Kirk Knuffke & Mike Pride - The Exterminating Angel

Styles: Cornet Jazz
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 68:53
Size: 158,9 MB
Art: Front

( 9:55)  1. Appeasing the Geezer
( 2:09)  2. Goldie
(10:03)  3. Moritz
(12:10)  4. Exterminating Angel
(11:25)  5. Benstein
(23:09)  6. SUPERDIXON

Though he may have since betrayed this quote, King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew once declared that he didn't need to deviate from the guitar's standard tuning because he hadn't "yet explored everything it has to offer" (this was the mid '90s when guitarist chic demanded a drop of all strings into obscure tunings). While he does color his tone with all manner of effect-stretching, there is something admirable about the embrace of an instrument's idiosyncrasy in the potential sea of technical and musical abyss. Cornetist Kirk Knuffke and drummer Mike Pride demonstrate a conservative approach to orchestration, meaning they aren't hooked up to amps, or playing underwater, or manipulating anything with feedback, or using special gadgets to coax sounds. And, you know, there are only two people to carry out a complete musical experience. They're confident and trust in the honest power of working through the history of duo jazz music; if you think about that mythology (Monk and Coltrane, Ali and Coltrane) there is a lot to live up to. However, Knuffke and Pride are effective  not flashy storytellers, and with their ability to pull you in with calmness and space, they don't require the pyrotechnics often employed as competition with the masters. Though the duo does get busy and work up modest storms, meditative qualities are what you'll take away from The Exterminating Angel. Knuffke opens "Appeasing the Geezer" with a gentle (maybe gentler) purr like Miles Davis' "Sanctuary", almost sighing out his chiaroscuro melody where dots of pauses are imagined and fill in the blanks; really, the whole album nests in a (and this always sounds stupid) "what isn't being played" aesthetic where Knuffke and Pride play just the right amount of music to spur your imagination into hearing "that's where the bass player would be, a pianist would comp the chords here" etc. 

Pride joins with an equally soft series of wooden taps and drum rolls that emulate a Morse code message (it reads "here I come, let's rally a bit"). There are bits of bowed cymbal, jingling objects on drum heads and out-of-breath, top-of-your-range squeals peppered throughout (i.e. "Goldie", "The Exterminating Angel"), but the music largely floats on time: swing, hard bop and more free rhythms / polyrhythms, with Knuffke and Pride either uniting or refueling while the other stretches out to explore. This template continues with both men playing in the moment (Knuffke mentions in the liner notes that this is his first fully improvised record), showing why their agile, chameleon and balancing approach to style and each other has collectively fit with such disparate characters as Mary Halvorson, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Talibam!, Nels Cline, Nate Wooley, Anthony Braxton and William Parker. On the 23-minute showcase finale, "SUPERDIXON", the two play off one another, both appearing to be engaged in extended, personal solos that bisect without tangle periodically; Knuffke works his lean, composed ascension of pan-harmonic movement while Pride bounces between genres hinged on his ever-present internal pulse (that also keeps the listener toe tapping). At sixteen minutes, the drummer reaches the end of his bag of tricks and opens a new one filled with snatches of Latin-infused triplets, languid Rock, almost-ceremonial Native American traipses and occasional chimes and Chinese gong; near twenty minutes, and the twosome begins to fade out with Pride delicately striking deep tom tones as Knuffke literally seems to walk behind the microphones. It inspires a visual experience where you can picture machines slowly power-down to sleep after a 70-minute voyage. Per Knuffke, the original formula for the album involved a bass player, but "no one we wanted was available". Who knows how that would have shaped this album, but I can't imagine adding or subtracting from this successful test of musical economy. http://www.squidsear.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=1584

Personnel:  Kirk Knuffke - cornet; Mike Pride - drums, percussion

The Exterminating Angel

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Don Shirley - Don Shirley Solos

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2000
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:49
Size: 96,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:24)  1. It Could Happen To You
(2:25)  2. Laura
(4:39)  3. I'll Be Around
(2:36)  4. Bewitched
(3:31)  5. Something To Remember You By
(3:28)  6. Ill Wind
(3:28)  7. Little Girl Blue
(4:35)  8. I'm In The Mood For Love
(2:16)  9. This Is My Beloved
(3:44) 10. April In Paris
(2:27) 11. It Never Entered My Mind
(4:11) 12. Don't Worry 'Bout Me

