Artist: The Airmen Of Note
     Album: The Airmen Of Note And Sarah Vaughan
     Label: USAF
     Year: ; 1974
     Genre: Jazz, Big Band
     Format, bitrate: MP3 / 320
     Size: 52,5 MB



There is not much information to find about this recording from 1974 with Airmen of Note abd Sarah Vaughan, but a comment from the bands unofficial homepage can maybe give us a hint why Vaughan seems very much inspired and 'on edge' on the tunes she participates: 'A particular thrill (in 1974 for Airmen of Note) was the opportunity to record again with Sarah Vaughn, and the feeling was mutual. Sarah so enjoyed working with the Note that she went on to perform in concert with the band on several memorable occasions.'

Back cover states "This Record Is Not For Sale".

     Artists: Charlie Haden & Egberto Gismonti
     Album: In Montreal
     Label: ECM (ecm1746)
     Year: 1989; release: 2001
     Genre: Jazz, modern creative, smooth (guitar-bass duo)
     Format, bitrate: FLAC & mp3 @ 320 kbps
     Time: 78:55
     Size: FLAC ~342 MB (3 files); mp3 ~178 MB; Full scans in separate file (~17 MB)



Bassist Charlie Haden has done a tremendous amount of playing in duo contexts (very little of it on the ECM label, however). This live recording with the remarkable pianist/guitarist Egberto Gismonti is a fine addition to his duo resumй. Recorded at The Montreal Jazz Festival in 1989 and released over a decade later, the album mostly features noted works by Gismonti, although two of Haden's pieces also appear. Gismonti plays guitar rather than piano on Haden's "First Song," making for an interesting comparison with the version that graced Beyond the Missouri Sky, Haden's 1997 duet record with Pat Metheny. Similarly, Gismonti's off-kilter piano solo on Haden's "Silence" contrasts richly with what Keith Jarrett played on the same tune (on 1977's Bop-Be). Gismonti's nylon-string stylings do recall Metheny to some degree, as well as ECM labelmate Ralph Towner, although his ten-string instrument sets his playing apart, particularly on the driving "Em Famнlia." On piano, he's at his most virtuosic on "Lфro" and "Frevo." (A radically different version of the latter appeared on the album Friday Night in San Francisco, as a duet for guitarists John McLaughlin and Paco De Lucia.) ~ David R. Adler, All Music Guide

     Artist: Youn Sun Nah
     Album: Voyage
     Label: ACT (9019-2)
     Year: 2008
     Genre: Modern creative, vocal jazz
     Format, bitrate: FLAC
     Time: 55:06
     Size: ~264 MB (2 files)


To envision the beauty of her voice, you have to imagine Youn Sun Nah a hybrid singer who travels the boundaries of classical and jazz but also combines Korean roots with Western influences. Her technique is astonishing, her pitch fantastic. Her very particular timbre makes comparisons difficult. Some Jazz fans recognize Jeanne Lee or Susanne Abbuehl, pop fans Bjork or Kate Bush but trust me, Youn Sun Nah is a unique phenomenon. She is capable of exploring various musical styles by imposing her own personality with a voice full of deep emotion. In my opinion, Youn Sun Nah is a unique performer in the world's jazz scene and one of the most talented contemporary jazz vocalists.

Her latest Voyage is a truly mature effort. As the title suggests, it makes you travel in various places - Scandinavia, France, the United States and of course Korea. "The recording is a blend of Nordic cool and some influences from middle Europe, Brazil and Asia" declares guitarist Ulf Wakenius, the project's main sideman. Joël Chevassus at sixmoons.com

     Artists - Medeski, Martin & Wood
     Album - End OF The World Party
     Label - Blue Note
     Year: 2004
     Quality - MP3@320kbps
     Size: 129 MB
     Total time - 53:50
     AMG rating

