Elkie Brooks & Humphrey Lyttelton - Trouble in mind

Styles: Vocal And Trumpet Jazz

Year: 2003

File: MP3@320K/s

Time: 51:48

Size: 95,6 MB

Art: Front

(3:53)  1. Three Long Years

(4:51)  2. Trouble in mind

(5:57)  3. Ev'ry day I have the blues

(4:01)  4. I cried for you

(2:58)  5. If you're goin' to the city

(3:19)  6. Jelly bean blues

(3:25)  7. Yesterdays

(3:03)  8. Mister bad penny blues

(4:50)  9. Rocky mountain blues

(3:23) 10. I'm gonna lock my heart

(4:34) 11. Some other spring

(4:34) 12. Do your duty

(2:54) 13. What's your story mornin' glory

British pop-jazz-blues crooner Elkie Brooks (born Elaine Bookbinder) dominated U.K. radio in the late '70s with a series of hit singles that established her as "the biggest-selling female album artist in the history of the British pop charts." The Manchester native, who grew up in an extremely musical family, left school at the age of 15 to join a dance band in London. She eventually mad the jump to radio, as well as numerous appearances with legendary jazz bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton, before embarking on a career in pop music. The early '60s saw the budding young singer releasing singles for Decca and EMI, as well as opening for everyone from Carl Perkins to the Beatles, but commercial success remained elusive. She joined the blues-rock band Dada in 1970, which would eventually find success through a name change (Vinegar Joe) and the arrival of a new vocalist, Robert Palmer.

The popular group released three beloved records before disbanding in 1974, and after a brief stint with U.S. Southern rock band Wet Willie, Brooks decided to take another crack at a solo career. The resulting Rich Man's Woman, Two Days Away, Shooting Star, Live & Learn, Pearls, and Pearls II, as well as frequent sold-out tours and numerous silver, gold, and platinum recordings, would go on to cement her reputation well into the 21st century. By James Christopher Monger https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/elkie-brooks/id14933100#fullText

Personnel: Elkie Brooks (vocals); Humphrey Lyttelton (trumpet, bongos); Mick Hutton (cuatro, bass guitar); Jimmy Hastings (flute, clarinet, alto saxophone); Kathleen Stobart (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Pete Strange (trombone); Ted Beament (piano); Adrian Macintosh (drums).

Trouble in mind

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Lillian Boutté - Having a Good Time

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 63:09
Size: 147,6 MB
Art: Front

(4:59) 1. Mama's Gone, Goodbye (feat. Humphrey Lyttelton)
(3:26) 2. Smile
(5:41) 3. Let Them Talk
(4:28) 4. I'm Having a Good Time
(4:04) 5. Nuages
(3:49) 6. Absolutely Positive
(3:13) 7. That's the Way to Treat Your Woman (feat. Humphrey Lyttelton)
(4:19) 8. Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby (feat. Humphrey Lyttelton)
(4:33) 9. Try a Little Tenderness
(4:45) 10. Stagger Lee
(5:03) 11. A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (feat. Humphrey Lyttelton)
(4:03) 12. You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me
(3:40) 13. You Send Me
(3:37) 14. The Trouble with Me Is You
(3:22) 15. Wolverine Blues

A versatile singer based in New Orleans, Lillian Boutte is capable of singing both New Orleans Dixieland standards and New Orleans R&B, swing-era tunes, and contemporary originals. She sang as a child (winning a vocal contest when she was 11), performed with her college's gospel choir, and then in 1973, was hired by Allen Toussaint as a backup singer for the many projects recorded in his studio. Boutte appeared as an actress and singer in the musical One Mo' Time during 1979-1984, recorded a gospel album with the Olympia Brass Band in 1980, and in 1982, made her first jazz album. Boutte has spent time alternating between living and performing in Europe and New Orleans, and she has been closely associated with reed player Thomas L'Etienne who usually leads her backup groups. Through the years, Lillian Boutte has recorded for many labels (mostly in Europe) including Herman, Feel the Jazz, High Society, Turning Point, Timeless, Southland, Storyville, GHB, Calligraph (with Humphrey Lyttelton), Blues Beacon, and Dinosaur Entertainment.~ Scott Yanow https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lillian-boutt%C3%A9-mn0000291690/biography

