Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Bud Powell - Bouncing With Bud

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1962
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:30
Size: 97,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:16) 1. Rifftide
(6:00) 2. Bouncing With Bud
(4:59) 3. Move
(6:00) 4. The Best Thing for You
(6:45) 5. Straight, No Chaser
(6:16) 6. I Remember Clifford
(5:49) 7. Hot House
(2:22) 8. 52nd Street Theme

This album has cropped up in various guises over the years. Most recently it was part of Storyville's In Copenhagen series." It's back, as part of the same label's Remastered Vinyl collection.

Powell was one of the most talented yet tragic artists in jazz history, a giant of the bebop era who translated Charlie Parker's harmonic ideas onto the piano, but whose life was blighted by mental illness, exacerbated by alcohol and drug use.

At the end of the 1950s he moved to Paris with Buttercup, an American woman who may or may not have been his wife. According to Francis Paudras, a jazz fan who befriended Powell and wrote about his life in the French capital in Dance Of The Infidels (Da Capo Press, 1998), Buttercup kept Powell sedated and took most of the money he made.

During this unhappy time, Powell visited Scandinavia, where on April 26 1962 he cut Bouncing With Bud in Copenhagen for the now defunct Sonet label. The bassist on the session was Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen, only 15 years old.

Relieved of domestic misery, Powell delved joyously into the past for his repertoire, kicking off with "Rifftide," a medium tempo bop number based on the chords of "Lady Be Good."

It's followed by "Bouncing With Bud," one of his most successful compositions. It no doubt brought back happy memories of the classic 1949 recording he made of the tune with the legendary Fats Navarro on trumpet and Sonny Rollins on tenor.

Then there's Denzil Best's "Move," recalling a 1950 session with Charlie Parker. Later Bird refused to play with Powell, telling people, "He's crazier than I am."

There are two songs by his friend Thelonious Monk, the blues-based "Straight No Chaser" and "52nd Street Theme," which Powell sometimes used as a signature tune, recording it with Kenny Clarke in 1946 and with his own quintet in 1949.

Francis Paudras wrote of Powell: "Emotion flowed out of him. There are different kinds of emotion: there is the easy, superficial kind, and there is another kind, that doesn't make you laugh or cry, that doesn't make you feel anything but a sense of perfection. That's what I felt with Bud." It can be felt here, if you listen carefully. By Chris Mosey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bouncing-with-bud-bud-powell-storyville-records-review-by-chris-mosey

Personnel: Bud Powell: piano; Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen: bass; William Schiøpffe: drums.

Bouncing With Bud

Buster Williams - Ain't Misbehavin'

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:41
Size: 106.9 MB
Styles: Bop
Year: 2010
Art: Front

[6:24] 1. Ain't Misbehavin'
[8:27] 2. When The Sky Is Clear
[7:06] 3. Dreams Come True
[9:29] 4. So Falls The Past
[6:34] 5. Betcha By Golly Wow
[8:38] 6. Seascape

One of jazz's most valuable sidemen, Buster Williams has flourished through many periods of changing fashions in jazz. Best known since the 1980s for his solid, dark tone and highly refined technique on the acoustic bass, the jazz-rock generation knew him as the mobile anchor of Herbie Hancock's exploratory Mwandishi Sextet from 1969 to 1973, doubling on acoustic and electric basses sometimes attached to electronic effects devices.

Williams learned both the double bass and the drums from his father, but having been enormously impressed by Oscar Pettiford's recordings, he ultimately decided to concentrate on the bass. After studying theory and composition at Philadelphia's Combs College of Music in 1959, Williams joined Jimmy Heath's unit the following year and played with Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt in 1960 and 1961, as well as behind singers Dakota Staton (1961-1962), Betty Carter (1962-1963), Sarah Vaughan (1963), and Nancy Wilson (1964-1968). The gig with Wilson prompted a move to Los Angeles, where the Jazz Crusaders used him for concert dates and recordings from 1967 to 1969, and he also played briefly with Miles Davis in 1967 and the Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land quintet. Moving to New York in 1969, Williams joined Hancock's sextet, appearing on all of his Warner Bros. albums, as well as The Prisoner (Blue Note), Sextant (Columbia) and with trumpeter Eddie Henderson's spinoff group on Capricorn and Blue Note. Over a five-year period (1976-1981), Williams led numerous recording sessions for Muse, Denon, and Buddah while continuing to freelance before, during, and after that span. In the '80s, he was a member of both the Timeless All-Stars and Sphere, writing a number of compositions for the latter. Among the musicians for whom he has played from the '80s onward are Kenny Barron, Frank Morgan, Stanley Cowell, Steve Turre, Emily Remler, and Larry Coryell. ~bio by Richard S. Ginnell

