Paul Desmond - Pure Desmond

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1975
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:34
Size: 134,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:33) 1. Squeeze Me
(4:54) 2. I'm Old Fashioned
(4:22) 3. Nuages
(3:38) 4. Why Shouldn't I
(3:41) 5. Everything I Love
(4:30) 6. Warm Valley
(4:09) 7. Till The Clouds Roll By
(5:10) 8. Mean To Me
(3:04) 9. Theme From Mash
(6:21) 10. Wave
(4:47) 11. Nuages (Alt. Take)
(4:05) 12. Squeeze Me (Alt. Take)
(5:13) 13. Till The Clouds Roll By (Alt. Take)

With a dry tone, and unhurried phrasing definitive of the emergent West Coast Cool a relaxed alternative to the edgier hard bop coming from New York alto saxophonist Paul Desmond had already made a name for himself with pianist Dave Brubeck's quartet on the legendary Time Out (Columbia, 1959). Desmond also wrote the tune that became Brubeck's signature, "Take Five," and, while he passed away too young at the age of 52 from lung cancer, he's left behind a relatively small but significant legacy of recordings that have sometimes become overlooked with the passing of time.

Pure Desmond was only one of two albums the saxophonist made for CTI (though he did record two albums with Creed Taylor for A&M, before the producer started his own label), but it's the absolute winner of the two. A small group album featuring the same three bonus tracks as a previous CD version, with CTI Masterworks' warm remastering and beautiful mini-vinyl-like soft digipaks, it represents a welcome return to print of an album that, despite alcoholism and heavy smoking, finds Desmond in great form just three years before his death in 1977.

With label staple Ron Carter swinging comfortably with Modern Jazz Quartet and longtime Desmond musical cohort, drummer Connie Kay, Pure Desmond stands as one of the altoist's best records as cool as a calming breeze on a summer's day and as dry as a good martini. The album blend of standards ranging from Duke Ellington to Antonio Carlos Jobim also features the tremendously overlooked Ed Bickert, a Toronto, Canada native whose uncharacteristically warm-toned Fender Telecaster had already been heard in the company of fellow Canadians like flautist Moe Kaufman, and bandleaders Phil Nimmons and Rob McConnell, but whose star mysteriously never rose as it deserved, amongst peers like Joe Pass, Herb Ellis and, in particular, Jim Hall.

The tempo never gets past medium, but there's a simmering energy on some of the material, in particular the Jerome Kern chestnut, "Till the Clouds Roll By," heard here in two versions: the original album version, where Bickert's solo is the height of linear invention and occasionally bluesy bend; and a slightly longer alternate take where he builds a solo filled with rich voicings and single note phrases constantly accompanied with periodic chordal injections. The mix and overall tone of the alternate take is a little rawer, with Carter's bass a more visceral punch in the lower register.

Light Latin rhythms also define the session, with the by-then-popular "Theme from M*A*S*H" given a light bossa treatment, as is Jobim's "Wave," which closes the original album on a graceful note, but here acts as a gateway to alternate takes including the ambling opener, "Squeeze Me," and the Django Reinhardt classic, "Nuages," that skips the guitar/sax duo intro and heads straight into an ensemble reading.

With a supportive group that clearly gets the value of less over more, the aptly titled Pure Desmond stands, alongside The Paul Desmond Quartet Live (A&M/Horizon, 1975)his other album with Bickert as the pinnacle of this West Coast cool progenitor's career.
By John Kelman https://www.allaboutjazz.com/pure-desmond-paul-desmond-cti-masterworks-review-by-john-kelman

Personnel: Paul Desmond: alto saxophone; Ed Bickert: electric guitar; Ron Carter: bass; Connie Kay: drums; Don Sebesky: musical supervision.

Pure Desmond

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Judy Whitmore - Can't We Be Friends

Styles: Vocal, Piano
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:33
Size: 101,3 MB
Art: Front

(2:39) 1. Can't We Be Friends
(2:26) 2. I Could Write a Book
(4:34) 3. I Should Care
(3:49) 4. It Had To Be You
(4:44) 5. The Lies Of Handsome Men
(4:50) 6. How About You/Manhattan/ Autumn In New York
(3:16) 7. The Last Time I Saw Paris/The River Seine
(3:35) 8. S'Wonderful
(4:18) 9. My Favorite Year
(2:54) 10. Love Is Here To Stay
(3:12) 11. I Get Along Without You Very Well
(3:11) 12. Two For The Road

Judy Whitmore, a true modern-day Renaissance woman, heeds the call of the stage, the sky, and beyond. Her life as a vocal artist and writer has taken off, and the sky is the limit. The best-selling author, vocalist, theater producer and pilot, who also holds a Master’s Degree in clinical psychology, approaches all her endeavors with style and spirit. “When you walk alone to the center of the stage, it’s similar to flying,” she observes. “It’s exciting and it’s terrifying at the same time. You step up to the microphone, glance at your musical director, and it’s like hearing the guy in the control tower say ‘cleared for take-off,’ and somehow, you just soar.”