Having a Good Time

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Humphrey Lyttelton - Georgia Man

Styles: Trumpet Jazz
Year: 1995
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:43
Size: 96,4 MB
Art: Front

(7:50)  1. In Swinger
(4:37)  2. Toot'n in Kamen
(7:03)  3. Talk of the Town
(2:39)  4. One for Buck
(4:37)  5. Harry Looyah
(6:02)  6. St.Louis Blues
(6:22)  7. The New Bad Penny Blues
(2:29)  8. Georgia Man

The grand old man of British jazz, trumpeter and bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton spearheaded the postwar trad jazz revival before renouncing the movement in favor of more contemporary and restless creative vision. A larger-than-life figure, he also excelled as a writer and cartoonist, and for decades was a fixture of radio, serving as the hilariously deadpan host of the long-running I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue. Born in Eton on May 23, 1921, Lyttelton was the product of a distinguished and wealthy family a lifelong jazz enthusiast, he received his first trumpet at age 15 and formed a band with some Eton College classmates. He also studied military drumming under a former Coldstream Guards drum major and joined the school band as a percussionist. Lyttelton enlisted in the British Army on D-Day and saw combat in Italy on leave in London he sat in with local jazz bands, and upon returning to civilian life in 1945 he enrolled at the Camberwell School of Art. In March 1947, he signed on with semi-professional trad jazz combo George Webb's Dixielanders; when Dixielanders clarinetist and professional cartoonist Wally Fawkes was promoted to write and illustrate a full-fledged daily strip for The Daily Mail, Lyttelton was tapped to fill Fawkes' previous position sketching "column-breakers"  i.e., humorous or decorative drawings inserted into the text. He also reviewed jazz and classical recordings for the newspaper, and later scripted the Fawkes-drawn strip Flook as well.

In early 1948 Lyttelton resigned from the Dixielanders to found his own group, bringing Fawkes and later pianist Webb with him with the subsequent additions of Blackpool-born brothers Keith (trombone) and Ian Christie (clarinet), the group emerged at the forefront of the trad jazz renaissance. With Lyttelton's declamatory trumpet out front, the group's reverential, New Orleans-inspired sound proved a commercial juggernaut in late 1949, they signed to Parlophone, and their 78-rpm efforts sold so consistently that the label issued a new release each month until introducing the LP format several years later. However, Lyttelton quickly felt smothered within the narrow creative confines of the trad jazz sound and began embracing Latin and African rhythms as early as 1951 he also exploited new technologies, employing multi-track recording techniques to play trumpet, clarinet, piano, and washboard on "One Man Went to Blow." Most notably and to the endless chagrin of purists Lyttelton soon abandoned the accepted trumpet-clarinet-trombone format to introduce saxophones into the equation, and as his musical aspirations evolved, so did the lineup of his support staff: the Lyttelton band was the launching pad for a multitude of fledgling jazz greats, among them saxophonists Tony Coe, Danny Moss, Alan Barnes, Joe Temperley, John Barnes, and Karen Sharp as well as trombonists Roy Williams, Pete Strange, and John Picard. The group also backed visiting American giants like Sidney Bechet, Jimmy Rushing, and Buck Clayton. With 1956's self-penned "Bad Penny Blues," Lyttelton scored British jazz's first-ever Top 20 U.K. pop hit the group went on to tour Europe and the Middle East, and in 1959 joined Thelonious Monk and Anita O'Day on a trek across the U.S. As the trad jazz vogue gave way to rock & roll, Lyttelton continued performing, but he also launched a secondary career as a broadcaster his witty and informal presence made him a natural for radio, and in 1966 he was awarded his own BBC series, The Best of Jazz, which he helmed for over four decades. Six years later, he was also appointed host of the spoof panel game I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue, a program notorious for its abundance of double entendres. He also continued his writing, over the course of his lifetime publishing a series of books including I Play as I Please, Second Course, Take It from the Top, Why No Beethoven, and It Just Occurred to Me..., and for a time he even served as a restaurant critic. Another hobby was calligraphy: Lyttelton received a set of calligraphic pens upon his father's death, and proved so adept that he was elected president of the Society for Italic Handwriting. The craft even lent its name to his own label, Calligraph Records, which served to re-release his classic recordings on CD. A new generation of listeners was exposed to Lyttelton's work in 2001 when he guested on the Radiohead album Amnesiac. On March 11, 2008, he announced his retirement from The Best of Jazz. Weeks later, he died following heart surgery on April 25. ~ Jason Ankeny https://www.allmusic.com/artist/humphrey-lyttelton-mn0000638075/biography

