Friday, September 11, 2020

James Moody - Last Train From Overbrook

Styles: Saxophone e Flute Jazz
Year: 1959
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 28:16
Size: 65,9 MB
Art: Front

(3:05)  1. Last Train From Overbrook
(2:34)  2. Don't Worry 'Bout Me
(2:25)  3. Why Don't You
(3:31)  4. I'm Free aka What's New?
(1:43)  5. Tico Tico
(2:25)  6. There She Goes
(2:07)  7. All The Things You Are
(3:09)  8. Brother Yusef
(3:44)  9. Yvonne
(3:28) 10. The Moody One

A wonderful album from Moody  one of his "comeback" albums for Chess/Argo, recorded after his release from the Overbrook institution, hence the title. By this point, Moody was writing and playing with much more of an edge than during his bebop days and the record certainly shows that  not only on the title track "Last Train From Overbrook", a jumpy little number that became one of the big new tunes in Moody's book, but on the whole album, which features some well-conceived large charts written by Johnny Pate. Pate and Moody wrote the bulk of the songs, too and titles include "Yvonne", "Brother Yusef", "The Moody One", "There She Goes", "Tico Tico", and "Why Don't You". The album also features a great double-exposed cover photo, and some of the most chilling liner notes you'll ever read about a jazzman's struggles with addiction.  © 1996-2020, Dusty Groove, Inc. https://www.dustygroove.com/item/41999/James-Moody:Last-Train-From-Overbrook

Personnel: James Moody - tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, flute; Flip Ricard, Earl Turner, Sonny Cohn - trumpet; Ethel Merker - french horn on Last Train from Overbrook ; John Avant - trombone; Bill Atkins, Lenny Druss - alto saxophone; Vito Price, Sandy Mosse, Eddie Johnson - tenor saxophone; Pat Patrick - baritone saxophone; Junior Mance - piano; Floyd Morris - piano; Johnny Pate - bass; John Gray - guitar; Red Holt - drums

Last Train From Overbrook

Jon Hendricks - Before Us

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 80:06
Size: 185,9 MB
Art: Front

(4:56)  1. Out of the Past
(4:18)  2. Another Get Together
(2:51)  3. With Malice Towards None
(5:03)  4. The Shouter
(2:54)  5. Pretty Strange
(4:12)  6. If I Had My Share
(2:30)  7. Please Send Me Someone to Love
(3:33)  8. Saturday Night Fish Fry
(2:10)  9. That's Enough
(2:51) 10. Things Ain't What They Used to Be
(3:42) 11. A Good Git-Together
(4:24) 12. Contemporary Blues
(1:02) 13. Everything Started in the House of the Lord
(2:35) 14. Caravan
(2:35) 15. What Would You Do
(5:41) 16. Fast Livin' Blues
(2:23) 17. I'll Die Happy
(3:32) 18. I Don't Know What Kind of Blues I've Got
(2:22) 19. Social Call
(3:06) 20. Good Old Lady
(4:18) 21. Do You Call That a Buddy
(2:26) 22. Everything Started in the House of the Lord II
(3:31) 23. In a Mellow Tone
(3:02) 24. I'll Never Get Enough of You

Jon Hendricks, the pioneering jazz singer and lyricist with the vocal ensemble Lambert, Hendricks & Ross who helped create an inventive jazz vocal technique called “vocalese,” has died. Hendricks died Wednesday in New York City, his daughter, Aria Hendricks, said. He was 96. When Hendricks arrived on the jazz scene in the ’50s, his mastery of “vocalese”an expansion of scat singing had a powerful influence on the musical tenor of post-World War II bebop. The technique combined existing  usually recorded  instrumental jazz solos and newly written lyrics and often replaced instruments with vocalists. In Hendricks’ hands, the result was seen by his fans as rhythmic poetry. Although vocalese was a relatively new jazz art form, Hendricks quickly defined most of its significant elements in Lambert, Hendricks & Ross’ first recording, “Sing A Song of Basie,” based on such Count Basie classics like “It’s Sand, Man,” “Two For the Blues” and “Little Pony.” Not only did Hendricks create full band passages for the three singers to overdub, he also turned the solos of instrumentalists into vocal passages.

The album earned Lambert, Hendricks & Ross a Grammy nomination. Decades later it was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame award, given to musical recordings considered to have a lasting historical significance. Singer and pianist Carmen McRae called Hendricks “the greatest lyricist in the world” and Al Jarreau said he was “pound for pound the best jazz singer on the planet.” Joni Mitchell, who rarely recorded songs other than her own, featured Hendricks’ songs on both “Court and Spark” and “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” Mitchell said she fell in love with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross’ “The Hottest New Sound in Jazz” as a teenager. “In a way I’ve always considered that album to be my Beatles, because I learned every song off it,” she said. “I don’t think there’s another album that I know every song on, including my own!” Time magazine labeled Hendricks “the James Joyce of jazz” and Times jazz critic Leonard Feather called Hendricks “the poet laureate of jazz.” As Hendricks’ visibility grew, Duke Ellington chose him as the featured soloist in the premiere performance of Ellington’s first Sacred Music Concert, and his music guided groups like The Manhattan Transfer, New York Voices and Take 6.

Born Sept. 16, 1921, in Newark, Ohio, Hendricks and his 14 siblings bounced around before his parents finally settled in Toledo, Ohio.His musical talents were apparent at an early age, and Hendricks was singing on local radio shows by the time he was 7. As a teenager, he expressed ambitions to become a drummer. But opportunities to sing in the company of such major jazz artists as Fats Waller, Art Tatum and Ted Lewis convinced him that his instrument of choice should be his voice. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946, Hendricks returned to Ohio to study law and literature at the University of Toledo. His college funding fell through, however, and he fell back on his musical skills, playing drums and singing with local groups. When Charlie Parker heard him scat singing in a local club, the great bebop saxophonist praised Hendricks’ singing, and advised him to devote himself to music. Parker also urged Hendricks to move to New York, offering to help him make his first contacts in the New York City jazz community.

The introductions began to pay off in 1952 when Louis Jordan recorded Hendricks’ “I Want You to Be My Baby.” A year later, Hendricks recorded “Four Brothers” and “Cloudburst” with the Dave Lambert Singers, setting the stage for the foundation of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Hendricks formed the group in 1957, and the trio performed together until 1962, when Annie Ross left for a solo career and was replaced by singer Yolande Bavan. Hendricks and his family lived and performed in Europe between 1968 and 1973. When he returned to the U.S., Hendricks moved to San Francisco, where he wrote about jazz for the Chronicle newspaper and formed a group called the Hendricks Family with his wife, Judith, and children, Michelle and Eric. 

In 1985, Hendricks worked with the Manhattan Transfer on the recording of their album “Vocalese,” which won seven Grammy awards. Hendricks began to teach at the University of Toledo in 2000 and was eventually appointed distinguished professor of jazz studies and granted an honorary doctorate in performing arts. He is survived by a son, Jon; two daughters, Michele and Aria; and three grandchildren. https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jon-hendricks-snap-story.html

Before Us