Ray Parker Jr. - After Dark

Styles: Vocal
Year: 1987
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:07
Size: 99,0 MB
Art: Front

(4:15)  1. Don't Think That Man Should Sleep Alone
(4:40)  2. Over You (feat. Natalie Cole)
(4:10)  3. Lovin' You
(4:48)  4. You Shoulda Kept A Spare
(3:30)  5. The Past
(4:31)  6. You Make My Nature Dance
(4:52)  7. Perfect Lovers
(4:03)  8. After Midnite
(3:45)  9. I Love Your Daughter
(4:29) 10. After Dark

This was the closest Ray Parker Jr. ever came to doing adult soul. His debut for Geffen included the song "I Don't Think That Man Should Sleep Alone." This was his last big hit, and despite the title, said some serious things about male/female intimacy and relationships. Parker's voice sounded more somber, introspective, and varied than on anything before or since. ~ Ron Wynn https://www.allmusic.com/album/after-dark-mw0000197005               

Personnel:  Ray Parker, Jr. – all instruments, arrangements (1, 3, 4, 6-10);  Paul Jackson, Jr. – guitar;  Cornelius Mims, Nathan East, Neil Stubenhaus – bass;  Jeff Porcaro, Ollie E. Brown, Carlos Vega – drums;  J. Wayne Lindsey, Robbie Buchanan, Eric Daniels, Sylvester Rivers, Greg Phillinganes, Burt Bacharach – keyboards;  Larry Williams – synthesizer;  Kevin Toney – acoustic piano;  Gerald Albright – saxophone solo (2);  Dave Boroff – saxophone solo (4).
 

Background Vocalists:  Ray Parker, Jr., Kamaya Koepke, Karyn White, Arnell Carmichael, Keith Harrison, Candice Ghant, Kashif (also BGV arrangement on track 5), Julia Waters, Maxine Waters, Yogi Horton, Cornelius Mims, Monty Seward, Lynne Fiddmont, Philip Bailey, Greg Phillinganes, Anita Sherman.

After Dark

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Carlos Vega - Bird's Ticket

Size: 178,9 MB
Time: 77:06
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Jazz
Art: Front

01. A Confluence In Chi-Town (8:57)
02. Bird's Ticket (7:06)
03. Taurus On The Run (10:08)
04. Taurus And Virgo (7:23)
05. Dragon Rose ( 6:39)
06. Chicago Eight (6:41)
07. Elements (6:39)
08. The Wizard (8:54)
09. In Other Words (7:54)
10. Reflecting Pools (6:41)

Saxophonist Carlos Vega's band crackles. The sound of "A Confluence in Chi-Town," the opener on his Bird's Ticket recording, has an on-the-edge urgency in its distinctive approach to the standard jazz quintet format—bass/drums/keyboard rhythm section and a trumpet and a saxophone—a line up like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie used.

Vega, a veteran of trumpter/band leader Doc Severinsen's band, sets up, with that high octane opener, an expectation for high level interaction, brash solo slots for himself on tenor, Victor Garcia on trumpet, and keyboardist, Stu Mindeman, backed by modern and often Latin tinged rhythmic drive. He and the band don't disappoint. They sound like Latin renegades on the title tune, swaggering just a bit outside the law, horn solos burning; and "Taurus and Virgo" sounds like a Wayne Shorter-penned out-take to the ground breaking Miles Davis outing, Filles de Kilimanjaro (Columbia Records, 1968), with Mindeman shifting, deftly, from acoustic piano to Fender rhodes.

This particular quintet configuration is one of the most common and enduring, making it hard for a band to carve out its own space. Vega and his cohorts do just this via the leader's distinctive and modernistic compositions—it's an all Vega originals set—crafty arrangements, spirited group interplay that sometimes bumps into contentious-sounding territory (they are reacting to each other, with gusto), and ear-grabbing freshness and spontaneity in their respective soloing. And a group can't do much more than that, on this January release that opens the New Year with a modern jazz blast. ~By Dan Mcclenaghan

Personnel: Carlos Vega: saxophone; Victor Garcia: trumpet; Stu Mindeman: piano, rhodes; Xavier Breaker: drums; Juan Pastor: cajon (4).

Bird's Ticket

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