Donald Walbridge Shirley (January 29, 1927 – April 6, 2013) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Donald Walbridge Shirley was born on January 29, 1927, in Pensacola, Florida, to Jamaican immigrants Stella Gertrude (née Young; 1903–1936) and Edwin S. Shirley (1885–1982). (Don Shirley's place of birth was sometimes given as Kingston, Jamaica, because promoters falsely advertised him as being Jamaican-born.) His father was an Episcopal priest. His mother, a teacher, died when Shirley was nine years old. Shirley's siblings were Dr. Calvin Shirley (1921–2012), Dr. Edwin Shirley, Jr. (1922–2006), Stella Lucille Shirley (1924–1926), and Maurice Shirley (b. 1937).  He also had a half-sister named Edwina Nalchawee (née Shirley) (b. circa 1955). He started to learn piano when he was two years old. At the age of nine, he was invited to study theory with Mittolovski at the Leningrad Conservatory of Music. He also studied with Conrad Bernier and Thaddeus Jones at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  Shirley earned a doctorate of Music, Psychology, and Liturgical Arts after temporarily giving up the piano.  He spoke eight languages fluently and was also a talented painter. In 1945, at the age of 18, he performed with the Boston Pops,  with Dean Dixon as guest conductor, playing the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor concerto. 

A year later Shirley performed one of his compositions with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He received an invitation from the Haitian government in 1949 to play at the Exposition International du Bi-Centenaire de Port-au-Prince, followed by a request from President Estimé and Archbishop Le Goise for a repeat performance the next week. Discouraged by the lack of opportunities for classical black musicians, Shirley abandoned the piano as a career while young. He studied psychology and began work in Chicago as a psychologist. There he returned to music. He was given a grant to study the relationship between music and juvenile crime, which had broken out in the postwar era of the early 1950s. Playing in a small club, he experimented with sound to determine how the audience responded. The audience was unaware of his experiments and that students had been planted to gauge their reactions. During the 1950s and 1960s, Shirley recorded many albums for Cadence Records, experimenting with jazz with a classical influence. His single "Water Boy" reached No. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 14 weeks. He performed in New York City at Basin Street East, where Duke Ellington heard him, and they started a friendship. At Arthur Fiedler's invitation, Shirley appeared with the Boston Pops in Chicago in June 1954. In 1955, he performed with the NBC Symphony at the premiere of Ellington's Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall. He also appeared on TV on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. In the fall of 1968, Shirley performed the Tchaikovsky concerto with the Detroit Symphony. He also worked with the Chicago Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra.[5] He wrote symphonies for the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. He played as soloist with the orchestra at Milan's La Scala opera house in a program dedicated to George Gershwin's music. Only two other pianists, Arthur Rubinstein and Sviatoslav Richter, have performed there as soloists. Shirley wrote organ symphonies, piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic tone poem based on the novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of "Variations" on the legend of Orpheus in the Underworld. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Shirley

Don Shirley Solos

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Billy Stritch - Billy Stritch Sings Mel Tormé

Styles: Vocal And Piano Jazz
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 55:02
Size: 127,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:14)  1. Just One Of Those Things - On Green Dolphin Street
(2:27)  2. Let's Take A Walk Around The Block
(2:32)  3. Lucky In Love - The Best Things In Life Are Free
(3:45)  4. Blue Moon
(4:36)  5. You're Driving Me Crazy
(3:10)  6. Shine On Your Shoes
(3:46)  7. Born To Be Blue
(2:22)  8. I'm Gonna Go Fishin'
(3:11)  9. Nobody Else But Me
(4:41) 10. Cottage For Sale
(2:23) 11. Sunday In New York
(4:25) 12. Breezin' Along WIth The Breeze - Live Alone And Like It
(4:18) 13. A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square
(2:46) 14. Lulu's Back In Town
(3:54) 15. Mountain Greenery
(2:25) 16. The Christmas Song

