Dave Liebman Trio - Monk's Mood

Styles: Saxophone Jazz 
Year: 1999
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:07
Size: 134,0 MB
Art: Front

(2:33)  1. Monk's Mood
(4:39)  2. Teo
(5:40)  3. Pannonica
(7:48)  4. Nutty
(5:14)  5. Reflections
(8:08)  6. Gallop's Gallop
(6:00)  7. Ugly Beauty
(5:46)  8. Monk's Dream
(5:19)  9. Introspection
(4:36) 10. Skippy
(2:18) 11. Monk's Mood II

It’s nice to hear Dave Liebman undo a few buttons and dig in with a trio session. Of late the sax icon has taken to larger ensembles and concept albums. The only concept here is Monk, and Liebman’s only guests are Eddie Gomez on bass and Adam Nussbaum on drums. Seldom played gems such as "Teo," "Gallop’s Gallop," "Introspection," and "Skippy" make this not just another Monk tribute. However, bookending the program with "Monk’s Mood" is not original Danilo Perez did the same on his 1996 Impulse release, Panamonk.  Liebman divides his time between tenor and soprano, playing the larger horn on five of the disc’s eleven tracks. His tenor work on "Nutty" and "Monk’s Dream" is especially hot. Listen for echoes of Sonny Rollins’s 1958 trio with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones. "Reflections," another tenor track, is played as a very slow ballad and finds Lieb sounding a bit like Joe Henderson. Nussbaum is at his most subtle on "Pannonica," and gives "Ugly Beauty," "Introspection," and "Teo" an interesting, almost funky twist. The best track award goes to "Skippy." Gomez and Liebman nail the boppish melody together and then Gomez is off and running. Liebman’s soprano foray is pointed and aggressive. When the melody returns, Gomez vocalizes along in his trademark fashion, which somehow turns the excitement up a notch. The disc closes on a mellower note, with Liebman playing not-half-bad piano on "Monk’s Mood" while Gomez handles the melody. In his liner notes Liebman candidly writes about seeing Monk live in the 60s. "I will admit," he says, "that the sameness of presentation, personnel, tempos and repertoire sometimes bored me." It was only later in life that Liebman fully began to appreciate Monk’s music. There’s something quite refreshing about Liebman’s ability to tell it to us straight. Tribute records can come across as impersonal exercises in obligatory reverence. Liebman instead lets us in on his aesthetic experience. He involves his audience in his own musical maturation process. And many of us will no doubt identify. We bullshit ourselves and others by claiming that we emerged from the musical womb already digging Duke and Coltrane and Dolphy and the rest. Much jazz is and should be an acquired taste. Liebman’s love for Monk came with time and effort, and the music on this disc is stronger for it. ~ David Adler https://www.allaboutjazz.com/monks-mood-dave-liebman-double-time-jazz-review-by-david-adler.php

Personnel:   Dave Liebman - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, arranger, producer, mixing, mastering;   Eddie Gómez - bass;  Adam Nussbaum - drums

Monk's Mood

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Shelby Lynne & Allison Moorer - Not Dark Yet

Styles: Vocal, Guitar
Year: 2017
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:18
Size: 86,2 MB
Art: Front

(2:52)  1. My List
(2:23)  2. Every Time You Leave
(4:19)  3. Not Dark Yet
(2:57)  4. I'm Looking For Blue Eyes
(2:54)  5. Lungs
(4:03)  6. The Color Of A Cloudy Day
(2:34)  7. Silver Wings
(4:47)  8. Into My Arms
(5:38)  9. Lithium
(4:46) 10. Is It Too Much

Despite singing together since they were old enough to talk, it took a lifetime for sisters Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer to record together. United by blood, growing up in the backwoods of Alabama and sharing an unspeakable tragedy they witnessed their father take their mother's life and then his own their coming together on Not Dark Yet was perhaps inevitable, but it wasn't easy. The pair did a celebrated tour together in 2010 and tried to write a collective album afterwards. They ended up abandoning that project, but not the desire to collaborate. With empathic producer Teddy Thompson and a cannily chosen cast of studio aces among them guitarist Doug Pettibone, keyboardist Benmont Tench, and steel guitar player Ben Peeler  they deliver nine cover songs chosen from the canons of rock, country, Americana, and pop before closing with a lone original.  Commencing with the Killers' "My List," they deliver a love song as if facing one another, using the blood ties of sibling union as a hymn of commitment. Tench's piano and the twinned guitars of Pettibone and Val McCallum add a lonesome gospel feel to the languid, steely longing in the lyric. Jessi Colter's "I'm Looking for Blue Eyes" and Merle Haggard's "Silver Wings" are delivered with an intimate familiarity, as if the emotional truth these songs carry were part of their shared DNA. Bob Dylan's title track, penned as a metaphorical elegy to humanity, is underscored here. When Lynne follows her sister's lead, the mournful lyric is stretched toward ghost land where mercurial notions of loss and grief wrap around one another and bleed hard truths. 

