Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto - Night at Body and Soul

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 66:40
Size: 153,1 MB
Art: Front

(13:14)  1. Like Someone in Love
( 9:56)  2. Blue
( 6:19)  3. For Once in My Life
( 9:03)  4. Rhythem-A-Ning
( 7:56)  5. My Body, My Soul
(13:33)  6. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
( 6:35)  7. The Good Life

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto is a drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, and educator from Nagoya, Japan. He began playing drums in Japan as a teenager, excelling in rock, and funk. In college, he began to play Jazz and had many live performances with various big bands, small bands, and funk bands while continuing to play rock. His band released a CD on an independent label in March 2004, and toured in Japan around Tokyo and Osaka. He graduated from Nagoya University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biological Science in 2006.

In 2006 Tsuyoshi received a scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music where he majored in jazz composition and performance, winning the Louie Bellson Award, as well as a Berklee achievement-based scholarship. He graduated Magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Music in 2011.In 2011 Tsuyoshi moved to New York City to attend Rutgers University, where as a part of the Rutgers Jazz Ensemble, he had the honor of performing at the famous Blue Note in May 2013.

Since graduating with a Master of Music Degree in Jazz Studies from Rutgers, Tsuyoshi has been performing and teaching extensively in New York in the genres of jazz, fusion, salsa, and rock. Besides drum set, he also plays timbales, cajon, and djembe. http://www.tsuyoshiyamamoto.com/biography

Personnel: Piano – Tsuyoshi Yamamoto;  Bass – Tsutomu Okada; Drums – Winard Harper

Night at Body and Soul

Max Roach - Jazz In 3/4 Time

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 1957
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:41
Size: 100,6 MB
Art: Front

( 6:31)  1. Blues Waltz
(14:21)  2. Valse Hot
( 4:31)  3. I'll Take Romance
( 5:36)  4. Little Folks
( 5:35)  5. Lover
( 7:05)  6. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

At the time of its appearance in 1957, this album, currently part of the limited EmArcy reissue series, was considered somewhat revolutionary due to its all-waltz program. That's become a moot point after all of the triple-meter jazz material that would follow from "All Blues" to "Waltz for Debby" to "Someday My Prince Will Come." What makes this session essential listening is the masterful solo work, and not simply by Sonny Rollins. With Clifford Brown gone, trumpeter Kenny Dorham makes each of his turns, as usual, an adventure in melodic and rhythmic surprises, deliberately getting himself into trouble and always finding a way out. And whereas Rollins almost overcompensates for the absence of Brown, playing these tunes with broad and ballsy, aria-like bravado, Dorham takes the tunes inward, not afraid of the empty spaces where the poetry often resides, and in the process looking forward to a more subtle, implicit rhythmic approach to jazz waltzes, such as Freddy Hubbard's "Up Jumped Spring."

The enigmatic pianist Billy Wallace, who made this single auspicious recorded appearance then disappeared into various urban lounge scenes, is one of the few truly ambidextrous bop pianists. On the opening "Blues Waltz" his solo sounds like Monk playing counterpoint with himself; on his remaining solo spots his interdependent melodies and rapid, two-handed octaves are reminiscent of Phineas Newborn, Jr. Whether or not his saucy, copy-cat rejoinder to Dorham's complex solo on "Lover" was appreciated by its originator, Wallace can't help but impress the listener with his ear and quick instincts. He's a far stronger player than his predecessor, Richie Powell, who perished in the same car crash that took Brown's life. Besides the pop standards, Rollins' "Valse Hot" is a lovely composition, an extended 3/4 melodic equivalent of Brown's "Joy Spring." During each of his solos he clearly exudes a Viennese spirit, bringing to his deliberative, assured melodic constructions the singing bravura of a great tenor, legit or otherwise. It's a performance that clearly ranks with his work on the revered, almost contemporaneous Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2 (Blue Note, 1957).

Roach catches the lilting dancing spirit with heavily accented downbeats on his own "Little Folks, prompting both Rollins and Wallace to go for the gold on their solo turns. And for a change the relatively unfamiliar triple-meter holds down the tempos just sufficiently to allow Roach's bassist, George Morrow, to play some melodic lines during his solos. There seems little doubt that this is the best post-Clifford Brown, Roach-led session on record demonstrating that the fall of the drummer's ensembles from the visibility they once shared with Blakey's and Silver's groups cannot be entirely blamed on the loss of Clifford Brown (though nothing can detract from the luster of this musician's favorite). Consequently, as the only recording by this particular cast (there would be one sequel but without Billy Wallace), Jazz in 3/4 Time is a session that brings with its pleasures no small amount of regret about what might have been. ~ Samuel Chell https://www.allaboutjazz.com/jazz-in-3-4-time-max-roach-emarcy-review-by-samuel-chell.php

Personnel: Max Roach: drums; Kenny Dorham: trumpet; Sonny Rollins: tenor saxophone; Billy Wallace: piano; Ray Bryant: piano (on "The Most Beautiful Girl"); George Morrow: bass.

Jazz In 3/4 Time

Aziza Mustafa Zadeh Trio - Generations

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 59:57
Size: 139,3 MB
Art: Front

(3:38)  1. Mimi
(5:49)  2. Lullaby
(1:42)  3. Sieben Kreisel
(4:47)  4. Netter Junge
(3:40)  5. Despite All
(4:37)  6. September Ballade
(6:15)  7. New Baku
(2:48)  8. Theatre of Marionettes
(9:57)  9. Näje Sevim
(3:27) 10. Prélude
(9:38) 11. Concert No. 2
(3:35) 12. Native Landscape

Aziza Mustafa-Zadeh born in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. Yet despite a mysterious name that could be straight out of Arabian Nights, this pianist & singer does not regard herself as the exotic product of a distant land. Since she was born, music has been an integral part of her life. Aziza's Father - Vagif Mustafa-Zadeh (1940-1979) is a legendary founder of Mugam-Jazz, composer & pianist, who played an important role in making Jazz acceptable in Soviet Union. Her Mother Eliza Mustafa-Zadeh is trained and famous singer of traditional Azerbaijani music and has rarely left her daughter's side during the constant rise of fame within last decade. Aziza Mustafa-Zadeh's music is the natural, easy fusion of two fundamental elements: Jazz, the modern sound of freedom, and Mugam, the ancient music of wisdom and love. “The Rainbow has many colors. The Soul, too, has many different shades.” Unquestionably, these words can applied equally well to the Artist herself, and to the Way she views the world around her. https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/azizamustafazadeh

Generations