Dizzy Gillespie - Have Trumpet, Will Excite!

Styles: Trumpet Jazz
Year: 1959
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:57
Size: 145,0 MB
Art: Front

(6:00)  1. My Heart Belongs to Daddy
(4:17)  2. My Man
(6:22)  3. Moonglow
(5:52)  4. St. Louis Blues
(6:21)  5. Woody 'n' You
(7:14)  6. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away)
(3:25)  7. There Is No Greater Love
(6:31)  8. I Found a Million Dollar Baby (In a Five and Ten Cent Store)
(3:21)  9. There Is No Greater Love (Alt 1)
(3:24) 10. There Is No Greater Love (Alt 2)
(3:24) 11. There Is No Greater Love (Alt 3)
(6:41) 12. I Found a Million Dollar Baby (In a Five and Ten Cent Store) (Alt)

It's easy and perhaps unfair to take any later jazz album by a trendy, "hot" trumpeter and compare it to a classic like Have Trumpet, Will Excite!. Critics and fans have been afforded the luxury of time to weed out half-efforts. Still, even without former knowledge of who Dizzy Gillespie is, Have Trumpet, Will Excite! separates itself from the crowd pretty quickly. The Latin up-tempo arrangement of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" thrusts the song into an entirely different realm. Junior Mance's piano kicks things of with a quirky, forceful rhythm, and after Gillespie's trumpet lays down the bare bones of the melody, it's pretty much forgotten. From there, the band takes off on a creative surge. The same is true of "My Man." A brave arrangement, kicked off by piano and outlined by trumpet, completely rewrites the piece. "Sure," Gillespie and the band, seem to say, "We can play old swing tunes, but wouldn't it be cool if we turned them inside out?" This approach, along with sharp solos, gives the material an exciting edge. Gillespie's solo on "St. Louis Blues" just soars, while Les Spann, who plays both flute and guitar on the album, follows him with a bristly guitar solo. Mance offers distinctive piano work that matches Gillespie's enthusiasm on tunes like "Woody 'N' You," while bassist Sam Jones and drummer Lex Humphries keep a high-octane rhythm in constant motion. Have Trumpet, Will Excite! more than measures up to its promise and stands as a cornerstone of Gillespie's '50s work. ~ Ronnie D.Lankford, Jr. https://www.allmusic.com/album/have-trumpet-will-excite%21-mw0000004877

Personnel:  Dizzy Gillespie - trumpet;  Junior Mance - piano;  Lex Humphries - drums;  Sam Jones - double bass;  Les Spann - guitar, flute;  Carlos "Patato" Valdes - conga

Have Trumpet, Will Excite!

---

Ella Fitzgerald - Misty Blue

Styles: Vocal
Year: 1968
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 29:29
Size: 69,7 MB
Art: Front

(2:29)  1. Misty Blue
(2:32)  2. Walking In The Sunshine
(3:03)  3. It's Only Love
(2:18)  4. Evil On Your Mind
(2:47)  5. I Taught Him Everything He Knows
(2:26)  6. Don't Let That Doorknob Hit You
(2:45)  7. Turn The World Around
(2:01)  8. The Chockin' Kind
(3:18)  9. Born To Lose
(2:51) 10. This Gun Don't Care
(2:55) 11. Don't Touch Me

