James Clay - I Let a Song to Out of My Heart

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1989
File: MP3@192K/s
Time: 68:09
Size: 97,1 MB
Art: Front

(5:46) 1. Things Ain't What They Used to Be
(8:24) 2. My Foolish Heart
(6:31) 3. Rain Check
(6:14) 4. The Very Thought of You
(6:58) 5. I Mean You
(5:07) 6. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
(7:20) 7. Just in Time
(7:12) 8. I Can't Get Started
(7:07) 9. John Paul Jones A.K.A. Trane's Blues
(7:25) 10. Body and Soul

James Clay, a thick-toned tenor saxophonist who knew Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry in the 1950s, recorded a bit near the end of the decade, spent ten years touring with Ray Charles, and then in the late '60s moved back to his native Texas. He was not heard from for quite some time, until he worked a bit with Don Cherry in 1988. In 1989 he led his first record date in 29 years and it is excellent, a fine straight-ahead quartet outing with pianist Cedar Walton, bassist David Williams, and drummer Billy Higgins. Although not flawless (there are occasional reed squeaks and a few brief wandering moments), this is one of James Clay's finest recordings. He is well featured on ten jazz standards including "Things Ain't What They Used to Be," "Raincheck," "I Mean You," and "Trane's Blues." Recommended.~Scott Yanowhttps://www.allmusic.com/album/i-let-a-song-go-out-of-my-heart-mw0000320510

I Let a Song to Out of My Heart

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Ron Carter, Jim Hall - Telephone

Styles: Jazz, Chamber Jazz
Year: 1985
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:38
Size: 104,8 MB
Art: Front

( 5:33) 1. Telephone
( 5:54) 2. Indian Summer
( 4:16) 3. Candlelight
( 6:57) 4. Chorale and Dance
(10:30) 5. Alone Together
( 7:45) 6. Stardust
( 4:39) 7. Two s Blues

The epitome of class and elegance, though not stuffy, Ron Carter has been a world class bassist and cellist since the '60s. He's among the greatest accompanists of all time, but has also done many albums exhibiting his prodigious technique. He's a brilliant rhythmic and melodic player, who uses everything in the bass and cello arsenal; walking lines, thick, full, prominent notes and tones, drones and strumming effects, and melody snippets. His bowed solos are almost as impressive as those done with his fingers. Carter has been featured in clothing, instrument, and pipe advertisements; he's close to being the bass equivalent of a Duke Ellington in his mix of musical and extra-musical interests. Carter's nearly as accomplished in classical music as jazz, and has performed with symphony orchestras all over the world. He's almost exclusively an acoustic player; he did play electric for a short time in the late '60s and early '70s, but hasn't used it in many, many years.

Carter began playing cello at ten. But when his family moved from Ferndale, MI, to Detroit, Carter ran into problems with racial stereotypes regarding the cello and switched to bass. He played in the Eastman School's Philharmonic Orchestra, and gained his degree in 1959. He moved to New York and played in Chico Hamilton's quintet with Eric Dolphy, while also enrolling at the Manhattan School of Music. Carter earned his master's degree in 1961. After Hamilton returned to the West Coast in 1960, Carter stayed in New York and played with Dolphy and Don Ellis, cutting his first records with them. He worked with Randy Weston and Thelonious Monk, while playing and recording with Jaki Byard in the early '60s. Carter also toured and recorded with Bobby Timmons' trio, and played with Cannonball Adderley. He joined Art Farmer's group for a short time in 1963, before he was tapped to become a member of Miles Davis' band.

Carter remained with Davis until 1968, appearing on every crucial mid-'60s recording and teaming with Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams to craft a new, freer rhythm section sound. The high-profile job led to the reputation that's seen Carter become possibly the most recorded bassist in jazz history. He's been heard on an unprecedented number of recordings; some sources claim 500, others have estimated it to be as many as 1,000. The list of people he's played with is simply too great to be accurately and completely cited. Carter's been a member of New York Jazz Sextet and New York Jazz Quartet, V.S.O.P. Tour, and Milestone Jazzstars, and was in one of the groups featured in the film Round Midnight in 1986.

