5:58] 7. A Stranger In Town

[5:32] 8. Scam

[4:24] 9. Count Your Blessings

[3:07] 10. Cara Mia

[5:18] 11. Night Lights

[5:41] 12. Calypso Blues

[8:11] 13. Nature Boy

Alto Saxophone – Oliver Nelson;Baritone Saxophone – Gene Easton, Robert Ashton; Bass – George Duvivier, Wendell Marshall; Congas – Henry Pucho Brown, Ray Barretto; Drums – Billy English, Ed Thigpen, George Brown, Rudy Collins, Walter Perkins; Piano – John Houston, Mal Waldron, Patti Brown, Richard Wyands, Wynton Kelly; Tenor Saxophone – Gene Ammons, George Barrow, Red Holloway; Trombone – Henderson Chambers; Trumpet – Clark Terry, Hobart Dotson, Nate Woodward.

More so than other independent jazz labels such as Blue Note and Riverside, the powers to be at Prestige seemed to take great liberties in producing albums that would often contain cuts from multiple sessions, a discographical nightmare at its most basic. But even more troubling, this often made for a lack of coherence that could be disconcerting at times. What then made all of this worse was that the practice was often used with some of the label’s most important and visible artists.

The forgoing will hopefully put into perspective the circumstances surrounding the strange mélange that makes up the Gene Ammons compilation A Stranger In Town. Taken from no less than five recording sessions that span from 1954 to 1970, the 13 tracks assembled here originally appeared on the albums Velvet Soul, Sock!, and Night Lights. That’s the easy part; and then it gets confusing as you try to keep up with the rotating cast of characters on hand. A boisterous “The Song Is You” gets us started with some great small group charts provided by Oliver Nelson, only to give way to a spate of quartet performances that while solid are not particularly all that revelatory. The closing three tracks, particularly a tasty “Calypso Blues,” are the cream of the crop as Ammons' blustery attack gets bluesy support from the ubiquitous Wynton Kelly. ~C. Andrew Hovan

A Stranger In Town

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Katrine Madsen - You Are So Beautiful

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 55:48
Size: 127.7 MB
Styles: Jazz vocals
Year: 1999/2013
Art: Front

[5:18] 1. Early In The Autumn
[4:29] 2. You Are So Beautiful To Me
[5:34] 3. When Nightbirds Sing
[5:25] 4. You Must Believe In Spring
[3:31] 5. They Can't Take That Away From Me
[5:14] 6. I Lost Myself To You
[4:15] 7. Let There Be Love
[5:44] 8. Shadow Woman
[2:51] 9. Isn't It A Pity
[3:09] 10. Let Me Love You
[5:33] 11. Speak Low
[4:40] 12. Everything Must Change

Bass – Jesper Bodilsen; Drums – Ed Thigpen; Piano – Carsten Dahl; Vocals – Katrine Madsen, Svante Thuresson.

You Are So Beautiful is a 1999 music album with Danish jazz singer Katrine Madsen. On two of the tracks she sings duet with Svante Thuresson.

You Are So Beautiful

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Mal Waldron Quintet - Mal-1

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1956
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:07
Size: 88,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:55)  1. Stablemates
(7:50)  2. Yesterdays
(7:19)  3. Transfiguration
(5:52)  4. Bud Study
(7:02)  5. Dee's Dilemma
(5:07)  6. Shome

Mal Waldron's recording debut as a leader presents the pianist with his many gifts already well developed. For the 1956 quartet date, he takes charge to strike a balance between the sound of a blowing session and the refinement of a more polished date. The spontaneity is there, but the set also benefits from Waldron's thoughtful charts. At this stage of his development, Waldron was a distinctive bop pianist whose occasional sputtering, knotty phrasing revealed the acknowledged influence of Thelonious Monk, as well as similarities with contemporaries Al Haig and Bud Powell. For this set, though, the focus is not on Waldron's playing, but on his ability to lead from the piano bench. The horn players top-flight boppers Idrees Sulieman on trumpet and Gigi Gryce on alto sax contribute hot solos played with class and authority, and disciplined ensemble work supports the overall structure of Waldron's charts. Some of the arrangements seem written with a larger ensemble in mind, but they also work in the quartet setting, with Waldron's effective use of staggered horn entries, dynamics, interesting harmonies, and occasional countermelodies adding color and variety to the performances. 

The tracks comprise a bright, focused performance of Benny Golson's "Stablemates," a sparse, bluesy take of the standard "Yesterdays," a pair of good Waldron originals and one from Sulieman, along with Lee Sears' "Transfiguration." Bassist Julian Euell and drummer Arthur Edgehill supply a strong and reliable bop pulse. ~ Jim Todd http://www.allmusic.com/album/mal-1-mw0000188794

Personnel: Mal Waldron (piano); Gigi Gryce (alto saxophone); Idrees Sulieman (trumpet); Julian Euell (bass); Arthur Edgehill (drums).