Billy Stritch is one of the premier singer-pianists on the New York and national jazz and cabaret scene. His current solo show is a tribute to the legendary Mel Tormé which has earned rave reviews from the New york music critics. Rex Reed of The Observer called it “an eclectic and thrilling set that is guaranteed to sent you into orbit” while The New York Times called it “a loving, carefully researched tribute from one singer to another.” Billy has appeared in cabaret venues across the nation as well as concert performances at the London Palladium, NHK Hall in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro’s Municipale Auditorium. In New York, he has performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and recently completed 688 performances as Oscar the rehearsal pianist in the Broadway revival of “42nd Street” which starred Christine Ebersole. It was in this production that Billy and Christine initially met, laying the groundwork for a happy and mutually rewarding musical collaboration. Their CD release “In Your Dreams” is available on Ghostlight Records. Billy is also a songwriter and arranger, and his composition “Does He Love You” was recorded by Reba McEntire and Linda Davis. The single reached the number one spot on the Billboard Country chart, winning a Grammy Award and selling over five million copies along the way. Billy has also written music for theater and for The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. He has arranged for many top performers and is a frequent collaborator with Liza Minnelli, having written the arrangements for “Minnelli On Minnelli at the Palace” and “Liza’s Christmas at Town Hall”. Billy has played and sung on numerous television shows including “The Rosie O’Donnell Show”, “Oprah”, “The CBS Morning Show” and “Today”. He has three CDs to his credit and his latest “Jazz Live”, recorded at The Jazz Standard in New York, was recently released on Fynsworth Alley Records. He is the winner of the Nashville Music City News Award, a BMI Song of the Year Award, and five awards from the Manhattan Association of Clubs and Cabarets including major male vocalist of 2007. https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/billystritch

Billy Stritch Sings Mel Tormé

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Shirley Horn - Do It Again

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2018
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 93:40
Size: 217,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:02)  1. After You've Gone
(2:59)  2. Do It Again
(3:14)  3. The Good Life
(2:14)  4. Something Happens to Me
(3:08)  5. Let Me Love You
(3:33)  6. Blue City
(3:43)  7. Wild Is the Wind
(2:50)  8. I'm in the Mood for Love
(3:16)  9. The Second Time Around
(2:27) 10. Loads of Love
(3:45) 11. Wouldn't It Be Loverly
(3:23) 12. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
(2:43) 13. My Future Just Passed
(2:05) 14. The Great City
(3:29) 15. Go Away Little Boy
(2:35) 16. That Old Black Magic
(3:08) 17. Only the Lonely
(3:04) 18. I Thought About You
(2:44) 19. There's a Boat That's Leavin' Soon for New York
(3:39) 20. God Bless the Child
(3:04) 21. Mack the Knife
(3:21) 22. If I Should Lose You
(2:52) 23. Who Am I
(2:17) 24. On the Street Where You Live
(3:53) 25. Love for Sale
(3:23) 26. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
(2:09) 27. Just in Time
(2:54) 28. Come Rain or Come Shine
(2:41) 29. That's No Joke
(3:20) 30. He Never Mentioned Love
(2:31) 31. Like Someone in Love

A superior ballad singer and a talented pianist, Shirley Horn put off potential success until finally becoming a major attraction while in her fifties. She studied piano from the age of four. After attending Howard University, Horn put together her first trio in 1954, and was encouraged in the early '60s by Miles Davis and Quincy Jones. She recorded three albums during 1963-1965 for Mercury and ABC/Paramount, but chose to stick around Washington, D.C., and raise a family instead of pursuing her career. In the early '80s, she began recording for SteepleChase, but Shirley Horn really had her breakthrough in 1987 when she started making records for Verve, an association that continued on records like 1998's I Remember Miles and 2001's You're My Thrill. Along the way she picked up many prestigious honors including seven Grammy nominations (and one win for Best Jazz Vocal Album with I Remember Miles), a 1996 induction into the Lionel Hampton Jazz Hall of Fame and France's the Academie Du Jazz's Prix Billie Holiday for her 1990 album Close Enough for Love. In 2001 Horn's health began to fail (she had her left foot amputated due to diabetes) and while it affected her piano playing, she continued to perform sporadically and recorded one final album for Verve, 2003's May the Music Never End. Horn passed away on October 20, 2005, due to complications from diabetes. ~ Scott Yanow https://www.allmusic.com/artist/shirley-horn-mn0000030925/biography

Do It Again

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