Artist: Chris Botti
   CD title: In Boston (Live)
   Released date: March 31, 2009
   Record Label: Columbia Records
   Firmat, Quality: MP3, 320(cbr) Kbps
   Time: 72'44"
   Size: 167 mb

REPOST with new info from Mr. Gkjoflm.

   A sequel of sorts to Chris Botti's 2006 PBS special, this September 2008 event "Live In Boston" found the sartorially splendid cool jazz trumpeter accompanied by the Boston Symphony and a collection of celebrity vocalists. The concert delivers an overview of popular music, with jazz standards like "I've Got You Under My Skin" right alongside "Ave Maria" and Sting's "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You." Whether featuring rocker Steven Tyler, American Idol chanteuse - Katharine McPhee, or pop-opera superstar Josh Groban, all the tunes are presented in Botti's inimitable, Chet Baker-influenced uber-smooth style. Includes guest appearances from Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Ma, John Mayer, Katharine McPhee, Sting, Lucia Micarelli and Steven Tyler.

   Artist: Weather Report
   Album: Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 1976
   Label: Eagle Rock Entainmant
   Theatrical Release Date: December 11, 2006
   DVD Release Date: April 17, 2007
   Genre: fusion
   Format: Online-video
   Time: 84 mins
   Size: 4,35Gb
   Options on DVD: Dolby Surroud 5.1 & DTS
   Amazon review

   Концерт 1976 года - период наивысшего творческого подъема группы Weather Report - музыкальной концепции великого Майлса Дэвиса (Miles Davis).
   Во время концерта перед Вами предстанут во всей своей красе: молодой гений Жако Пасториуса (Jaco Pastorius), неповторимый Джо Завинул (Joe Zawinul), чье фортепианное искусство вы сможете оценить сквозь призму фантастических синтезаторных звуков, напористый и очаровывающий своей изобретательностью звук Уэйна Шортера (Wayne Shorter), - без преувелечений Гиганта Джаза, чье музыкальное наследие служит иллюстрацией развития джаза, своего рода "зеркало" эволюции джаза, Маноло Бадрена (Manolo Badrena) - создает как раз необходимый для Weather Report колорит, экзотичность. Алекс Акуна (Alex Acuna) - блестящий ударник и перкуссионист, учавствовавший в записи знаменитых альбомов Weather Report - Black Market (1976) и Weather Report – Heavy Weather (1977)
   Приятного просмотра!

   Artist: Kazuhito Yamashita
   Album: Pictures at An Exhibition
   Genre: Classical Guitar (!)
   Year: 1999
   Quality: mp3;224 kb/s
   Size:58,0 МБ



   Just as Franz Liszt created new repertoire and technique for the piano by transcribing Symphonies and Operas and then developing new techniques with which to play them, Kazuhito Yamashita took a similar path in the early 1980's and so revolutionised the world of possibilities on the guitar.

   By transcribing well known pieces of orchestral music for solo guitar he has encouraged a trend which could make classical guitar much more appealing and accessible to concert programmers and the general concert going audience.

   Artist: Carmen McRae
   Album: Sound of Silence
   Label: Atlantic
   Recording Year: Oct 2, 1967-Jun 28, 1968
   Size: 101 mb
   Format/bitrate: mp3, 320 kb/s

   This collection shows how pointless it can be to classify music by genre. This could be classed as pop, jazz, R+B or easy listening, yet it is none of these, but a brilliant blend of them all.
   Offbeat phrasing and unique interpretations helped singer Carmen McRae carve her own niche in the Jazz world from the '40s through the '80s. Carmen McRae was at her absolute peak when she signed to Atlantic Records in the sixties. "The Sound Of Silence" was released in 1969 and its title song is engrossing and richly sung by Carmen and equally effective is her majestic version of the classic "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)". This stellar set has great vocals on every song and Carmen makes the Billie Holiday "Gloomy Sunday" a total masterpiece with a chilling and haunting vocal that is unforgettable!!! Amazon.com

Carmen McRae - one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century - was born today, April 8, 1920!

   Artist: Steve Kuhn
   Album: Waltz on the red side - Waltz on the blue side
   Recording Date: 2002
   Label: Venus Records
   Format: MP3 @ 320 kbps
   Size: 140 MB/116 MB (MP3)




   This two-CD project had a very interesting concept: Kuhn selected an all-waltz program and played them twice with two different bassists -- Gary Peacock on the "Blue Side" and Eddie Gomez on the "Red Side." With Billy Drummond holding the drum chair on both trios, the two sets of performances could not be more different from each other. They provide a fascinating insight into the spontaneity of music creation and how jazz musicians react to each other.