More than a decade into their career, Medeski, Martin & Wood continue to expand their sound. This time out, they've enlisted John King (Dust Brothers, Beck, Beastie Boys) as producer and engineer, and he brings a left-field pop sensibility to the table without ever sacrificing the personality and energy of the band. OK, it's not really "pop," but the songs themselves are less overtly "out" than the last couple records despite some wicked, nasty, wonderful tones. The new sound is a thick one, with lots of different layers and perhaps the largest keyboard arsenal ever assembled. On the first track alone, "Anonymous Skulls," you can hear just about every keyboard sound known to man, but it never gets too busy or claustrophobic. In fact, it's almost like the overdubbing process made them more aware of the tunes themselves rather than just the playing, making the songs particularly focused. It's easy to tell this is MMW, with Chris Wood's rich basslines, John Medeski's often percussive virtuosity, and Billy Martin's easily identifiable beats, but all the different layers and bits of ear-candy details really add a new element to the sound. There's also the fairly prominent use of Mellotron, which adds great texture, especially in the sometimes abusive hands of Medeski, who really demonstrates knowledge and mastery of every different keyboard and keyboard style. Forsaking the plethora of guest stars of the last two albums, the only guests are Marc Ribot (on four tracks) with the Sex Mob horns (Steven Bernstein and Briggan Krauss) joining on one of those. Ribot plays with perhaps his thickest, most distorted tone on record on "New Planet," and really lets it rip on "Queen Bee." End of the World Party (Just in Case) is probably the most intricately assembled of the MMW records, but the grooves are still unshakable and the bottom line is that they're still a great band. The fact that they continue to push their sound, even enlisting an almost mainstream "rock" producer to spice things up, is almost a victory in itself in the generally too-safe world of jazz, but the real success is that they keep putting out great records. This is no exception. ~ Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide

     Artist: Airmen Of Note
     Album: Christmas Time Is Here
     Label: Altissimo!
     Year: 1998
     Genre: Big Band
     Format, bitrate: MP3 / 320
     Size: 88 MB

     Artist: Erroll Garner
     Album: Erroll Garner Live in '63 & '64 (Jazz Icons)
     Label: NAXOS OF AMERICA DVD
     Release: October 27, 2009
     Format/Bitrate: avi/160 (DVD-Rip)
     Size:787mb
     Time: 60 minutes

Mr. Garner died on January 2, 1977...
The unforgettable sound of Erroll Garner will live forever!

     
     These two rare performances of Garner in Belgium and Sweden, respectively in December 1963 and January 1964, attest to his improvisatory and interpretive brilliance....
     To see Garner’s face light up when he plays the piano is to witness someone completely connected with the most profound joys in life... ~ Jazz Icons

     Artist: Buddy Collette Quartet & Quintet
     Album: Tasty Dish
     Label: Fresh Sound Records
     Years: 1956-1957, release: 1996
     Quality: MP3@320 kbps
     Size: 96,9 mb (sharebee)
     Total time: 43:46


Fresh Sound Records established their Jazz City series to showcase musicians who are important in certain metropolitan areas, and no one could be more vital to his home -- in this case Los Angeles -- than Buddy Collette. A tireless in-house recording artist and concert performer, the multi-instrumentalist was in excellent form early on, as these recordings from 1956 and 1957 so brilliantly illustrate. This is the third such reissue for Collette via Fresh Sound, in this instance combining three of his most famous and cherished albums for the Contemporary and Challenge labels: Man of Many Parts, Nice Day with Buddy Collette, and Everybody's Buddy. These quartet and quintet dates feature many of Collette's originals along with standards played to perfection, and showcase the wide range of his ability to play woodwinds, including clarinet, alto and tenor sax, and especially flute. Considering the years these studio sessions were made, this is some of the most scintillating modern jazz music for and of the times, both pace-making and trend-setting. The small-ensemble dates that comprise Man of Many Parts represent definitive music for Collette, and the album is his single best effort. Four tracks with pianist Gerald Wiggins, bassist Eugene "The Senator" Wright, and drummer Bill Richmond include a sweet version of "Makin' Whoopee," all with the leader playing alto or tenor sax. Collette originals like the fast and fun bop of "Tasty Dish" and Wright's "Mrs. Potts," a midtempo guitar/sax workout. Known as a man whose versatility and immense talent are undisputed, it is still notable how much clarinet Collette plays on this collection. It is very tuneful, lilting, and bright, showing no discernible influence of any previous peers, especially not Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman, or his bebop peer Buddy DeFranco. Aptly described as disciplined without being rigid, the brilliant Buddy Collette is one of the greatest musicians -- no matter the genre -- to walk the Earth, highly skilled, smart, and diversified far beyond a mere mortal musician. This was a heyday for Collette and his California colleagues, at a time when divisions between cool and bop were split on a regional basis. Thankfully, Buddy Collette always saw the big picture, as depicted in this set of extraordinary jazz music, highly recommended to all. ~ Scott Yanow All Music Guide

     Artist - Oscar Peterson
     Album - The Harold Arlen Songbook
     Label - Verve
     Years: 1954; 1959; release - 2001
     Quality - MP3@320kbps
     Size: 136.63 MB (sharebee)
     Total time - 75:36

     What could be a better pairing than Oscar Peterson, the pianist who most effectively parlayed jazz virtuosity into a popular following that extended far beyond the jazz world, and Harold Arlen, the Tin Pan Alley-based writer of Broadway and film scores whose songs always had a close kinship to jazz and the blues?

