Sunday, March 26, 2023

Rosario Giuliani, Pippo Matino, Benjamin Henocq - Trio Ostiko

Styles: Saxophone Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2009
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:34
Size: 95,6 MB
Art: Front


(5:04) 1. Footprints
(3:16) 2. Mimì
(4:25) 3. Special Day
(4:31) 4. Suite et poursuite (Part I)
(3:44) 5. Suite et poursuite (Part II)
(1:41) 6. Suite et poursuite (Bass Solo Interlude)
(3:03) 7. Suite et poursuite (Part III)
(3:26) 8. The Circle
(4:09) 9. Bass Song for Napoli
(3:57) 10. Coffe Shop
(4:14) 11. Essential Blues

Destiny in the name. Perhaps, surely, however, this is not the case with this Trio. At least that, for "ostiko" you don't want to pass off the antithesis of what is cheaply sold, marketed, in the current Italian or overseas musical panorama. In this sense, then, it is easy for us to welcome the "hostilities" feared by the title and name of the group. A trio that was born from a rib of Pippo Matino's Essential Team, when in 1995 it hosted the then young emerging talent Rosario Giuliani. Fourteen years of limbo during which the bassist from Portici has never shelved the idea of giving birth to an ad hoc project.

With the absolute complicity of Peppe Rosato, owner of the Alhambra Birrjazz, a venue in lower Lazio where Giuliani and Matino have performed several times and have been able to hone their weapons, enriched by the meeting with Benjamin Henocq, drummer, composer and arranger, already awarded the "D'jango d'Or" in 1998, the eponymous album was born. Eight songs in all, of which seven originals and only one dedicated to Wayne Shorter with Footprints at the opening, with an intense groove fueled by the up-tempo of Matino and Henocq who launch the solo brilliance of Giuliani's alto sax. The seven autograph songs are well divided.

Mimì is the signature of the saxophonist from Terracina, breezy, with broad and round sonorities, fast and biting, preceded by a long and pressing solo by Henocq, permeated with a dry urban language. The filmic traits of the French drummer's ballad Special Day maintain that New York imprinting, without falling into mainstream mannerisms, and it is sensual and enveloping. Suite et poursuite is articulated in three movements that put the casual instrumental technique of the musicians on a pedestal. From the robust rhythmic architecture the first, fast and vigorous. The jumble of forms leads towards the second movement, pervaded by a gentle halo but always poised with restlessness and which spills over into the solo bass interlude where Matino shows all his mastery of the instrument.

Accelerations, dizzying rhythms, a veritable magma of sound led by Giuliani's torrential phrasing dictate the timing of the third movement. The Circle has the seal of Henocq and its rhythmic tensions come to the surface mixing well with the voices of the group. Bass Song for Napoli and Essential Blues see the theme song by Pippo Matino. The first has a soft and cautious lyricism, with Giuliani careful to juxtapose the notes on the scaffolding of the sounds woven with skill by the Campania bassist.

The second draws on the repertoire dear to Matino, made of expressive intensity conferred by the dynamics of the sound and the power of the phrasing, corroborated by Henocq's robust drive. Coffee Shop is by Giuliani and crosses his sound universe, with sustained tempos and a sense of proportion. A work of excellent workmanship, thick and with a very robust overall system. Alceste Ayroldi for Jazzitalia..Translate By Google http://www.jazzitalia.net/recensioni/trioostiko.asp#.ZCBeINeZOpo

Personnel: Rosario Giuliani alto, soprano sax; Pippo Matino bass; Benjamin Henocq drums

Trio Ostiko

The Big 18 - Okay for My Baby

Size: 176,5 MB
Time: 77:05
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz: Big Band
Art: Front

01. Easy Does It (5:12)
02. Tuxedo Junction (4:29)
03. Hors D'oeuvre (4:39)
04. Blues On Parade (4:46)
05. Feet Draggin' Blues (5:31)
06. Okay For Baby (3:37)
07. The Campbells Are Swinging (3:48)
08. Parade Of The Milk Bottle Caps (3:50)
09. Five O'clock Drag (5:42)
10. March Of The Toys (3:45)
11. Skyliner (4:39)
12. I'm Prayin' Humble (2:56)
13. Summit Ridge Drive (4:15)
14. Swingtime In The Rockies (4:00)
15. Quaker City Jazz (2:27)
16. Ton O'rock Bump (5:26)
17. Liza (3:26)
18. Organ Grinder's Swing (4:29)

The Big 18 was a studio only big band assembled by RCA Victor Musical Director Fred Reynolds in 1958. Reynold's idea was to use some of the great songs and arrangements of the big band era while showcasing some of the star sidemen of the great bands by allowing ample time for extended solos. There were two releases by The Big 18. They were Live Echoes Of The Swinging Bands and More Live Echoes Of The Swinging Bands.