     Artist: Fourplay
     Album: X
     Year: 2006
     Genre: Smooth Jazz
     Label: RCA
     Format: mp3, 320 kbps
     Size: 105 + 14 Mb




     Smooth-jazz journeymen Fourplay reunite for X and deliver more solid, lite-instrumental sounds. Centered around the talents of keyboardist Bob James, guitarist Larry Carlton, bassist Nathan East and drummer Harvey Mason, Fourplay also feature here blue-eyed-soul icon Michael Mcdonald who takes an inspired vocal turn on the Steve Winwood tune "My Love's Leavin'. It's a great track that nicely exploits the aesthetic connection and '70s heritage of both smooth jazz and soft-rock. Similarly appealing are James's noirish "Screenplay showcasing Carlton's bluesy chops and James's urbane keyboard style; as well as East's slow R&B ballad "Sunday Morning". This is a softly-funky, superbly crafted and unapologetically low key album. Frankly, that's what longtime fans have come to expect from these masters of smooth and in that sense X succeeds. by Matt Collar

     Artist: Diana Krall
     Album: Live at Marciac
     Release: August 7, 2008
     Studio/Live: Live
     Genre: Jazz
     Format:MP3@320 kbps
     Time: 33:38
     Size:77 Mb

     Artist: Terumasa Hino & John Scofield
     Album: Wind Blows Your Skin
     Genre: Jazz
     Label: Inner City
     Year: 1977
     Quality: MP3@320 kbs/s
     Size: 100 mb




     A surprisingly open-ended set from trumpeter Terumasa Hino — a set that's a really great balance between his freer sounds of the early 70s, and some of the warmer fusion modes he hit towards the end of the decade! Hino's working here with a trio of American players — John Scofield on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums — an especially tight rhythm section that really helps the record find its groove in the absence of any piano or keyboards.

     Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky/П.И.Чайковский
     Artist: Oslo Philarmonic Orchestra (cond. Mariss Jansons)
     Album: Symphonies No. 1-6
     Format, bitrate: mp3, 320 kbps
     Time: 4h, 11 min, 12 sec.
     Size: ~590 mb

     Итак, друзья мои, продолжим знакомство с творчеством выдающегося русского композитора Петра Ильича Чайковского.
Мы уже успели познакомиться с его фортепианными произведениями, произведениями для балета, теперь настала пора познакомиться с симфоническими произведениями.
А поможет нам в этом замечательном деле Ослский, нет Ословский, нет, вовсе как-то неприлично... А, придумал! Филармонический Оркестр города Осло под управлением Марисса Янсона.
Итак...

     Artist: Bebo Valdez
     Album: El Solar De Bebo (cd2)
     Genre: Afro-Cuban Jazz
     Year: 2005
     Label: Calle 54
     Quality: mp3@320kbps
     Size: 139mb

     Bebo Valdes, one of the giants of Cuban music of the 1950s and the father of pianist Chucho Valdes, has lived in Stockholm since the early '60s, including 34 years on which he did not record, playing in anonymity. His rediscovery in the 1990s was a major event, and this two-CD set is one of the high points of his career. Utilizing an all-star group, Vald?s (who was 86 at the time) debuts his eight-part "Suite Cubana" and also plays a variety of shorter pieces on the second CD, subtitled "El Solar de Bebo," with a combo. The music, particularly on the first CD, is a bit reminiscent of the music that he performed in Cuba in the 1950s, but it includes more modern solos and a heavier emphasis on jazz. The strong melodies, colorful improvisations, and exciting ensembles make Bebo de Cuba a classic. In addition, this superb package includes a bonus 22-minute DVD that tells the story behind this project. Bebo de Cuba is essential for all fans of Afro-Cuban jazz.

   Artist: Clark Terry
   Album:Serenade to a Bus Seat
   Label:Fantasy
   Year:1957
   Format/Rate: MP3/320
   Size:96 MB
   AMG rating


   This CD reissue matches together trumpeter Clark Terry (before he switched to flugelhorn) with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Most notable about the music is that Terry wrote five of the eight selections (including the colorful title cut which pays tribute to life on the road with Duke Ellington); the other numbers are "Donna Lee," a pretty version of "Stardust" and a slightly Latinized "That Old Black Magic." Terry and Griffin were a potent team, making one regret that they did not record together much through the years. This set contains excellent straightahead jazz performed with plenty of spirit.
   ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

   Artist: Chucho Valdes
   Album: Canciones Sineditas
   Year: 2002
   Label: Egrem
   Quality: mp3 @ 320 kbps
   Size: 127mb
   Time: 55:21