Georgia Man

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Humphrey Lyttelton - I Play as I Please

Styles: Trumpet Jazz 
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:22
Size: 119,3 MB
Art: Front

(3:01)  1. Dixie Theme
(2:44)  2. Blues at Dawn
(6:45)  3. Skid Row
(3:14)  4. Manhattan
(3:09)  5. La Paloma
(7:08)  6. Going out the Back Way
(4:15)  7. Mezzrow
(3:09)  8. Singing the Blues
(2:44)  9. Bodega
(6:50) 10. Looking for Turner
(3:17) 11. Sweethearts on Parade
(2:49) 12. Blues in the Afternoon
(2:11) 13. Buona Sera

Topped and tailed by four bonus tracks, this is an otherwise straightforward (and certainly long-awaited) reissue of Humphrey Lyttelton's best-known and most all-pervasively influential album, the 1957 set that he titled, fittingly, after the first volume of his own autobiography. Widely regarded among the most adventurous of all the players bound up in the British trad boom of the mid to late '50s, Lyttelton had already broken any number of seemingly inviolate rules by the time he teamed with producer Denis Preston to cut this set including the addition of a saxophone and the omission of the banjo. Now it was time to push even further. In terms of numerical strength, three bands appear on this album the seven-piece Humphrey Lyttelton Band, an expanded 12 man big band, and the so called Humphrey Lyttelton Paseo Band, a nine-piece that eschewed horns for flutes, then added a riot of percussion to the mix. It's a heady blend that had traditionalists wringing their hands in despair when the album first appeared, but time (and, of course, the eventual acceptance of many of the ideas Lyttelton first posited) readily vindicates the album's audacity. For collectors, meanwhile, the set is bolstered by both sides of two singles recorded by the regular Lyttelton Band around the same time as I Play As I Please came together, the self-explanatory "Dixie Theme" and the sultry "Blues in the Afternoon." ~ Dave Thompson https://www.allmusic.com/album/i-play-as-i-please-mw0001357881

I Play as I Please

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Helen Shapiro & Humphrey Lyttlelton - Echoes Of The Duke

Styles: Vocal Jazz

Year: 1985

File: MP3@320K/s

Time: 49:31

Size: 114,1 MB

Art: Front

(3:10)  1. Take The 'A' Train

(3:12)  2. I Ain't Got Nothin' But The Blues

(3:05)  3. I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good

(2:57)  4. Cross A Busy Street

(3:03)  5. Just Squeeze Me

(4:48)  6. I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart - Don't Get Around Much Any More

(4:23)  7. It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing

(3:29)  8. Drop Me Off In Harlem

(3:54)  9. Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me

(2:50) 10. Pritti Nitti

(5:13) 11. Mood Indigo

(2:45) 12. Just A-Sittin' And A-Rockin'