Named after the legendary singer Judy Garland (a friend of her grandfather from his days in the MGM Studio Orchestra), Judy was born in New York City and raised in Studio City, California. Her parents’ passion for the symphony and musical theater fueled her desire for a career in music. Her first foray as a vocal artist and performer began during college when she sang background vocals for Capitol Records in Hollywood. Although she expected to continue on this road, her journey took unexpected and often unbelievable detours.

Marrying young, she and her husband settled in Beverly Hills and had two children. Before long they were embarking on a new adventure that took them away from the glitz and glamour of that storied city. Wanting to raise their children in a more rural environment, they packed up the family and moved to the Rocky Mountain paradise of Aspen, Colorado. There, Judy learned to ski, can peaches, and saddle a horse. She maintained her love of theater, serving as president of both the Aspen Playwright’s Conference and the American Theatre Company, where under her presidency, ATC produced plays that featured Hal Holbrook, Vincent Price, and John Travolta.

It was also in Aspen Judy befriended her closest neighbors, Annie and John Denver. John coaxed her to confront her fear of flying and invited her to board his private plane, Windstar One. The experience was so powerful that it wasn’t long before Judy began to pursue and earn her pilot’s license. She eventually became a licensed commercial jet pilot and worked search-and-rescue missions for Pitkin County (Aspen) Air Rescue. She later flew seaplanes, and took up hot-air ballooning. (Listen to Judy describe her confrontation with the fear of flying and her transformation on Tim Benjamin’s “Fear of Flying” podcast.)

Lured back to Los Angeles and the stage, Judy undertook her first independent theater project as the producer of “Taking a Chance on Love” which received a rave review in Variety. From there, she headed to London to co-produce Leonard Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town,” then returned to Southern California where she met the man who would become her second husband. After settling in Pacific Palisades, Judy craved a new life experience. She went back to college, earned a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology, and opened a private practice in West Los Angeles.

In due course, it was time for yet another new and exciting move. Judy headed to Newport Beach and enrolled in a series of writing courses at UC Irvine. Her romantic-adventure Come Fly with Me, inspired by her own life as a pilot and penned in 2013, topped the Amazon Kindle Bestseller List. She was recognized with “First Place for Women’s Fiction” at The Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference and the “Editor’s Choice Award” at the San Diego State University’s Writer’s Conference. Other literary credits include All Time Favorites: Recipes From Family and Friends and an illustrated retelling of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.

Her passion for performing would never be too far out of sight. In 2014, she co-founded ACT THREE with her brother Billy and her neighbor Lynn. The trio brought timeless standards to life at legendary venues including The Ritz Hotel in Paris and both the Metropolitan Room and Carnegie Hall in New York. Once Upon a Dream, the award-winning documentary film, chronicled the trio’s journey to Carnegie Hall.

“I always wanted to sing full-time, but it was never possible. I had to pack my dream of a musical career away in an imaginary box. I tucked it on the highest shelf in my closet and tried to forget about it. I loved being a pilot, and a therapist, and a theater producer, and a writer. I had done all these exciting things, and none of it was easy. But I always felt something was missing,” she admits. “I knew it was time to get that box of dreams out of the closet, cast off the lid and embrace the music career I had always wanted.”

In 2018 Judy ventured onto the stage alone with her show-stopping, cabaret-style vocal act. She’s garnered critical praise from The OC Register and Los Angeles Times who observed “[she] has a bit of a Judy Holliday comedic edge” and “tackled some tough ballads with style.” Her repertoire is diverse, extending from the great American standards to Broadway and jazz. Coming full circle, she seized the moment and returned to Capitol Studios to cut her new album, Can’t We Be Friends, alongside collaborators John Sawoski and GRAMMY® and Emmy Award-winning composer Michael Patterson. Together, they have created a love letter to The Great American Songbook. “This is the music I grew up with, and I don’t want people to forget it. I think it’s one of the most extraordinary bodies of work every created.” Judy currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Pacific Symphony. There’s no end in sight to her adventures.https://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/artist/judy-whitmore

Can't We Be Friends

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Ben Goldberg - Everything Happens to Be

Styles: Clarinet Jazz
Year: 2021
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:50
Size: 133,6 MB
Art: Front

(5:41) 1. What About
(6:14) 2. 21
(4:48) 3. Fred Hampton
(7:04) 4. Everything Happens To Be
(6:23) 5. Cold Weather
(9:53) 6. Chorale Type
(5:51) 7. Tomas Plays the Drums
(5:10) 8. Long Last Moment
(5:32) 9. To-Ron-To
(1:10) 10. Abide With Me

The music of Ben Goldberg seems to come from a place outside of time—or maybe it comes from several times simultaneously. Maybe it's the instruments he chooses; while the clarinet family has been on the comeback trail in jazz for a quarter century, it's a sound that invariably invokes the New Orleans of a century ago. That's especially true when Goldberg picks up the mellow, woody, Albert-system E-flat instrument on "Cold Weather." That tune's sweet melancholy wobbles perilously close to Hoagy Carmichael, but by way of "Pannonica" by Thelonious Monk, another composer who had a soft spot for sentimental old tunes.