   The son of the noted musician Bebo Valdes, Chucho began playing piano when he was three and by the time he was 16 he was leading his own group. In 1960 his father defected from Cuba but Chucho stayed behind. In 1967, he formed the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna and, in 1973, he founded Irakere, the top Cuban jazz orchestra; among its original members were Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D'Rivera. Valdes has been Irakere's musical director almost from the start and has recorded with the full band, in small groups, and as an impressive solo pianist. He remains one of the top jazz musicians living in Cuba.
   ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

   Artist: Tony Bennett
   Album: Tony Sings The Great Hits Of Today
   Label: Columbia
   Year: 1970
   Format, bitrate: flac





   Disaster strikes. Accompanied by a sleeve note from company president Clive Davis, who forced this record down his throat, Tony Bennett is presented on the album cover in a garish illustration, wearing bellbottoms and a psychedelic tie. On the record, he sings "MacArthur Park" (well, some of it, anyway), "Eleanor Rigby" (most of which he recites instead of singing), "Something," and other "great hits of today." You'd think he might make peace at least with numbers like "The Look Of Love," but the only song he shows any real enthusiasm for is "Is That All There Is?," and even that is too cynical for his style.
   ~William Ruhlmann, AMG

   Artist: John Scofield
   Album: Piety Street
   Label: Emarcy Records
   Year: 2009
   Format: MP3 VBR 192-320kbit/s
   Size: 88,5 МB

   On the surface, this would seem a genre exercise — a professor/doctor of jazz guitar looking into the deep book of American gospel because it's . . . "interesting." But Scofield's integrity remains intact.

   He snared a top-flight rhythm section with a hefty dose of New Orleans — keyboardist John Cleary, Meters bassist George Porter Jr., and drummer Ricky Fataar — and recorded at the NOLA studio of the title. And he understands that this is vocal music, so in addition to recruiting Cleary and Crescent City veteran John Bouttй for vox duties, he plays like a singer, his own solos faithful to the vocal-melodic line, even as he spits pearly ornaments and note clusters.

   He plays with a throaty sound, conjuring syllabic bends and breaks, often with an extra dash of B.B. King bite in his articulation. Testifying, he drops from a high-tenor range to deep baritone on Dorothy Love Coates's "That's Enough," or opens up the wah-wah on "Something's Got a Hold on Me." Perhaps best of all is a super-slow "The Old Ship of Zion," Thomas A. Dorsey's chestnut rearranged for Cleary's oozing funereal organ, Fataar's cymbal tapping in insistent triplet eighth-notes, Porter a never-ending marvel of groove and melody, and Scofield's guitar moaning along with them.

    Artist: Ry Cooder
    Album: Paradise and Lunch
    Label:
    Year: 1974
    Quality: MP3@320 kbps
    Size: 89 mb
    AMG Rating

   Ry Cooder understands that a great song is a great song, whether it was written before the Depression or last week. Still, at the same time he isn't afraid to explore new avenues and possibilities for the material. Like his three previous records, Paradise and Lunch is filled with treasures which become part of a world where eras and styles converge without ever sounding forced or contrived. One may think that an album that contains a traditional railroad song, tunes by assorted blues greats, and a Negro spiritual alongside selections by the likes of Bobby Womack, Burt Bacharach, and Little Milton may lack cohesiveness or merely come across as a history lesson, but to Cooder this music is all part of the same fabric and is as relevant and accessible as anything else that may be happening at the time. No matter when it was written or how it may have been done in the past, the tracks, led by Cooder's brilliant guitar, are taken to new territory where they can coexist. It's as if Washington Phillips' "Tattler" could have shared a place on the charts with Womack's "It's All Over Now" or Little Milton's "If Walls Could Talk." That he's successful on these, as well as the Salvation Army march of "Jesus on the Mainline" or the funky, gospel feel of Blind Willie McTell's "Married Man's a Fool," is not only a credit to Cooder's talent and ingenuity as an arranger and bandleader, but also to the songs themselves. The album closes with its most stripped-down track, an acoustic guitar and piano duet with jazz legend Earl "Fatha" Hines on the Blind Blake classic "Ditty Wah Ditty." Here both musicians are given plenty of room to showcase their instrumental prowess, and the results are nothing short of stunning. Eclectic, intelligent, and thoroughly entertaining, Paradise and Lunch remains Ry Cooder's masterpiece.
   ~ Brett Hartenbach, All Music Guide

   Artist: Danny Gatton
   Album: Redneck Jazz Explosion , Live
   Year: 1978
   Label: Ichiban
   Quality: mp3@320kbps
   Size: 124 mb