(3:37) 13. Echoes Of The Duke

(2:58) 14. Caravan

Helen Shapiro is remembered today by younger pop culture buffs as the slightly awkward actress/singer in Richard Lester's 1962 debut feature film, It's Trad, Dad. From 1961 until 1963, however, Shapiro was England's teenage pop music queen, at one point selling 40,000 copies daily of her biggest single, "Walking Back to Happiness," during a 19-week chart run. A deceptively young 14 when she was discovered, Shapiro had a rich, expressive voice properly sounding like the property of someone twice as old, and she matured into a seasoned professional very quickly. She grew up in London's East End and was performing with a ukulele at age nine as part of a school group -- supposedly called Susie & the Hula Hoops, whose members included a young Mark Feld (aka Marc Bolan) that used to sing their own versions of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly songs. She subsequently sang with her brother Ron Shapiro's trad jazz turned skiffle outfit at local clubs before enrolling in classes at Maurice Burman's music school in London. Burman was so taken with Helen Shapiro's voice that he waived the tuition to keep her as a student. He later brought her to the attention of Norrie Paramor, then one of EMI's top pop producers (responsible for signing Cliff Richard & the Shadows). Shapiro's voice was so mature that Paramor refused to believe from the evidence on a tape that it belonged to a 14-year-old until she came to his office and belted out "St. Louis Blues." She cut her first single, "Please Don't Treat Me Like a Child," a few weeks later and broke onto the British charts in 1961.

That record was an extraordinary effort for a 14-year-old. Shapiro's voice showed the maturity and sensibilities of someone far beyond their teen years; her depth of emotion, coupled with the richness of her singing, made her an extraordinary new phenomenon on the British pop scene. She surprised everyone once again with her second single, a slow ballad called "You Don't Know," which managed to appeal to listeners across several age groups and hit number one in England. This was followed by the greatest recording of her career, "Walking Back to Happiness," which scaled the top of the charts with far greater total sales. Ironically, she'd never wanted to cut it; she felt it sounded hopelessly corny and old-fashioned, but her singing invested the song with such depth that it transcended any limitations in the writing. This was to be the last time Shapiro would top the charts. Her next record, "Tell Me What He Said" (written by Jeff Barry) was held out of the top spot by the Shadows' "Wonderful Land." In April of 1962, Shapiro made her movie debut in Lester's It's Trad, Dad, but her single of "Let's Talk About Love" (featured in the movie) never broke the Top 20. Shapiro next turned back to the songwriting team of John Schroeder and Mike Hawker, who had written "Walking Back to Happiness" and "You Don't Know," for what proved to be her last Top Ten record, "Little Miss Lonely." She made the charts once more with "Keep Away From Other Girls," the first song by Burt Bacharach to make the British Top 40. During this period, Shapiro also got the opportunity to record Neil Sedaka's "Little Devil," and the two later became friends when Sedaka toured England. Listening to Shapiro's records nearly 40 years later, it's amazing to think that her hit-making career lasted only two years. She was equally at home belting out "The Birth of the Blues," imparting a surprisingly blues-influenced feeling to "A Teenager in Love," or oozing pre-feminist defiance in "Walking Back to Happiness," and by rights should have been able to find a niche on the charts well into the middle and late '60s. The incongruity of a 15-year-old who might usually be spending her time in high school doing a song like "Walking Back to Happiness" was lost in the more innocent era in which she worked. 

Shapiro wasn't remotely as soul-influenced as Dusty Springfield (though Shapiro's Helen in Nashville album from 1963 does sort of anticipate Dusty in Memphis), or a raspy shouter like Lulu, and there wasn't much of the cool teenager in her in the style of Sandie Shaw or the wounded teen softness of Lesley Gore. Rather, Shapiro was much more of a female pop/rock crooner, almost a distaff Bobby Darin with a style all her own, and should have been able to cut a path for herself well into the '60s in the music marketplace.