Mal-1

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Tiziana Ghiglioni - I'll be Around

Styles: Vocal 
Year: 1989
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:22
Size: 90,6 MB
Art: Front

(6:15)  1. Am I Blue
(5:14)  2. They Can't Take that Away from Me
(7:18)  3. You Don't Know what Love Is
(3:21)  4. All or Nothing at All
(5:16)  5. Glad to Be Unhappy
(2:48)  6. I'll Be Around
(2:22)  7. Yesterdays
(4:16)  8. Where Are You?
(0:20)  9. Darn that Dream
(2:08) 10. But not for Me

Tiziana Ghiglioni began his musical training in the seventies, attending the seminars of the pianist and composer Giorgio Gaslini and studying vocal technique with the soprano Gabriella Ravazzi. Among the first professional experience is the theater tour with the Shakespeare / Ellington show with the same Giorgio Gaslini and Giorgio Albertazzi .In the early eighties he began his career as a jazz singer and bandleader immediately obtaining the attention of audiences and critics thanks to the reviews of the journalist and jazz historian Arrigo Polillo who commented very positively both his first public performances is his first album ( "Lonely Woman" of 1981 ) engraved with certain emerging young among them Piero Leveratto and Luigi Bonafede .The reception of the first disc is such that in the second etching ( "Sounds of Love" of 1983 ) the singer is joined by internationally renowned musicians like Kenny Drew on piano and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass. In subsequent years Ghiglioni affirms its leading role in the Italian jazz working with some of the most famous national jazz musicians (including Luca Flores , Enrico Pieranunzi , Paolo Fresu , Franco D'Andrea , Gianluigi Trovesi and Enrico Rava ) and international ( including Chet Baker , Steve Lacy , Mal Waldron , Paul Bley and Lee Konitz ).

Despite being very appreciated for its executions of the traditional jazz repertoire, Ghiglioni shows a particular predilection for the free jazz and for contamination. She herself said that her passion for jazz was born after listening saxophonist Archie Shepp , one of the protagonists of the movement free. No coincidence that in his first incision is deeply involved with a piece by Ornette Coleman "Lonely Woman", which also became the title of the album. This interest in the avant-garde is witnessed, among others, from the album "SONB" of 1992 , which earned her second place in the ranking of the best albums of the magazine Musica Jazz and the nickname "First Lady" of Italian jazz (for by the then director of Pino Candini magazine). Among the most recent experiments you can cite the disc "Rotella Variations", signed together with the violinist Emanuele Parrini : an ambitious attempt to carry into music by the contemporary suggestions Mimmo Rotella .

In 2009 she was President of the Artistic Committee of the 3rd edition of the Italian Jazz Awards - Luca Flores. He currently resides between Genoa and Milan. He is professor of jazz singing teacher at the conservatory of Rovigo. On 23 and 24 June 2012 was the guest of honor at the end of essay academy year cultural musician "La Fenice" in Gioia del Colle. He sang with the children of the school who have also received from her a certificate of "Master Class". Translate by Google  https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiziana_Ghiglioni

Personnel: Vocals – Tiziana Ghiglioni; Piano – Mal Waldron; Trumpet – Enrico Rava

I'll be Around

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Hiromi - Brain

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2004
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 61:31
Size: 143,3 MB
Art: Front

( 6:53)  1. Kung-Fu World Champion
( 7:11)  2. If...
( 5:43)  3. Wind Song
( 9:05)  4. Brain
( 7:08)  5. Desert on the Moon
( 4:38)  6. Green Tea Farm
(10:02)  7. Keytalk
(10:47)  8. Legend of the Purple Valley

Japanese pianist and composer Hiromi Uehara dazzled the jazz world with her 2003 debut, Another Mind. Its mash of keyboard pyrotechnics and range of compositional styles was multiplied exponentially by her irrepressible energy. On that set she used variously sized ensembles to articulate her compositions. On Brain, Hiromi strips it back to a trio and offers a more intimate look at her wide musical universe, utilizing drummer Martin Valihora, bassist Tony Grey (both fellow Berklee College of Music alums), and alternately bassist Anthony Jackson. The album opens with the wacky "Kung-Fu World Champion" with its mélange of sequenced keyboards. It's a fusion tune to be sure, but it's so kooky and funky that it transcends the label despite its reliance on staggering time signatures and stop-on-air turnarounds and changes. It's a careening tour de force where electronic keyboards and pianos are layered over a scattershot rhythm that pulls and pushes the deep pocket funk and strafes it with a post-bop sensibility. Grey's bassing here is so choice, so utterly fluid and physical. But it's back to jazz on "If..." with Jackson taking the bass chair. It's a strolling soul-jazz figure, bubbling over a series of chromatically arranged ostinati. Its beauty is crystalline despite all the activity. "Wind Song" is a mid-tempo ballad with beautiful ringing lines in the middle register. 