Hi-fi stereo was of course a post Swing era invention. Extended recorded solos were not a luxury arrangers and band-leaders during the Big Band era were afforded as 78RPM records allowed only about three minutes per side.

Under the leadership of George T. Simon the Jazztone record label in 1957 had already begun the process of grouping former Big Band era soloists in an all-star setting and recording them in hi-fi. While excellent, records like "Cootie And Rex In The Big Challenge" used primarily new material and a smaller group of ten musicians. In the same year, on Capitol, Glen Gray was recreating hits of the big band era in hi-fi with larger bands. The Gray / Capitol recordings are stiff by comparison and not nearly as exciting as the nineteen issued takes done by The Big Eighteen in the summer of 1958.

The solos, the expert arrangements written by Charles Shirley, and the incredible personnel line-up sets the RCA Big Eighteen recordings apart from most other post WWII big band alumni or all-star big band groupings. A veritable who's who of jazz and swing participated in the five recording sessions done between June 10th and July 15th, 1958. Not since the great Metronome All-Star dates during the Swing era was there a group of sidemen of this caliber assembled for recording purposes.

On the June 10th date Billy Butterfield (Shaw, Goodman); Buck Clayton (Basie); Charlie Shavers (Tommy Dorsey, John Kirby); and Rex Stewart (Ellington); are all playing trumpet. On bones we hear Lawrence Brown (Ellington); Vic Dickenson (Basie); Lou McGarity (Goodman); and Dickie Wells (Basie). Walt Levinsky (Tommy Dorsey) is on clarinet and alto; Hymie Schertzer (Goodman, Tommy Dorsey) plays alto; Sam Donahue (bandleader) and Boomie Richman (Teddy Powell, George Paxton) work tenor. Ernie Caceres (Glenn Miller) plays baritone sax.

The rhythm section for the first four sessions consists of Johnny Guarnieri (Shaw, Goodman) piano; Barry Galbraith (Thornhill, McIntyre) guitar; Milt Hinton (Cab Calloway) bass; and Jimmy Crawford (Jimmie Lunceford) on drums. Peanuts Hucko (Bradley, Spivak, Miller) was used on clarinet subbing for Levinsky on June 17th and Yank Lawson (Bob Crosby) subbed for Butterfield on trumpet for the July 8th and 15th dates. Levinsky was back in on clarrey for Hucko on July 8th and 15th. Changes to the rhythm section for 7-15 included Don Lamond (Woody Herman) on drums and Russ Saunders (Thornhill) on string bass.

Okay For My Baby 

Spanky & Our Gang - Greatest Hits

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 48:08
Size: 110.2 MB
Styles: Pop rock, Folk rock
Year: 1999
Art: Front

[2:56] 1. Sunday Will Never Be The Same
[2:33] 2. Makin' Every Minute Count
[4:58] 3. Brother, Can You Spare A Dime
[3:13] 4. Like To Get To Know You
[3:05] 5. Lazy Day
[3:06] 6. Prescription For The Blues
[3:49] 7. Sunday Mornin'
[4:01] 8. Stardust
[2:51] 9. Anything You Choose
[2:43] 10. And She's Mine
[3:43] 11. Yesterday's Rain
[2:31] 12. Without Rhyme Or Reason
[2:27] 13. For Lovin' Me
[3:13] 14. Everybody's Talkin'
[2:54] 15. Give A Damn

Digitally remastered by Suha Gur (Universal Music Studios, Edison, New Jersey). This 15-song compilation supplants a 12-song CD of the same name dating from the 1980s, which, in turn, was adapted from an LP from 1969. This time out, in addition to improving the sound somewhat, the producers have de-emphasized the cheerful, faux hippie pop sound of the group (though that is definitely represented) to show off some other sides of their output. All of the hits are here: "Sunday Will Never Be the Same," "Making Every Minute Count," "Lazy Day," "Sunday Morning" (in its hit version, not the interesting but bizarre outtake from the earlier hits collection), "Like to Get to Know You," "Give a Damn," "Yesterday's Rain," "And She's Mine," and "Anything You Choose." The real inspiration (and limitations) of this compilation lie in the other tracks, which include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" and "Prescription for the Blues," the latter featuring Little Brother Montgomery, who taught Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane the song originally, and their live version of "For Lovin' Me," which features a quote from Sergie Prokofiev's "Lt. Kije Suite." And isn't it amazing how that piece of music manifests itself here and there in popular music, in locales such as this and Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "I Believe in Father Christmas," among others?. On the down side, the producers have removed one gorgeous and playful number, "It Ain't Necessarily Bird Avenue" and "Three Ways From Tomorrow," the latter a brilliant showcase for guitarist/banjoman Lefty Baker and the closest thing to a heavy psychedelic guitar track that this group ever issued. One gets a broader overview of the group's sound, but one wishes that they could've seen fit to work at least those two songs in, if not the third "missing" track, "Commercial." ~ Bruce Eder