It wasn't to be, however. After appearing in her second movie, Play It Cool, which starred Billy Fury, Shapiro faded from the charts, although she didn't disappear from the British musical consciousness. She still headlined tours in the United Kingdom and in early 1963, she made the acquaintance of a support act that had been newly signed to EMI: the Beatles. She headlined the Beatles' first national tour of England and Shapiro and the group enjoyed each other's company. At 16, she was much more the seasoned professional than the older Liverpool quartet, who loved her voice and her unassuming manner. She sang with them on the bus, advised them to make "From Me to You" their next record after "Please Please Me," and they, in turn, wrote "Misery" for her. Astonishingly, EMI not yet sensing the golden touch that the Beatles (who had yet to cut their first LP) would soon reveal declined to give Shapiro the chance to record a Lennon-McCartney tune, costing her the chance to become the first artist to cover a Lennon-McCartney song just at the point when the Beatles were about to sweep all before them in the pop charts. There's no telling what Shapiro, with her rich intonation, could have done with that downbeat little diamond in the rough in the early Lennon-McCartney song bag. Shapiro had another chance at an even more promising song later in 1963 when she went to cut an album in Nashville. In a session backed by the likes of Grady Martin and Boots Randolph, she cut the very first recording of "It's My Party." And again, EMI failed to get behind the single, sitting on its release until a virtual unknown named Lesley Gore got her rendition out first on Mercury and topped the U.S. charts. Shapiro's career at EMI ended in 1963 and her periodic attempts to resume recording at Pye, DJM, and Arista over the next decade failed to generate any chart action. Shapiro has busied herself over the years very successfully as an actress, appearing as Nancy in Lionel Bart's musical Oliver and appearing on British soap operas as well. She has remained an attraction on the cabaret circuit over the decades and was well-known enough as a pop culture figure to justify the release of a best-of CD in Japan in the early '90s. She also cut albums devoted to the music of Duke Ellington and Johnny Mercer.  https://www.allmusic.com/artist/helen-shapiro-mn0000571112/biography    

Echoes Of The Duke

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Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band - Between Friends

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 70:38
Size: 161.7 MB
Label: Callograph
Styles: Trumpet jazz
Year: 2000
Art: Front

[3:45] 1. Now That We're Here, Let's Go!
[3:38] 2. Boston Glider
[3:14] 3. Everything But You
[6:12] 4. Cross A Busy Street
[4:57] 5. Blue Mist
[7:26] 6. You're Driving Me Crazy Moten Swing
[2:59] 7. Hand-Me-Down Love
[3:25] 8. You're Lucky To Me
[3:38] 9. I'm Just A Lucky So-And-So
[5:58] 10. Unbooted Character
[3:28] 11. If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight
[5:00] 12. Rain
[5:08] 13. Sugar
[5:21] 14. Get Ready To Fly
[6:21] 15. Creole Love Call

The grand old man of British jazz, trumpeter and bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton spearheaded the postwar trad jazz revival before renouncing the movement in favor of more contemporary and restless creative vision. A larger-than-life figure, he also excelled as a writer and cartoonist, and for decades was a fixture of radio, serving as the hilariously deadpan host of the long-running I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue. Born in Eton on May 23, 1921, Lyttelton was the product of a distinguished and wealthy family -- a lifelong jazz enthusiast, he received his first trumpet at age 15 and formed a band with some Eton College classmates. He also studied military drumming under a former Coldstream Guards drum major and joined the school band as a percussionist. Lyttelton enlisted in the British Army on D-Day and saw combat in Italy -- on leave in London he sat in with local jazz bands, and upon returning to civilian life in 1945 he enrolled at the Camberwell School of Art. In March 1947, he signed on with semi-professional trad jazz combo George Webb's Dixielanders; when Dixielanders clarinetist and professional cartoonist Wally Fawkes was promoted to write and illustrate a full-fledged daily strip for The Daily Mail, Lyttelton was tapped to fill Fawkes' previous position sketching "column-breakers" -- i.e., humorous or decorative drawings inserted into the text. He also reviewed jazz and classical recordings for the newspaper, and later scripted the Fawkes-drawn strip Flook as well.

Between Friends

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