Ike Quebec - Bossa Nova Soul Samba

Styles: Saxophone Jazz, Latin Jazz
Year: 1996
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:10
Size: 106,6 MB
Art: Front

(3:10)  1. Loie
(3:01)  2. Lloro Tu Despedida
(5:41)  3. Goin' Home
(4:42)  4. Me 'N You
(3:42)  5. Liebestraum
(3:32)  6. Shu Shu
(5:15)  7. Blue Samba
(4:00)  8. Favela
(3:29)  9. Linda Flor
(3:33) 10. Loie - Alternate Take
(2:38) 11. Shu Shu - Alternate Take
(3:21) 12. Favela - Alternate Take

This is quite a painful disc to listen to. Not because of the music which is beautiful but because of the events surrounding it. Recorded in October 1962, it was to be tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec's final album. Less than four months later he died of lung cancer. This fact rather sticks in the mind like a house guest who has outstayed his or her welcome. Wistful, pretty and elegiac, the music is somehow a fitting final statement from a player best known for more muscular, extrovert, swing-to-bop balladeering. The wonder is that Quebec was able to create such lovely music when he must have known his end was near. But as session engineer Rudy Van Gelder says in the liner notes to this RVG remaster, "Ike always played beautifully, even at the end, when he was dying...I mean, literally dying." And it's true. Despite the circumstances surrounding it, Bossa Nova Soul Samba is an album of beauty. 1962, of course, was the year it seemed every jazzman was making a bossa nova album. Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz began the trend with Jazz Samba (Verve, 1962), made with guitarist Charlie Byrd and containing the chart hit "Desafinado." By the time Quebec was in the studio, even big-tone tenor maestro Coleman Hawkins was on board, with Desafinado (Impulse!, 1962). Next up were Sun Ra & The Solar Myth Arkestra with Sugar Loaf Mountain Bossa Party! (no, I made that up actually, but it might have been). By the end of the year, the genre was already in danger of becoming a cliché; not least for its reliance on the songwriting of Antonio Carlos Jobim, whose tunes dominated many track listings. But Quebec had the wit to ring the changes with the material for Bossa Nova Soul Samba he began his time with Blue Note, after all, as an A&R man. The tunes are the real thing, but little known; Brazilian composers are used, but not Jobim; and there are two originals by Quebec ("Blue Samba," "Me 'n' You"), who also, imaginatively, re-arranges Anton Dvorak's "Goin' Home." Bossa nova was well suited to Quebec's physical and, one imagines, mental states at the time of this recording. It requires no strutting or grandstanding, and lends itself instead to subtlety and ellipsis. The saxophonist plays with heartrending tenderness throughout, sensitively supported by guitarist Kenny Burrell, drummer Willie Bobo and bassist Wendell Marshall. If you already know Quebec's chef d'oeuvres The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions (Blue Note, 1959-62) and Blue And Sentimental (Blue Note, 1961), Bossa Nova Soul Samba will enhance your understanding of both, while also providing plenty of enjoyment in its own right. ~ Chris May https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bossa-nova-soul-samba-ike-quebec-blue-note-records-review-by-chris-may.php

Personnel: Ike Quebec: tenor saxophone; Kenny Burrell: guitar; Wendell Marshall: bass; Willie Bobo: drums; Garvin Masseaux: shekere.

Bossa Nova Soul Samba

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Della Reese - The Ultimate Della Reese

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2017
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:11
Size: 100,4 MB
Art: Front

(2:09)  1. Don't You Know
(4:23)  2. If Ever I Should Leave You
(1:56)  3. I Wanna Be Around
(1:36)  4. S'Wonderful
(2:26)  5. What Is There To Say
(5:03)  6. The Lamp Is Low / After The Lights Go Down Low / Fly Me To The Moon
(1:43)  7. I Could Have Danced All Night
(3:20)  8. Swing Low Sweet Chariot
(3:05)  9. I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
(2:11) 10. Put On A Happy Face / I Want To Be Happy
(2:25) 11. But Not For Me
(2:51) 12. Chicago
(4:26) 13. Misty
(2:16) 14. Tea For Two
(3:14) 15. Whatever Lola Wants

Renowned as both a television star and a top-flight interpreter of jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, and straight-ahead pop music, Della Reese's many talents ensured a long, varied, and legendary show biz career. In addition to being nominated for both an Emmy and a Grammy and receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Reese was also an ordained minister in the Universal Foundation for Better Living, an association of churches she helped found in the early '80s. Born Deloreese Patricia Early on July 6, 1931, the young Reese began singing in the Baptist church choir in her hometown of Detroit at age six. In 1945, having developed quite rapidly, she caught the ear of legendary gospel queen Mahalia Jackson, who invited Reese to join her touring choir; Reese did so for the next five summers. Upon entering Wayne State University to study psychology, Reese formed a women's gospel group, the Meditation Singers, but her college career was cut short by the death of her mother and her father's serious illness. Reese worked odd jobs to help support the rest of her family; she also continued to perform with the Meditation Singers and various other gospel groups. Encouraged by her pastor, Reese began singing in nightclubs in hopes of getting a singing career off the ground; recently married to a factory worker named Vermont Adolphus Bon Taliaferro, her name was too long to fit on marquees, and she eventually arrived at her performing alias by splitting up her first name. After impressing a New York agent, who promptly signed her, Reese moved to New York and joined the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra in 1953. 