Although Harold Arlen, a Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee, was not as prolific as George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, his compositions are considered some of the most loved standards of all-time. They are melodic, tuneful and pleasant-sounding. His collaborations with the most creative lyricists, the big names in the songwriting business - Johnny Mercer, Ted Koehler, Dorothy Fields and Ira Gershwin, among many others, resulted in many remarkable songs that are widely interpreted and recorded by jazz musicians and singers.

This 2001 reissue CD contains two albums that Oscar Peterson and his sidemen recorded in the Fifties, the first was recorded in 1954 (Plays Harold Arlen) and the second one was in 1959 (The Harold Arlen Songbook). The interplay among Oscar Peterson (piano), Ray Brown (bass), Herb Ellis (guitar) and Ed Thigpen (drums) is outstanding. They all glow in their respective instruments, they never outshine each other and there's a great teamwork amongst them.

    Artist: Van Morrison
    Album: Keep It Simple
    Label: Polydor
    Year: ; release: 2008
    Genre: Blues
    Format mp3, bitrate: 320 kb/s
    Time: 49:49
    Size: 133 Mb
    Bubu's Rating:

Keep It Simple is a mantra for Van Morrison, as he stripped his music down to the bare basics years ago and then comfortably rode that groove, comprised in equal parts of blues, soul, jazz, and country. Van has been riding this groove so long that it's hard to pinpoint exactly when he settled into it, but looking back, things started to shift in the mid-'90s, as understated R&B rhythms took precedence and he started to punctuate them with country songs (or in the case of Pay the Devil, an entire LP of country tunes). Despite his new label Lost Highway's insistence that the fact this is his first album of all-original material since 1999's Back on Top, Keep It Simple doesn't feel all that different than the records since 1999, either in its feel or in structure, nor does it help that Van's songs play with older tunes, both in their lyrics and their very titles ("That's Entrainment," of course, but "Don't Go to Nightclubs" is a winning spin on "Don't Get Around Much Anymore"). Familiarity can breed contempt — and there's no denying that there is no figure as stubborn in popular music than Van Morrison, so it'd be easy for the cynical to assume that his refusal to change is a mere spiteful act, just as it would be easy for some listeners to think all his albums sound the same, because they kind of do — but familiarity can also deepen the music, which is the case with Morrison. This is lived-in, soulful music, the kind that can only be made after years of playing the classics, and if that doesn't quite make for a compelling album, it does make for a comforting one. It's as easy to slip into this album as it is a warm bath, as Van's cantankerous rumblings only surface (quite slyly) on the closing "Behind the Ritual," where he scats "blah blah blah" on the corner, suggesting that whatever he's singing doesn't really matter — and, in a way, he may be right, as the lyrics, the songs even, don't matter as much as the overall sound on Keep It Simple, which is as pure a groove album as he's ever made. There are no surprises, but when you do something this well, there doesn't need to be. - Stephen Thomas Erlewine at All Music Guide

     Artist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
     Album: Trouble It...
     Label: Revolution records
     Year: rel.Oct 7, 1997
     Format: MP3 @ 320 Kb/s
     Time: 56:34
     Size: 122,8 Mb

     Artist: The Airmen Of Note
     Album: Bone Voyage
     Year: 1984
     Format, bitrate: MP3 / 320 Kb/s
     Size: 85,6 MB

     "Bone Voyage" (1984) is, as the title indicates, a recording with the bands trombone-group in the center. And what a group that is !
Dave Steinmeyer, Rick Lillard, Gary Hall and Dave Morgan could have fit right into any commercial professionell big band anywhere.
As a trombonist myself it was an easy choice to start with this..

This is the first of 39 cd's (Complete discography) I intend to put out here, - but do you want them? Send me comments and I will consider...