John Seiter (vocals, drums); Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane, Nigel Pickering (vocals); Kenny Hodges (guitar); Lefty Baker (banjo).

Greatest Hits

Cécile McLorin Salvant - Mélusine

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:16
Size: 104,3 MB
Art: Front

(5:26) 1. Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent ?
(5:58) 2. La route enchantée
(2:47) 3. Il m'a vue nue
(2:41) 4. Dites moi que je suis belle
(5:34) 5. Doudou
(2:20) 6. Petite musique terrienne
(1:03) 7. Aida
(3:13) 8. Mélusine
(0:58) 9. Wedo
(3:44) 10. D'un feu secret
(3:49) 11. Le temps est assassin
(5:18) 12. Fenestra
(0:44) 13. Domna N'Almucs
(1:33) 14. Dame Iseut

A serpent woman haunts Cecile McLorin Salvant's dreams on her boldly realized seventh album, 2023's Mélusine. Inspired by the European folktale most famously detailed by 14th century French writer Jean d'Arras, Mélusine tells the tale of a shapeshifting maiden, half-serpent/half-woman, whose righteous anger takes on ever-more dualistic meanings under Salvant's dynamic musical sway. Having been lavished with accolades, including several Grammy Awards for her clarion, swinging jazz and French chanson-infused albums, Salvant has increasingly leaned into the more stylistically experimental and personal aspects of her artistry.

It was an approach she took to new levels with 2022's Ghost Song, performing her poetic originals alongside unexpected covers of songs by Kate Bush and Sting. Centered on the title track, which she composed during the Ghost Song sessions, Mélusine is a gorgeously realized production. Although there are some English lyrics here, the album features the most French Salvant has sung on record. Thankfully, she offers translations of each song with a sentence that also highlights how each track illuminates the story.

The album also finds Salvant (who produced the album with Tom Korkidis) pulling together all of her disparate influences, from her moody cabaret jazz reading of Charles Trenet's "La Route Enchantee" to her playfully mischievous interpretation of the 14th century composition "Dites Moi Que Je Suis Belle," the latter of which is done in dancerly duet with djembe percussion master Weedie Braimah. Along with Braimah, she's joined throughout by several longtime associates including pianists Sullivan Fortner and Aaron Diehl, bassists Paul Sikivie and Luques Curtis, drummers Kyle Pool and Obed Calvaire, and saxophonist Godwin Louis.

Shifting the line-up track to track, Salvant offers inspired forays into '70s sci-fi-inspired Canadian musical theater ("Petite Musique Terrienne" from Starmania), the dramatic French pop of Veronique Sanson ("Le Temps est Assassin"), and an Afro-Latin take on 12th century troubadour Almuc Castelnau's "Dame Iseut" that Salvant sings in both Occitan and Haitian Creole, languages that underline her own rich dual heritage.

There's even a synthesizer-accented take on Michel Lambert's haunting 1660 air de coeur "D'un Feu Secret" that sounds like electronic composer Suzanne Ciani, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Modern Jazz Quartet giving a Baroque court performance. Her originals here are just as stylistically wide-ranging as she pulls together jazz and Haitian compas rhythms on "Doudou," accompanies herself on analog synth on "Wedo," and weaves a dreamy overlay of vocals and electric piano on "Aida."

It almost goes without saying that Salvant's voice is utterly sublime on Mélusine, rich with an earthy jazz warmth on one song and shimmering with a brightly attenuated operatic resonance on another. There's also a feeling that for her, the story of a half-serpent half-woman is in keeping with her life as a Black woman raised in Miami by a Haitian father and French mother. Whether it's with the themes of romantic heartbreak and bodily autonomy, or the global boundary-pushing musicality at play on Mélusine, Salvant's work is transcendent.By Matt Collar https://www.allmusic.com/album/melusine-mw0003926207

Mélusine