Ain't Misbehavin'

Eddie Calvert - Easy

Styles: Trumpet Jazz
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 31:07
Size: 71,8 MB
Art: Front

(2:24) 1. Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
(2:52) 2. Easy To Love
(2:21) 3. Falling In Love With Love
(2:52) 4. A Little Love, A Little Kiss
(2:25) 5. Love Is The Sweetest Thing
(2:37) 6. The Man I Love
(2:45) 7. Oh Mein Papa
(2:23) 8. One Night Of Love
(2:18) 9. Taking A Chance On Love
(2:19) 10. What Is This Thing Called Love?
(2:18) 11. Why Do I Love You?
(3:28) 12. My Yiddishe Mame

Eddie Calvert, known as the man with the golden trumpet, was born in Preston, Lancashire on the 15th March 1922 as Albert Edward Calvert. As a child he was exposed to his family's love of brass band music and he learned to play many brass instruments but concentrated on the trumpet. He joined the Preston Town Silver Band at the age of 11 but the war interrupted his musical career and by the late 1940s he returned to play in various amateur brass bands, eventually moving to the professional circuit with the dance bands Geraldo and Billy Ternet.

Going solo, he appeared on TV with the Stanley Black Orchestra. He signed to the Columbia label, part of the EMI group and released an instrumental trumpet version of the German song Oh Mein Papa which had most famously been covered in English as Oh My Papa by Eddie Fisher. Calvert's instrumental easily won the chart battle in the UK and it remained at no.1 for nine weeks at the beginning of 1954.

Over a year later he was involved in another chart battle for supremacy with the song Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White and this time it was much closer with both his and a very similar trumpet version by Perez Prado reaching no.1 in the Spring of 1955. Several other hits followed including a version of Stranger In Paradise, John And Julie and Mandy, while Little Serenade was his final hit in June 1958.

When the 1960s provided no change of fortune, Calvert moved away to settle in South Africa where he lived out the remainder of his life, dying on the 7th of August 1978. By Sharon Mawer
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-calvert-mn0000793645

Easy

Mary Foster Conklin - These Precious Days

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 47:31
Size: 109,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:18) 1. Summertime
(4:05) 2. Some Cats Know
(4:11) 3. Just A Little Lovin'
(5:19) 4. Come In From The Rain
(5:38) 5. Scars
(4:27) 6. Just For Now
(3:59) 7. A Little White Ship
(3:50) 8. Heart's Desire
(3:31) 9. Rainbow
(4:31) 10. Until It's Time For You To Go
(4:36) 11. September Song

Mary Foster Conklin is a New York-based singer with an eclectic approach to the choices she makes in deciding upon a repetoire for her fifth release, These Precious Days. Unafraid to step outside the nine dots, she has focussed the project on lesser-known jazz and popular compositions by predominately female songwriters. Joining Conklin are a number of top shelf New York musicians including pianist and arranger John di Martino, violinist Sara Caswell, bassist Ed Howard, drummer Vince Cherico, guitarist Guilherme Monteiro and percussionist Samuel Torres.

The session opens with "Summertime." This is not the George Gershwin classic, but rather has lyrics that are unmistakably from the pen of the Canadian poet and iconic songwriter Leonard Cohen. Conklin delivers them with panache and resonance. "Just A Little Lovin'" by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil trips along in singular fashion with Conklin covering the importance of the simple things in life message with an earthy charm. Di Martino and Caswell offer well thought out interjections.

For an interesting change of pace, the Dory and André Previn number "Just For Now" is set to a samba beat led by guitarist Guilherme Monteiro and percussionist Samuel Torres, who keep the fire stoked. Conklin covers the number with brisk proficiency and tasteful restraint. The sardonic and hip songwriter /pianist Dave Frishberg hooked up with pianist Alan Broadbent to pen "Heart's Desire." Conklin inhabits this story of love and longing without rigidity or stifling nostalgia.

The final two cuts are more recognizable compositions. The first is Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Until It's Time For You To Go" and then the Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson popular standard "September Song." Conklin delivers the first with a strong lyrical footing and evocative coloration. On the second, sympathetically supported by Di Martino and Caswell, she reaches out on an emotional level to deliver a rendition filled with unhurried revelation. By Pierre Giroux https://www.allaboutjazz.com/these-precious-days-mary-foster-conklin-mock-turtle-music

Personnel: Mary Foster Conklin: voice / vocals; John di Martino: piano; Sara Caswell: violin; Ed Howard: bass; Vince Cherico: drums; Guilherme Monteiro: guitar; Samuel Torres: percussion.

These Precious Days