    Artist: Richard "Groove" Holmes
    Album: Broadway
    Label: 32 Jazz
    Year: release: 1980
    Genre: Soul Jazz
    Format mp3, bitrate: 320 kb/s
    Time: 38:00
    Size: 87,2 Mb
    AMG Rating:

By 1980, when Broadway was recorded, organist Richard "Groove" Holmes had already splashed onto the scene as an expansive adherent of Jimmy Smith's soul-jazz gospel, been a player in the music's modern boogaloo-acid jazz phase of the late '60s, and survived disco by dropping synthesizers into the mix. Finally arriving at the Muse label by the late '70s, Holmes settled into a loose amalgam of past proclivities, never forsaking his high musical standards and groove aesthetic. For this, his third Muse release, Holmes enlists fellow organ combo veteran Houston Person to produce and ostensibly co-lead on tenor saxophone; for his part, Holmes sublimely comps behind the soloists, electrifying the session with his fluidly nasty runs and sanctified musings on the B3. He presents a typically varied program of pop ("Moon River"), old standards ("Broadway"), and self-penned ballads and blues ("Katherine" and "Plenty, Plenty Blues"); the program's brevity is mirrored not only in the band's equal panache with both up-tempo and slow groove numbers, but also in the attractively cheesy line they ply with the occasional wind chime flourish, synth line, and disco guitar riffing. Holmes even notches up a little avant-garde cachet with an homage to progressive, Coltrane-inspired organist Larry Young. Throughout this cooking and stylish set, Holmes and Person are expertly supported by guitarist Gerald Smith, drummer Bobby Ward, and percussionist Ralph Dorsey. A great buy for soul-friendly jazz fans. - Stephen Cook at All Music Guide

   Artist: Oscar Peterson
   Album: Oscar Peterson Plays Jimmy McHugh
   Label: Clef Records
   Year: 1954, release - 1955
   Quality: MP3@320 kbps (LP-rip)
   Size: 81,3 mb (sharebee)
   Total time: 36:43

     Artist: Hampton Hawes
     Album: High in the Sky
     Label: Fresh Sounds Spain
     Format/bitrate: FLAC Tracks. Scans.
     Recorded: Los Angeles, CA, 1970
     Size: 226 Mb

     Size: 226 Mb"Originally put out on a Vault LP, then reissued as half of Jaz's two-fer The Two Sides of Hampton Hawes and finally reissued on CD by Fresh Sound, this little-known trio set matches pianist Hawes with two of his old friends, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Donald Bailey. Hawes, whose style had evolved from the 1950s, plays five of his originals (including the nearly 11-minute title cut) and "The Look of Love." He was at the time a post-bop pianist with an open mind toward pop music and the more adventurous side of jazz. Unfortunately, this CD is a bit brief at a little over 36 minutes, but it does give listeners a good example of Hampton Hawes' playing during the important transitional period."~ Scott Yanow (All Music Guide)

   Artist: Oscar Peterson
   Album: Oscar Peterson Plays Harry Warren
   Label: Clef
   Year: 1954, release - 1955
   Quality: MP3@320 kbps
   Size: 87,9 mb
   Total time: 39:48




   This LP is one of different LPs recorded by the Oscar Peterson Quartet (with Louis Bellson (d) Ray Brown (b) Herb Ellis (g)) within one month. Peterson performs songs apiece by Harry Warren (including "Lullaby of Broadway," and "I Only Have Eyes for You") and Vincent Youmans (highlighted by "More than You Know" and "Without a Song") with his usual swinging approach. Very much an ad-lib one-take set, the music is given respectful melodic treatment while being updated to the late '50s. The results are not essential but the pianist's many fans will enjoy his albums.
   ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

    Artist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
    Album: Ledbetter Heights
    Label: Giant
    Year: ; release: 1995
    Genre: Blues-Rock
    Format mp3, bitrate: 320 kb/s
    Time: 1:00:17
    Size: 138 (covers)
    AMG Rating:

You would never guess from Kenny Wayne Shepherd's fiery playing that the guitarist is still only in his teens. On his debut, Ledbetter Heights, Shepherd burns through a set of rather generic blues-rock ravers that are made special by his exceptional technique. It may still be a while before he says something original, but he plays with style, energy, and dedication, which is more than enough for a debut album. - Thom Owens at All Music Guide