A year later, she had a recording contract with Jubilee, for whom she scored hits like "And That Reminds Me," a 1957 million-seller. Switching to RCA Victor, Reese landed her biggest hit in 1959 with "Don't You Know?," a song adapted from Puccini's La Bohème; this cemented her career, leading not only to plentiful appearances on variety shows, but successful nightclub tours of the country and eventually nine years of performances in Las Vegas, as well as recording contracts with a variety of labels over the next few decades. Building on her previous variety show experience, Reese made a small bit of television history in 1969 when she became the first woman to guest-host The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Later that year, she became the first black woman to host her own variety show, the syndicated Della, which ran until 1970. Following its cancellation, Reese returned to her nightclub tours, often putting in guest appearances on television shows like The Mod Squad, Sanford and Son, and Chico and the Man; after three prior failed marriages, Reese also found a lasting relationship with producer Franklin Lett, whom she married in 1978. On October 3, 1980, while taping a song for The Tonight Show, Reese suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly proved fatal; however, thanks to a successful operation, she was able to make a full recovery. She kept up her singing career and appeared on television shows like Designing Women, L.A. Law, and Picket Fences, as well as the Eddie Murphy films Harlem Nights and The Distinguished Gentleman. Reese also starred in the Redd Foxx sitcom The Royal Family from 1991-1992, and garnered what was undoubtedly her highest level of recognition in the inspirational drama series Touched by an Angel, a quite popular program that ran for nine years, between 1994 and 2003, on the CBS network. After Touched by an Angel finished its run, Reese continued to act intermittently on television through to 2014. She died at her home in Encino, California in November 2017 at the age of 86. ~ Steve Huey https://www.allmusic.com/artist/della-reese-mn0000196544/biography

The Ultimate Della Reese

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Alan Pasqua, Peter Erskine, Dave Carpenter - Standards

Styles: Piano Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 68:30
Size: 158,9 MB
Art: Front

(9:05)  1. The Way You Look Tonight
(7:46)  2. Dear Old Stockholm
(6:10)  3. Deep in a Dream
(6:31)  4. Con Alma
(6:29)  5. It Never Entered My Mind
(6:26)  6. Speak Low
(7:26)  7. I'm Glad There Is You
(5:41)  8. I Hear Rhapsody
(6:03)  9. I'm Old Fashioned
(6:47) 10. I Could Have Danced All Night

Representing the other half of a two-release project from drummer Peter Erskine's Fuzzy Music label that also includes Worth The Wait (2008), with trumpeter Tim Hagans and the Norrbotten Big Band, Standards is exactly what the title implies a session of old standards with a couple of new acquaintances thrown in for good measure. In an attempt to come as close as possible to the sound produced in a concert experience, the recording was made in an acoustically live space and enhanced with two pair of KMF Audio Stereo Tube Microphones. Performed by a veteran trio that also features pianist Alan Pasqua and bassist Dave Carpenter, the music is rhythm-based light jazz taken from the Great American Song Book and played in a straight-ahead style that comes across with warmth and elegance. Opening with the Sinatra staple "The Way You Look Tonight, Pasqua leads the music with light touches on the keys, giving way to an extended solo by Carpenter and putting a new face on this old classic that composers Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields would not recognize. The Van Heusen/de Lange cushy ballad, "Deep In a Dream, features Erskine's soft brush strokes, which he employs many times throughout the recording. The drummer uses the cymbals and picks up the sticks for a rather interesting rendition of Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma that swings to a different rhythm and beat than the original, while Pasqua performs magnificently on a beautiful interpretation of "It Never Entered My Mind. The group goes on to play delicious versions of standards including "Speak Low, "I'm Old Fashioned and "I Could Have Danced All Night, but none of these match the intensity and energy conveyed by their performance of "I Hear a Rhapsody, clearly the best cut on the disc. Completing a two record release that stretches the range in performance from featuring new music with the big band sound to the limited voice of a small combo, Standards represents the other side of Erskine's musical personality with a repertoire of familiar tunes that jazz audiences will love. ~ Edward Blanco https://www.allaboutjazz.com/standards-peter-erskine-fuzzy-music-review-by-edward-blanco.php

Personnel: Alan Pasqua: piano; Dave Carpenter: bass; Peter Erskine: drums.

Standards

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