Carmen McRae - Carmen McRae

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 1954
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:18
Size: 85,4 MB
Art: Front

(2:26)  1. You'd Be So Easy To Love
(3:17)  2. If I'm Lucky
(2:40)  3. Old Devil Moon
(2:40)  4. Tip Toe Gently
(2:09)  5. You Made Me Care
(3:05)  6. Last Time For Love
(3:53)  7. Misery
(2:33)  8. Too Much In Love To Care
(3:19)  9. Too Much In Love To Care (alt. take)
(2:37) 10. Old Devil Moon (alt. stereo)
(2:09) 11. You Made Me Care (alt. stereo)
(2:20) 12. Too Much In Love To Care (alt. stereo)
(3:03) 13. Last Time For Love (alt. stereo)

This is Carmen McRae's first recording as a leader. She's heard on four songs apiece with the Mat Mathews Quintet (a group including Herbie Mann on flute and tenor, and guitarist Mundell Lowe) and clarinetist Tony Scott's Quartet. On the emotional "Misery," Scott switches to piano and is the only accompanist to the singer. 

Five alternate takes augment this set, which emphasizes ballads. Overall the music is pleasing but not too memorable and one wishes there were more variety. ~ Scott Yanow http://www.allmusic.com/album/carmen-mcrae-bethlehem-mw0000178616

Personnel:  Carmen McRae - vocals
Tracks 1-4:  Herbie Mann - flute, tenor saxophone;  Mat Mathews – accordion;  Mundell Lowe – guitar;  Wendell Marshall - double bass;  Kenny Clarke - drums
Tracks 5-8:  Tony Scott - clarinet, piano (on "Misery");  Dick Katz – piano;  Skip Fawcett - double bass;  Osie Johnson - drums

Carmen McRae

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Tony Scott Quartet - Complete Brunswick Sessions 1953

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 70:34
Size: 161.6 MB
Styles: Bop
Year: 2015
Art: Front

[4:27] 1. Katz' Meow (A Cannon For Cats)
[5:25] 2. After After Hours
[4:29] 3. I Never Knew
[6:28] 4. Away We Go
[6:17] 5. Cupcake
[3:56] 6. Bob's Blob
[6:54] 7. Milt To The Hilt
[7:49] 8. Homecoming
[3:28] 9. I Cover The Waterfront
[2:51] 10. It's You Or No One
[5:56] 11. Blues For Ava
[2:58] 12. Yesterdays
[2:50] 13. Goodbye
[3:25] 14. Swootie Patootie
[3:14] 15. Sweet Lorraine

Tony Scott (cl), Dick Katz (p), Milt Hinton, Earl May, Percy Heath (b), Philly Joe Jones, Jackie Moffett, Sid Bulkin, Osie Johnson (d).

Tony Scott was arguably the best clarinetist in modern jazz in the 1950s, and these 1953 Quartet recordings for the Brunswick label are among his best. They showcase his warmth, imagination, and complete command of the instrument. Despite this, he won more acclaim from critics and fellow musicians than among jazz audiences, largely because interest in clarinet declined with the advent of bop and faded in popular esteem since the Goodman-Shaw days.

However the music here amply endorses his 1953 recognition as winner of New Star, Clarinet Division, in Down Beats Annual Jazz Critics Poll. It reveals a jazzman with a rare combination of sensitivity, seriousness and an exceptionally sharp sense of humor. Accompanied by a rhythm section with Dick Katzhis sophisticated pianist and arrangerthe veteran and persuasive Milt Hinton on bass, and the forceful Philly Joe Jones on drums on the first session, the group swings superbly. Other talented jazzmen who contributed to Scotts memorable quartet recordings of that year were bassists Earl May and Percy Heath, and drummers Sid Bulkin, Jackie Moffet and Osie Johnson.

Throughout, Scott remained unsurpassed among clarinetists in his astounding ability to improvise linear patterns that build implacably to climaxes that somehow succeed in reconciling surprise with inevitability and always swing brilliantly.