Townes Van Zandt's "Lungs" is as steely as the original, but is articulated here through the clear lenses of country gospel and blues extending its reach out of death. Nick Cave's "Into My Arms" is a rootsy paean to enduring, committed love, while Nirvana's "Lithium" is not altogether successful because it's delivered with too much reverence. The album's lone original, "Is It Too Much," emerges as a whisper from the ether. Its lyric question addresses the unspeakable plainly, but it's sung as if the sisters are squarely facing one another, each completing the other's thoughts and sentences. They cover each other's grief with grief, and offer shelter and respite from the outside world that cannot hope to understand with the grain in their voices. They acknowledge a pain that can never be assuaged, just accepted as a shared transformative burden as they embrace it and one another. These two walk and stumble through that dark night, leaning together as the lyrics pour down like a river of tears. The song's question may never be answered, but its utterance is enough to guarantee another step for each. Not Dark Yet is a beacon, a glimmer of the possible. It's a stark, beautiful recording that hopefully proves something to both Lynne and Moorer: That what's here is a new beginning and that there is much more to explore. ~ Thom Jurek https://www.allmusic.com/album/not-dark-yet-mw0003066831

Personnel:   Allison Moorer – lead vocals, harmony vocals, acoustic guitar, piano;  Shelby Lynne – lead vocals, harmony vocals, acoustic guitar;  Erik Deutsch – organ, piano;  Don Heffington – drums, percussion;  Michael Jerome – drums, percussion;  Val McCallum – acoustic guitar, electric guitar;   Ben Peeler – electric guitar, pedal steel guitar;   Doug Pettibone – acoustic guitar, electric guitar;  Taras Prodaniuk – bass;  Benmont Tench – keyboard, organ, piano, wurlitzer;  Teddy Thompson – producer, bass, drums, acoustic guitar, background vocals

Not Dark Yet

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Curtis Mayfield - Love Is The Place

Styles: Vocal And Guitar Jazz
Year: 1981
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:17
Size: 84,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:16)  1. She Don't Let Nobody (But Me)
(4:09)  2. Toot An'toot An'toot
(5:32)  3. Babydoll
(5:04)  4. Love Is The Place
(4:28)  5. Just Ease My Mind
(4:50)  6. You Mean Everything To Me
(3:38)  7. You Get All My Love
(4:16)  8. Come Free Your People

A CD reissue of an old Mayfield platter that didn't garner as much interest as some of his other solo releases, and for good reason: Mayfield was experimenting with his sound. After the first three songs nothing else really works until the last cut: "Come Free Your People," one of Mayfield's best albeit little-known message songs. The most engaging of the eight tunes are the reggae-influenced "She Don't Love Nobody Else," "Toot an' Toot an' Toot," and the lilting "Baby Doll."~ Andrew Hamilton https://www.allmusic.com/album/love-is-the-place-mw0000608697

Personnel:  Curtis Mayfield - vocals, guitar;  Fred Tackett, Michael Sembello - guitar;  Dennis Belfield - bass;  David Loeb - keyboards;  Paulinho Da Costa - percussion;  Carlos Vega - drums;  Efrain Toro - marimba, vibraphone;  Sam Small - Theremin;  Julia Tillman Waters, Luther Waters, Maxine Willard Waters, Oren Waters, Dino Fekaris - backing vocals;  Gene Page - string and horn arrangements

Love Is The Place

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Dave Valentin - Tropic Heat

Styles: Flute Jazz
Year: 1994
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 47:54
Size: 111,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:40)  1. My Favorite Things
(6:12)  2. Sweet Lips
(5:05)  3. Don Q
(6:10)  4. Danzon For My Father
(4:55)  5. Mr. Evil
(4:45)  6. Bello Amanecer
(6:15)  7. Sam's Groove
(4:01)  8. Tasty Mango
(5:48)  9. Sangria

Flutist Dave Valentin's 16th album for GRP is one of his best. His regular group (a quartet with pianist Bill O'Connell, bassist Lincoln Goines, and drummer Robbie Ameen) is augmented by two percussionists and an excellent seven-member horn section that consists of the reeds of Dick Oatts, Mario Rivera, and David Sanchez; trombonist Angel "Papo" Vasquez; and three trumpeters, including Charlie Sepulveda. All of the horns get their opportunities to solo and the result is a particularly strong Latin jazz session. Valentin continues to grow as a player and he cuts loose on several of these tracks. ~ Scott Yanow https://www.allmusic.com/album/tropic-heat-mw0000625229

Personnel: Dave Valentin - flute; Bill O'Connell - piano; Milton Cardona - congas, percussion; Mario Rivera - tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, vocals; Piro Rodriguez - trumpet;  Bernd Schoenhart - acoustic guitar;  David Sanchez - tenor saxophone;  Robby Ameen - drums;  Dick Oatts - alto & tenor saxophones

Tropic Heat

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Steve Turre - The Very Thought Of You

Styles: Trombone Jazz
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:51
Size: 137,5 MB
Art: Front

(5:17)  1. The Very Thought Of You
(6:15)  2. September In The Rain
(4:31)  3. No Regrets
(6:23)  4. Carolyn (In The Morning)
(6:05)  5. Never Let Me Go
(6:17)  6. Sachiko
(4:13)  7. Freedom Park, Sa
(3:29)  8. The Shadow Of Your Smile
(5:27)  9. Time Will Tell
(6:56) 10. Yardbird Suite
(3:51) 11. Danny Boy

The trombone is not always heard out in front of an ensemble. But in the hands of East Coast player (and longtime Saturday Night Live band member Steve Turre, with his caramel tone and rhythmic assurance, it’s the perfect vehicle for a set of ballads like The Very Thought of You. With a quartet including master pianist Kenny Barron, Turre doesn’t stay in one place stylistically. Some tempos inch upward, like “September in the Rain” and the Charlie Parker classic “Yardbird Suite” (the latter featuring tenor sax great George Coleman), while four tracks have full string accompaniment arranged by Marty Sheller. Turre’s originals include stark duets with guitarist Russell Malone (“No Regrets”) and drummer Willie Jones III (“Freedom Park, SA”). “Carolyn (In the Morning),” by trombone forebear J.J. Johnson, is another inspired choice, and the traditional “Danny Boy” makes for an ideal closer, with Turre’s plunger mute evoking wistful moods. ~ Editors' Notes https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/the-very-thought-of-you/1401033512

The Very Thought Of You

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