"The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the finest female jazz singer of all time (although some may vote for Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday). Blessed with a beautiful voice and a wide range, Fitzgerald could outswing anyone, was a brilliant scat singer, and had near-perfect elocution; one could always understand the words she sang. The one fault was that, since she always sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the surface of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as "Love for Sale" sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career on a whole, there is simply no one else in her class. One could never guess from her singing that Ella Fitzgerald's early days were as grim as Billie Holiday's. Growing up in poverty, Fitzgerald was literally homeless for the year before she got her big break. In 1934, she appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, winning an amateur contest by singing "Judy" in the style of her idol, Connee Boswell. After a short stint with Tiny Bradshaw, Fitzgerald was brought to the attention of Chick Webb by Benny Carter (who was in the audience at the Apollo). Webb, who was not impressed by the 17-year-old's appearance, was reluctantly persuaded to let her sing with his orchestra on a one-nighter. She went over well and soon the drummer recognized her commercial potential. Starting in 1935, Fitzgerald began recording with Webb's Orchestra, and by 1937 over half of the band's selections featured her voice. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" became a huge hit in 1938 and "Undecided" soon followed. During this era, Fitzgerald was essentially a pop/swing singer who was best on ballads while her medium-tempo performances were generally juvenile novelties. She already had a beautiful voice but did not improvise or scat much; that would develop later.

On June 16, 1939, Chick Webb died. It was decided that Fitzgerald would front the orchestra even though she had little to do with the repertoire or hiring or firing the musicians. She retained her popularity and when she broke up the band in 1941 and went solo; it was not long before her Decca recordings contained more than their share of hits. She was teamed with the Ink Spots, Louis Jordan, and the Delta Rhythm Boys for some best-sellers, and in 1946 began working regularly for Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. Granz became her manager although it would be nearly a decade before he could get her on his label. A major change occurred in Fitzgerald's singing around this period. She toured with Dizzy Gillespie's big band, adopted bop as part of her style, and started including exciting scat-filled romps in her set. Her recordings of "Lady Be Good," "How High the Moon," and "Flying Home" during 1945-1947 became popular and her stature as a major jazz singer rose as a result. For a time (December 10, 1947-August 28, 1953) she was married to bassist Ray Brown and used his trio as a backup group. Fitzgerald's series of duets with pianist Ellis Larkins in 1950 (a 1954 encore with Larkins was a successful follow-up) found her interpreting George Gershwin songs, predating her upcoming Songbooks series.

After appearing in the film Pete Kelly's Blues in 1955, Fitzgerald signed with Norman Granz's Verve label and over the next few years she would record extensive Songbooks of the music of Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer. Although (with the exception of the Ellington sets) those were not her most jazz-oriented projects (Fitzgerald stuck mostly to the melody and was generally accompanied by string orchestras), the prestigious projects did a great deal to uplift her stature. At the peak of her powers around 1960, Fitzgerald's hilarious live version of "Mack the Knife" (in which she forgot the words and made up her own) from Ella in Berlin is a classic and virtually all of her Verve recordings are worth getting. Fitzgerald's Capitol and Reprise recordings of 1967-1970 are not on the same level as she attempted to "update" her singing by including pop songs such as "Sunny" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," sounding quite silly in the process. But Fitzgerald's later years were saved by Norman Granz's decision to form a new label, Pablo. Starting with a Santa Monica Civic concert in 1972 that is climaxed by Fitzgerald's incredible version of "C Jam Blues" (in which she trades off with and "battles" five classic jazzmen), Fitzgerald was showcased in jazz settings throughout the 1970s with the likes of Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, and Joe Pass, among others. 

Her voice began to fade during this era and by the 1980s her decline due to age was quite noticeable. Troubles with her eyes and heart knocked her out of action for periods of time, although her increasingly rare appearances found Fitzgerald still retaining her sense of swing and joyful style. By 1994, Ella Fitzgerald was in retirement and she passed away two years later, but she remains a household name and scores of her recordings are easily available on CD. ~ Scott Yanow https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/misty-blue/716587936

Misty Blue

---

Stan Getz - The Song Is You

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1969
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 60:33
Size: 139,7 MB
Art: Front

( 5:52)  1. The Song Is You
( 6:05)  2. O Grande Amor
( 3:24)  3. For Jane
( 7:51)  4. Dane's Chant
( 6:21)  5. Major General
( 5:12)  6. Folk Tune For Bass
(13:09)  7. Tonight I Shall Sleep - Desafinado
( 6:54)  8. All The Things You Are
( 3:44)  9. Summer Night
( 1:58) 10. One Note Samba