Complete Brunswick Sessions 1953

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Tony Scott Septet - Fingerpoppin': Complete Sessions 1954-1955

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 59:46
Size: 136.8 MB
Styles: Clarinet jazz
Year: 2011
Art: Front

[3:18] 1. Vendome
[2:39] 2. Blue Room
[2:33] 3. Riding High
[2:47] 4. Late Show
[3:13] 5. Lullaby Of Birdland
[2:28] 6. Squaw With No Reservation
[3:00] 7. Body And Soul
[2:23] 8. My Melancholy Baby
[3:04] 9. Friday The 13th
[3:07] 10. Fingerpoppin'
[3:04] 11. But Not For Me
[2:53] 12. Forty-Second Street
[1:55] 13. Abstraction, No.1
[2:53] 14. Lucky To Be Me
[4:07] 15. Requiem For Lips
[3:08] 16. Autumn Nocturne
[2:04] 17. Our Love Is Here To Stay
[2:52] 18. Sunday Scene
[2:38] 19. Three Short Dances For Solo Clarinet
[2:30] 20. Glad To Be Unhappy
[2:58] 21. Let My Fingers Go!

Jimmy Nottingham (tp), Kai Winding, Billy Byers (tb), Tony Scott (cl), Eddie Wasserman (ts), Danny Bank (bs), Milt Hinton (b), Osie Johnson (d). Recorded in New York City, September 28, 1954, December 18, 1954, January 7 & 12, 1955.

During the early Fifties a good deal was written about the “new sounds” of modern jazz. The seven piece band assembled for these recordings —two saxes, trumpet, trombone, bass and drums— contributed a solid, haunting backdrop which bids fair to keep the aural arguments permanently in the forefront of the cool music league. The absence of guitar and piano helped configure the very special sound we hear —a solid groundwork over which Tony blows at his impressive best. There are no other soloists, for Tony is —and rightly so— the whole show; it is not often that jazz can offer such a brilliant, lucid and logical individual exposé. He is, by any standards, a great clarinetist and, on the strength of these performances alone, very possibly one of the most brilliant spokesmen regardless of instrument.

Fingerpoppin': Complete Sessions 1954-1955

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Tony Scott - Lost Tapes: Tony Scott In Germany 1957/Asia 1962

Size: 158,3 MB
Time: 68:12
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz
Art: Front & Back

01. Moonlight In Vermont ( 3:56)
02. The Man I Love ( 4:22)
03. Lover, Come Back To Me ( 6:54)
04. You Go To My Head (Take 2) ( 8:22)
05. Blues ( 4:16)
06. A Night In Tunisia ( 4:22)
07. There Will Never Be Another You (10:26)
08. Blues For Charlie Parker ( 4:50)
09. Hong Kong Jazzclub Blues ( 8:02)
10. All The Things You Are ( 6:08)
11. Moonlight In Vermont ( 6:30)

Clarinetist Tony Scott wasn't a fan of vibrato. Adding it would only have smoothed out his sound and landed him in the shadow of Artie Shaw and Buddy DeFranco. Instead, he preferred to stand out with a hoarse, stripped down, high-register tone. To the uninitiated, Scott could sound sour and breathless, like someone who hadn't yet fully mastered the complications of the instrument. But once you're acclimated to Scott's approach, you will find much to admire in his style, and you'll crave his textured, uneven delivery.

If you dig Scott as much as I do, you'll be gratified to learn that Tony Scott: Lost Tapes, Germany 1957 and Asia 1962 (Jazzhaus) is out this week. The album of previously unreleased material features Scott recording in a studio and on stage in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1957, and in performance in Hong Kong and Singapore in 1962. These recordings are notable because we get to hear Scott in Germany at the height of his Down Beat critics' poll prowess in the late 1950s. We also hear Scott just before he abandoned jazz for six years to focus on New Age and World music.

His recordings in Germany with local sidemen are divided among cool and spirited. The studio ballads like The Man I Love, Lover Come Back to Me and You Go to My Head are haunting while the live material is up-tempo and gripping, particularly a hyperactive A Night in Tunisia, There Will Never Be Another You and All the Things You Are. The album's last four tracks were recorded live in Asia with Italian musicians. Three of the songs—Blues for Charlie Parker, Hong Kong Jazzclub Blues and All the Things You Are—sizzle with instrumental daring. On Moonlight in Vermont, the last track recorded in Singapore, we hear a gorgeous version of the standard, which makes for a nifty contrast with the album's first track—the exact same tune recorded five years earlier in Germany. Turns out they're both hip for different reasons.

Following the 1962 recordings, Scott would go off in other musical directions until 1968. During this period, he recorded Music for Zen Meditation (1964), Djanger Bali: Tony Scott and the Indonesian All Stars (1967), Atmospheric Conditions Permitting (1967) and Music for Yoga Meditation and Other Joys (1968).

Scott died in 2012. ~by Marc Myers

Lost Tapes

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