If you're interested in a nostalgia trip, you don't choose guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tomas Fujiwara to be your traveling companions, and the tension they create between the retrogressive and the transgressive gives Everything Happens To Be. a low-key charge. On paper, Goldberg is following in the great tradition of hiring the All-Star rhythm section of the moment. They are certainly that and as the cooperative Thumbscrew, also one of the formidable bands of the last decade. But Everything Happens To Be. isn't a Thumbscrew+horns date.

Goldberg has worked with Halvorson and Fujiwara as The Out Louds, and with Formanek in a variety of settings. Tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin is a long-time Goldberg collaborator who shares the leader's affection for putting new wine in old bottles. His big tenor sound, slippery but warm, hearkens back to players such as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Gene Ammons and fits right in on the almost-vaudevillian bounce of tunes such as "21" and "To-Ron-To." If you've always wanted to hear Halvorson strum four-to-the-bar, Freddie Green-style, cue the latter, which seems to be based loosely on "Sweet Georgia Brown." It ends in a collective, New-Orleanean tangle that resolves into something like a 21st-century updating of the Benny Goodman Sextet with Charlie Christian and Georgie Auld. It takes iron control to play this loose.

But then there are knottier compositions such as "Fred Hampton," a lilting, 6/4 tune where Halvorson spins a songful line only to smudge it with a pedal effect, as if to say let's not make this too pretty. Yet beauty is never far away on Everything Happens To Be., though it seldom arrives in conventional fashion. Take "Chorale Type," which starts in church and detours to a middle-school gym where Goldberg and Halvorson circle each other warily like seventh graders at their first dance. The almost 10-minute cut ends in the mosh pit with Goldberg getting his metal on via a stomping bass line on contra-alto clarinet over Fujiwara's slamming 4/4. The exception is another chorale, "Abide With Me" which, inspired by Monk's 1957 septet version, is played straight in a single reverent chorus.

Though this session was recorded at New Haven's Firehouse 12 in 2018, that hymn tune is a perfect way to and a session that feels old and sounds fresh, that is joyful and melancholy. Just like life. By John Chacona
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/everything-happens-to-be-ben-goldberg-bag-production

Personnel: Ben Goldberg: clarinet; Mary Halvorson: guitar; Ellery Eskelin: saxophone; Michael Formanek: bass, acoustic; Tomas Fujiwara: drums.

Everything Happens to Be

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John Escreet - Seismic Shift

Styles: Piano Jazz
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:54
Size: 119,8 MB
Art: Front

(6:46) 1. Study No.1
(5:51) 2. Equipoise
(6:45) 3. Outward and Upward
(5:26) 4. RD
(6:15) 5. Perpetual Love
(4:31) 6. Digital Tulips
(6:25) 7. Seismic Shift
(1:41) 8. Quick Reset
(8:09) 9. The Water Is Tasting Worse

John Escreet's recording Seismic Shift, the pianist's first trio recording, might be the case for the return of warning labels on packaging. Not that there are explicit lyrics or violent images, it is just that the 52 minutes of music contained here are quite tempestuous and unrelenting. By design.

Escreet is known for his wide-ranging interests in creative music. He has recorded in both the acoustic and electric realms, performing on instruments including the harpsichord, synthesizers, Fender Rhodes piano, and with adventurous musicians such as Evan Parker, Wayne Krantz, and Antonio Sanchez. Maybe the finest testimonial to his prowess are the musicians who have accompanied his project. They have included the bassists John Hébert, Matt Brewer, Eivind Opsvik and drummers Tyshawn Sorey, Eric Harland, Nasheet Waits, Jim Black, and Marcus Gilmore.

With Seismic Shift, add to that esteemed list bassist Eric Revis and drummer Damion Reid, whom Escreet assembled in Los Angeles during the pandemic. Maybe it was the oppressiveness of isolation and the exhilaration of finally performing together that makes this session sound as if it were a pressure release; "Study No. 1" sprints from the gate with a torrent of sound, Escreet plying a two-handed attack part Cecil Taylor and part Alexander von Schlippenbach. The pianist's pugnacity is equaled by both Reid's drumming and Revis' pulse.

These musicians are like three wrestlers, entangled and tangling by design. Escreet penned "RD" (Revis/Damion) for this bandmates. It progresses from a repeated pattern into an open structure with cascades of notes and energy detonations. Escreet plays off the agilities of this trio with their turn-on-a-dime skills. They can sprint through a composition like "Digital Tulips" with its changing time patterns, or gently stroke the face of the one cover piece here, Stanley Cowell's "Equipoise." Escreet, Revis, and Reid deliver two fully improvised pieces "Outward And Upward" and "Quick Reset." Both tracks maintain an internal logic consistent with Escreet's composed music. In other words, these three musicians are one tight working team and that makes for a stellar recording.
By Mark Corroto https://www.allaboutjazz.com/seismic-shift-john-escreet-whirlwind-recordings

Personnel: John Escreet: piano; Eric Revis: bass; Damion Reid: drums.

Seismic Shift

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