If any album by Stan Getz could be termed a sleeper, this one would be it. Released by producer Sonny Lester on his LRC label, and relatively unheralded due to distribution factors or sketchy information, this apparently is a summertime 1969 concert festival performance done somewhere in Italy. A scant few years away from teaming up with Chick Corea for the 1972 Captain Marvel date, this version of the Getz quartet is a dynamic coalition, including pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Miroslav Vitous, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, all young and extraordinarily individualistic modern jazzmen. Getz sounds as good as he ever did, retaining some of the bossa nova tunes that boosted his rise to super stardom while allowing room for his bandmembers to bring in their own compositions and provide them a solo spotlight. Cowell is especially bold and euphoric, whether by design or his personal will power, displaying immense taste and inventiveness that also served him well during his time as a leader on his pivotal 1969 Black Lion/Arista-Freedom date Traveling Man aka Blues for the Viet Cong. From the opening strains of the title track "The Song Is You," it's clear something special is happening, as an extrapolated intro fueled by Cowell's piano expands the theme before it is settled and stated by Getz. Never straying far from his stylized bossa nova, Getz does four songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim's, anchored by the thick and sinewy basslines of Vitous during "O Grade Amor" and "Summer Night," mixing and matching contrasting implied beats courtesy of DeJohnette, 27-years-old at this time but already defining his signature sound. The drummer also composed the short, sweet, and spontaneous ballad "For Jane," and the multi-directional "Major General," morphing from the pedal point bass of Vitous to swing and bop as tight as can be, the rhythm section charged with kinetic energy. Cowell wrote "Dane's Chant," in a loose-tight churning whirl of 6/8 time inserted in 4/4 similar to a Dizzy Gillespie theme. As this is a Getz led date, you get the expected smooth and rounded tenor which he had developed in the '60s. His quietude is rendered in freer moods for the jazz/bossa medley "Tonight I Shall Sleep/Desafinado," while completely and purposefully restrained on "All the Things You Are." Vitous, at age 22, plays an unaccompanied solo, at times obtuse or harmonically sour, but lithe, quick, and diverse during "Folk Tune for Bass," advanced far beyond his years. The two-minute finale "One Note Samba" features an unattributed vocalist singing in mixed English and Portuguese, sounding similar to Flora Purim, but perhaps an Italian friend of Getz. The Song Is You is a missing link between a less than successful teaming with Bill Evans, and the more modern quartet music Getz played thereafter with Corea, Jimmy Rowles, Joanne Brackeen, or Kenny Barron. It's a very worthwhile item to own if you search for it, well recorded and performed by a group that could collectively be the most purely talented of any you might find who ever backed up Stan Getz. ~ Michael G.Nastos https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-song-is-you-mw0000101272

Personnel:  Stan Getz - tenor saxophone;  Stanley Cowell - piano;  Miroslav Vitous - bass;  Jack DeJohnette - drums

The Song Is You

---

Gary Bartz Ntu Troop - Singerella: A Ghetto Fairy Tale

Styles: Clarinet And Saxophone Jazz

Year: 2010

File: MP3@320K/s

Time: 39:40

Size: 91,0 MB

Art: Front

(4:58)  1. St. Felix Street

(4:37)  2. Dozens (The Sounding Song)

(6:44)  3. I Don't Care

(3:01)  4. Blind Man

(6:25)  5. Singerella (A Ghetto Fairy Tale)