Its repetitive figure shifts and shapes an alternate melodic line in the solo.The knottiness of the title track offers a close, scrutinizing view of Hiromi's mad muse; using her piano to articulate a figure she creates a warped and angular counterpoint with electronic keyboards keeping the rhythm section striating in between, with precise interstitial motifs before the entire cut gives way to a blessed out of minor key prelude on the piano and her rhythm section dancing around the changes in hushed tones. The centerpiece of the set is a stunningly beautiful tune called "Green Tea Farm." A solo piece, it is pastoral. In sum, Hiromi has built upon her previous effort by stripping down her band and showcasing the less physical but no less ambitious side of her improvisational and compositional flair. Her sound might still be confounding to the purists, but who cares? Hiromi is a jazz pianist for the new century, one whose "yes" to the wealth of musical styles that are available to her is only eclipsed by her ability to work them into a unique whole that bears her signature. ~ Thom Jurek http://www.allmusic.com/album/brain-mw0000220366

Personnel: Hiromi Uehara (piano); Anthony Jackson, Tony Grey (bass); Martin Valihora (drums).

Brain

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Ernie Watts - Reaching Up

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1994
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 65:58
Size: 158,0 MB
Art: Front

( 7:50)  1. Reaching Up
( 8:53)  2. Mr. Syms
( 5:55)  3. I Hear A Rhapsody
( 6:14)  4. Transparent Sea
( 5:21)  5. The High Road
( 5:38)  6. Inward Glance
( 6:54)  7. You Leave Me Breathless
( 4:51)  8. Sweet Lucy
(10:21)  9. Angel's Flight
( 3:56) 10. Sweet Solitude

For this quartet set with pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Charles Fambrough, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, Ernie Watts definitely came to play. Virtually all of his solos are high powered and even his ballad statements are filled with clusters of passionate notes. Trumpeter Arturo Sandval has two appearances and makes the music even more hyper. In addition, the rhythm section keeps the proceedings consistently stimulating. The main focus on these standards and originals is generally on Watts' tenor, and even though there isn't all that much variety, this CD is a strong example of his jazz talents. 

~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/reaching-up-mw0000108870

Personnel: Ernie Watts (saxophone); Arturo Sandoval (trumpet); Mulgrew Miller (piano); Charles Fambrough (acoustic bass); Jack DeJohnette (drums).

Reaching Up

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Bert Kaempfert - Strangers In The Night

Styles: Jazz, Big band
Year: 1998
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 63:46
Size: 146,7 MB
Art: Front

(3:22)  1. Strangers In The Night
(3:06)  2. I'm Beginning To See The Light
(3:20)  3. It's Only A Paper Moon
(2:58)  4. You turned my world around
(2:11)  5. You Are There
(3:33)  6. Stardust
(2:43)  7. Something
(2:48)  8. When You're Smiling
(3:11)  9. Out Of Nowhere
(2:43) 10. My way of life
(4:27) 11. Moonlight Serenade
(3:39) 12. On The Sunny Side Of The Street
(3:21) 13. Didn't we
(3:31) 14. The World We Knew (Over And Over)
(3:35) 15. My Blue Heaven
(2:50) 16. Lover
(2:20) 17. The good life
(3:08) 18. The Continental
(2:55) 19. My melancholy baby
(3:56) 20. My Way

In 1965, Bert Kaempfert was commissioned by the American film company Universal Pictures to compose the music for “A Man Could Get Killed” a comedy film about a gang of crooks. Set in Portugal’s capital Lisbon, the film’s main ingredients were a diamond robbery, secret agents and a romance; two of the leading roles were taken by Melina Mercouri and James Garner. The present disc, recorded in 1966, includes the two main themes from the film: But Not Today, heard during the Main Title, and, of course, Strangers In The Night, the love theme, which was entitled Beddy-Bye in the film score. But Not Today is proof enough that Bert Kaempfert was not only capable of writing a lovely film melody but that he also knew how to capture a Spanish-Portuguese touch, even adding a dash of Greece as a tribute to the unforgotten Melina Mercouri. In those days Bert Kaempfert could scarcely have foreseen that his love theme Strangers In The Night would become an international Super-hit within an amazingly short time and that it would, to this day, take its place among those songs which have received the most awards. Bert Kaempfert’s publisher, Hal Fein, instinctively knew the true value of this song which he offered to Frank Sinatra, who immediately recorded it and thus made his great comeback. After only a few weeks, Frankieboy’s vocal and Bert Kaempfert’s orchestral versions took the charts by the storm and even ousted the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys from their places at the top of the international hit parade. In Germany alone Fremde in der Nacht was available contemporaneously in four different vocal versions, and in 1967 this composition was named the “Hit of the Year” by the German copyright society GEMA.

Over the years Bert Kaempfert not only received numerous gold discs for Strangers In The Night but was showered with other prizes, such as the “Golden Globe”. As recently as 1990 the evergreen was honored with a fourth “BMI Award”. The press commented: “Bert Kaempfert’s songs are still record-breakers! The American copyright society BMI has registered four million radio performances of Strangers In The Night, which constitutes non-stop broadcasting for 22.8 years!” But it is not only these two film melodies that are worth a mention. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Mexican Shuffle and Tijuana Taxi were also enormously successful; Bert Kaempfert’s Milica, also known as Sweet Maria, was also a huge hit, particularly in the USA; and finally his Two Can Live On Love Alone was chosen by the Anita Kerr Singers for their album entitled Bert Kaempfert Turns Us On. http://kaempfert.de/en/album/strangers-in-the-night/

Strangers In The Night

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