He's led his own bands at various intervals since 1972, using a second bassist to keep time and establish harmony so he's free to provide solos. Carter even invented his own instrument, a piccolo bass. Carter's also contributed many arrangements and compositions to both his groups and other bands. He's done duo recordings with either Cedar Walton or Jim Hall. Carter's recorded for Embryo/Atlantic, CTI, Milestone, Timeless, EmArcy, Galaxy, Elektra, and Concord, eventually landing at Blue Note for LPs including 1997's The Bass and I, 1998's So What, and 1999's Orfeu. When Skies Are Grey surfaced in early 2001, followed a year later by Stardust, Carter's tribute to the late bassist Oscar Pettiford. In 2006 another tribute album was released, Dear Miles, dedicated to Miles Davis, also on Blue Note. https://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/artist/ron-carter

Personnel: Ron Carter - bass; Jim Hall – guitar

Telephone

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Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - First Flight To Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings

Styles: Jazz, Hard Bop
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 103:05
Size: 240,7 MB
Art: Front

(22:34) 1. Now's The Time
(13:32) 2. Moanin'
(11:44) 3. Blues March
( 0:32) 4. The Theme
(12:13) 5. Dat Dere
(13:28) 6. 'Round About Midnight
(17:15) 7. Now's The Time
(11:12) 8. A Night In Tunisia
( 0:30) 9. The Theme

There is a saying in the opera world which, though innocuous on the face of it, damns a work before the overture has begun let alone after the fat lady sings. The saying, beloved of breathless publicists deaf to its implication, is that such and such an opera is "rarely performed." The reason it is rarely performed, of course, is because nine times out of ten it is a dud. When it comes to jazz albums the parallel saying is "previously unreleased." Unless the recording has only recently been discovered to exist, five gets you ten that it, too, is a dud and the longer it has lain unreleased the greater that probability. First Flight To Tokyo is, Blue Note tells us, a "thrilling previously unreleased" live recording. Its subtitle, The Lost 1961 Recordings, suggests the tapes have not until recently been known to exist and that, as with the Dead Sea Scrolls, only decades of dedicated archaeological excavation have unearthed them. In fact, the tapes and their whereabouts have been known about for sixty years. One is minded, therefore, to arrange the following words into a well known phrase or saying: barrel, bottom, scrape.

Actually, First Flight To Tokyo is not that bad. It is certainly not a dud. But nor is it the masterpiece it will doubtless be dubbed by gullible reviewers who are perhaps unfamiliar with the genuinely great live albums in the Jazz Messengers' discography. It is, in fact, a solid album from one of the hardest working bands of its era and not without interest. But A Night At Birdland (Blue Note, 1954) or At The Café Bohemia (Blue Note, 1956) it is not. The alternate takes of Charlie Parker's "Now's The Time," one lasting 22:34, the other 17:15, suggest the band played two sets at Tokyo's Hibiya Public Hall on January 14, 1961. The tune had been in the band book since 1954 and is part of the aforementioned A Night At Birdland, along with Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night In Tunisia," which is also heard here. The Messengers' front line was then trumpeter Clifford Brown and alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, not First Flight To Tokyo's trumpeter Lee Morgan and tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The other Tokyo tunes pianist Bobby Timmons' "Moanin'" and "Dat Dere" and ex-Messenger tenor saxophonist Benny Golson's "Blues March" were more recent additions to the book. Nothing from Shorter, who is one of the two most interesting composers in the history of the Jazz Messengers (the other being Golson).

All these tunes get expansive going on raucous performances. The opening track is the longer of the two versions of "Now's The Time," and it is the most compelling performance on the 2xCD set, opening and closing with five minute solos from Blakey, sandwiching others by Shorter, Morgan and Timmons. Just shy of three years away from his defining hit, "The Sidewinder," Morgan is already post bop and across gospel infused hard bop. Shorter is still some distance from his nuanced mature style and attempts, on this track and the others, to follow Blakey's wish that every chorus should sound like the grand finale of the set. Throughout the album, Timmons is his own deeply funky self. The only track which does not quite convince is Thelonious Monk's "'Round About Midnight." Morgan is superb, but Blakey and the Messengers were better at belters than ballads, notwithstanding their gorgeous reading of Golson's "Whisper Not" on 1958 Paris Olympia (Blue Note).

Bottom line: First Flight To Tokyo is one for hardcore Jazz Messengers' aficionados, who will already know that this particular Messengers lineup is arguably heard at its best on two Blue Note studio albums also recorded in 1961, A Night In Tunisia and Roots And Herbs.~ Chris Mayhttps://www.allaboutjazz.com/first-flight-to-tokyo-the-lost-1961-recordings-art-blakey-and-the-jazz-messengers-blue-note-records__30509

Personnel: Art Blakey: drums; Wayne Shorter: saxophone; Lee Morgan: trumpet; Bobby Timmons: piano; Jymie Merritt: bass.

First Flight To Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings

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