(6:15)  6. Lady Love

(4:12)  7. Mellow Yellow

(3:25)  8. Nation Time

Released in 1974, Singerella: A Ghetto Fairy Tale by Gary Bartz and his evolving Ntu Troop was a self-produced affair, and the first without vocalist Andy Bey. Bartz was exploring a CTI smooth groove aesthetic by this time, and was deeply invested in the funky side of jazz. He took a hard turn toward jazz-funk's smoother soul side here, an approach that was cemented in the final mix by Larry Mizell, who, along with his brother Fonce, would become his producers for the remainder of the 1970s. Bartz also changed his composition style for Singerella; these are, in large part, shorter, tighter, and feature quirky if readily accessible melodies. Some of these tracks yield fine improvisational moves despite their heavy reliance on funk vamps. This is true in particular of the opener, "St. Felix Street," and the bookend closer, "Nation Time." Other tracks, such as the humorous "The Dozens Song," the driving "I Don't Care" (with a generous touch of the lyric influence and hipster vocal phrasing of Ben Sidran), and "Mellow Yellow" (not the Donovan tune), offer a street-conscious aspect of the band's performance, while keeping the production on the slick side, featuring the infectious Fender Rhodes and keyboards laid down by Hubert Eaves, the razor-sharp guitar work of Hector Centeno, the cracking breaks of drummer Howard King, the tough in-the-pocket hand percussion of Kenneth Nash, and the punched-up accents of bassists James Benjamin and Maynard Parker. Bartz chose to handle the vocals on this set, and his off-key vocals did hurt him on both the title cut and "Lady Love" (these would have been stone killers sung by Bey or any more skilled singer), because their subtleties demand a more accurate pitch. That said, the music more than compensates, and Bartz's own alto, soprano, and clarinet chops are in top shape. This is a curious record, an experiment (and partnership with Mizell) that would take shape further on 1975's The Shadow Do! and culminate in the excellent Music Is My Sanctuary in 1977. ~ Thom Jurek https://www.allmusic.com/album/singerella-a-ghetto-fairy-tale-mw0000874926

Personnel: Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Jew's Harp [Mouth Harp], Synthesizer, Percussion, Vocals – Gary Bartz;  Drums – Howard King;  Electric Bass – James Benjamin;  Guitar – Hector Centeno (tracks: A3, B4), Maynard Parker;  Piano [Acoustic], Electric Piano, Clavinet – Hubert Eaves

Singerella: A Ghetto Fairy Tale

---

Eef Albers - Birds Of The Night

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 1996
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:04
Size: 138,7 MB
Art: Front

(10:27)  1. Bulgaria
( 6:26)  2. Witchcraft
(10:52)  3. The Dream
( 7:06)  4. Morning
( 6:38)  5. Birds Of The Night
( 9:12)  6. Rakajou
( 7:20)  7. Twilight

Dutch guitarist Eef Albers is an enigmatic genius, recognized among musical experts as one of the best improvising jazz fusion guitarists of Europe. Born 1951, he started 1972 a trio with John Lee and Gerry Brown, later expended with Daryl Thompson. In 1975 he released his first album ‘Blue Capricorn’. He also played with Rogier van Otterloo, Bo Stief, Frans Elsen, Peter Herbolzheimer, Metropole Orkest and the BBC Orchestra. Together with Philip Catherine, he was a member of Dutch Progrock group Focus, replacing Jan Akkerman. Combining elements of jazz, rock, blues, afro and classical music, Albers developed an unique, thrilling and highly recognizable style, which made him the most admired guitarist in The Netherlands of his days. He played with Kraan, Jasper van ‘t Hof, Ack van Rooyen, Bob Malch, Stanley Clarke, Toots Thielemans, Steve Smith and Simon Phillips. In the Netherlands Eef Albers often meets with Leo Janssen, Karel Boehlee, Arno van Nieuwenhuize, Thijs van Leer, Koos Wiltenburg and Stormvogel, the latter joining at his Festival de Muzen 2007 and later on in his epic jazzbarock project called ‘Atuatuca’. https://stormvogel.org/eef-albers/

Personnel:  Eef Albers: Guitar;  Christoph Erbstoesser: Keyboards;  Boudewijn Lucas: Bass;  Roy Dackus: Drums;  Bob Malach: Saxophone;  Ack Van Rooyen: Flugelhorn;  Ali Ndiaye Roser: Percussion

Birds Of The Night

---