   Few recordings can match the immediacy, the exhilaration, and the untamed virtuosity heard on this disc. Danny Gatton was a relatively unknown guitar master comfortable with myriad styles when he first hooked up with steel guitar force Buddy Emmons in 1977. Emmons, like Gatton a musical omnivore, had for two decades been one of Nashville's premier musicians, and when the two joined forces for the first time, the synergy was amazing and the compatibility was magical. After a few occasional gigs throughout 1978, the pair finally toured as the Redneck Jazz Explosion, a group that melded the jazz sensibility with country, blues, bluegrass, rock, and more, thereby moving beyond any simple categorization. This remarkable set comes from a New Year's Eve 1978 show in Gatton's native D.C., and it finds two incredibly talented men playing in an uninhibited but focused fashion. In terms of sheer technical prowess, Gatton and Emmons had few peers on their respective instruments, but what sets this collaboration apart is how speed and agility balances so nicely with feeling and creativity. The short-lived Explosion stands as one of the great instrumental ensembles, a lightning-in-a-bottle partnership that thankfully is documented on this essential recording.

   Artist:Champion Jack Dupree
   Аlbum: His Blues Band & Mickey Baker
   Year: 1967
   Label: Decca
   Format/bitrate: MP3/320 kbps
   Size: 105 МB




   Dupree's playing is almost all straight blues and boogie woogie, with no ballads or pop songs, not even blues ballads. He was not a sophisticated musician or singer, but he had a wry and clever way with words: 'Mama, move your false teeth, papa wanna scratch your gums.' He sometimes sang as if he had a cleft palate and even recorded under the name Harelip Jack Dupree. This was an artistic conceit, as Dupree had excellent, clear articulation, particularly for a blues singer.

    Artists: Mike Stern
    Album: These Times
    Label: ESC
    Year: 2004
    Format, bitrate: mp3, 320kbs
    Time: 1:09:23
    Size: 156 Mb



   Combine the innovative guitar energy of legendary fusion master Mike Stern with old friends (bassist Richard Bona, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta) and new (saxman Kenny Garrett), and anything is bound to happen.
   This album has a little bit of everything for a music lover.Funky jazz soul, world music, bebop guitar, a little dab of everything. What holds it all together is that Stern is consistently melodic in his phrasing. At times this album shimmers as the layers of sound including wordless vocals from Richard Bona and Elizabeth Kontomanou mix with the other instruments seamlessly.
   Amazon. com

   Artists: Альберт Мелконов (Albert Melkonov)
   Album: The Best of Albert Melkonov
   Label: noname
   Year: 1970-1996
   Release: 2008
   Genre: Traditional Jazz, Dixieland
   Quality: MP3 192 kbs/s
   Size: 107 Мb
   Time: 69:39

   Этот диск мне любезно подарил сам Альберт (так получилось что мы с ним соседи), в составлении диска помогли ему друзья-музыканты. Это - единственный диск-сборник, где представленны записи разных лет и с разными составами.

   Когда музыкант решается выпустить свой альбом с многозначительным «The Best...», он выступает сразу в нескольких ипостасях - историком собственного творчества, критиком, лидером, и партнёром, продюсером или сопродюсером, но всегда человеком, обуреваемым ностальгией по времени, в котором ему выпало играть, музыкантам, с которыми его свела счастливая судьба. В этом смысле альбом известного московского джазового трубача Альберта Мелконова лучшее тому подтверждение.

   Artist: Stephane Grappelli
   Album: Improvisations (Jazz in Paris vol. 42)
   Label: Mercury
   Year: 1958
   Release: 2001
   Format: Mp3
   Time: 50:37
   Size: 117 Mb

   This is the first of Stephane Grappelli's sessions as a leader during the 1950s to be issued on CD, which is rather surprising given the availability of his work from the last two decades of his life. Grappelli is heard exclusively in a quartet with pianist Maurice Vander, bassist Pierre Michelot, and drummer Baptiste Reilles, except for two takes of "Someone to Watch Over Me," when Vander makes an ill-advised switch to harpsichord. The violinist is not nearly as aggressive as he would become in the decades to follow, seemingly concentrating more on achieving a beautiful tone than dazzling listeners with his considerable abilities as an improviser. Most of the material recorded during these three dates remained in his repertoire for the remainder of his career; with up-tempo selections like "The Lady Is a Tramp" and "'S Wonderful" getting the nod over most of the ballad interpretations. One surprise is the inclusion of Alec Wilder's I'll Be Around" (listed as previously unreleased but it appeared on a later Barclay LP following the original issue); this may be Grappelli's only recording of this lovely standard. Although this isn't an essential CD for swing fans, the reappearance of this once hard to find music will be welcomed by fans of Stephane Grappelli.
   Ken Dryden, AMG