Junior Mance Trio - Soul Eyes

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:04
Size: 130.6 MB
Styles: Soul jazz
Year: 2004
Art: Front

[4:18] 1. You'd Be So Nice To Come To
[5:44] 2. Stormy Monday
[4:54] 3. Jubilation
[6:07] 4. Jitterbug Waltz
[7:25] 5. Take The A Train
[5:13] 6. God Bless The Child
[5:10] 7. Funky Carnival
[5:36] 8. Soul Eyes
[6:03] 9. Lester Leaps In
[6:29] 10. Solitude

Junior Mance (p) Paul West (b) Idris Muhammad (dr).

Junior Mance is well-known for his soulful bluesy style, but he is also expert at playing bop standards. He started playing professionally when he was ten. Mance worked with Gene Ammons in Chicago during 1947-1949, played with Lester Young (1950), and was with the Ammons-Sonny Stitt group until he was drafted. He was the house pianist at Chicago's Bee Hive (1953-1954), worked as Dinah Washington's accompanist (1954-1955), was in the first Cannonball Adderley Quintet (1956-1957), and then spent two years touring with Dizzy Gillespie (1958-1960). After a few months with the Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis/Johnny Griffin group, Mance formed his own trio and has mostly been a leader ever since. He has led sessions for Verve, Jazzland, Riverside, Capitol, Atlantic, Milestone, Polydor, Inner City, JSP, Nilva, Sackville, and Bee Hive, among other labels. ~ bio by Scott Yanow

Soul Eyes

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Nancy Harrow - An Intimate Evening With Nancy Harrow

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:10
Size: 128.6 MB
Styles: Vocal jazz, Cabaret
Year: 2010
Art: Front

[3:19] 1. Guess Who's In Town
[4:28] 2. Maybe It's Because I Love You Too Much
[3:01] 3. So Why Am I Surprised
[0:18] 4. Musician Credits
[2:44] 5. Why Was I Born
[3:57] 6. If I Could Be With You
[3:51] 7. You Go To My Head
[3:28] 8. You're Not The Only Oyster In The Stew
[4:29] 9. Don't Go To Strangers
[4:26] 10. I Don't Know You Any More
[4:35] 11. Fixing A Hole
[3:47] 12. Pretty Prey
[0:39] 13. Spoken Introduction
[4:14] 14. You're Not What You Said You Are/Effie
[3:36] 15. He's Gone
[5:11] 16. Life Is Short/Havin' Myself A Time

Nancy Harrow - Voice; Roland Hanna - Piano; Paul West - Bass.

This album is especially personal for Nancy because, for the first time, listeners get to hear her performance in front of an audience. She is a jazz singer within each song she sings, but she also comes from the generation when jazz artists were supposed to be entertainers. She understands that she has to have "an act." In her cabaret act, she shows her honest self. Nothing is put-on. Her personal warmth and sense of humor are more evident in these spontaneous moments.

Technically speaking, certain things Nancy does are unorthodox, just as Ruth Olay, Morgana King, Sheila Jordan, and Betty Carter (to pick notable jazz voices of her generation) were each unique and idiosyncratic. Unlike many jazz singers, Nancy never improvises in an "in your face" manner. Nancy is not a show-off. Everything she does is subtle and tasteful. Like her accompanist Roland Hanna, she is always in the moment. Take If I Could Be With You, which I consider one of the highlights of this CD; Nancy hardly sings the original melody but she does it in such an easy manner that she makes it sound as though she is singing the melody. In some songs, especially her own compositions, she hardly departs from the original melodies. Nonetheless, she always manages to retain her jazz identity. ~Ted Takashi Ono

An Intimate Evening With Nancy Harrow

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