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Cannonball Adderly: Burnin’ in Bordeaux: Live in France 1969
by Mike Jurkovic
Intent on burning down the house, Burnin' in Bordeaux: Live in France 1969 finds Cannonball Adderley gleefully passing out the matches. Captured very, very, very live at the Bordeaux Jazz Festival in March 1969, Adderley and his fired up co-arsonists--pianist Joe Zawinul, cornetist Nat Adderley, Jr., bassist Victor Gaskin, and drummer Roy McCurdy--go scorched earth from the flare-up with Zawinul's spiky ember, the uber-toned The Scavenger." It rips, it roars. It runs wild the rapids and holds strong the ramparts. It ...
read moreMal Waldron / Steve Lacy: The Mighty Warriors
by Karl Ackermann
Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy first played together in 1958 at the Bowery neighborhood's Five Spot. Their association was long, if not necessarily prolific on record. Though their personal styles contrasted, they frequently existed in a parallel universe. Both expatriates lived in Paris, were predisposed to the avant-garde, and shared a deep appreciation for Thelonious Monk's music. They performed and recorded until 2002 when Waldron died. Barcelona-based Elemental Music Records acquired the previously unreleased recordings of Lacy and Waldron from ...
read moreMal Waldron - Steve Lacy: The Mighty Warriors
by Dan McClenaghan
Producer/jazz detective Zev Feldman is still at it, ferreting out unreleased recordings from jazz giants of the past and releasing them with buffed-up sound quality and first-rate packaging. Long lost recordings from pianists Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Art Tatum and Ahmad Jamal have seen the light of the twenty-first century, thanks to Feldman, as has newly discovered music from trumpeter Chet Baker. Now it is pianist Mal Waldron (1925 -2002) and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's (1934 -2004) turn, with The ...
read moreBill Evans: Tales: Live in Copenhagen (1964)
by Mike Jurkovic
Maybe it is and maybe it isn't as historical in scope as some of the previous ten archival Bill Evans releases from that master of jazz discovery, Zev Feldman, and Evans' estate, but Tales: Live in Copenhagen (1964) is sure fire proof you got nothing but the best on any given night at any given gig by Evans and his cohorts. From the get go, this set--recorded by Evans, bassist Chuck Israels and drummer Larry Bunker at Danish ...
read moreBill Evans: Treasures: Solo, Trio and Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965-1969)
by Mike Jurkovic
At first one might wonder how long good fortune can last so that previously unheard and unreleased Bill Evans sets such as Treasures: Solo, Trio and Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965-1969) seemingly fall from the heavens on a regular basis. Is it not fact that all good things must come to an end is the cruelest of ironies? But it would appear, at least for the expectant moment, that we are living in the best of times. So ...
read moreMelvin Rhyne: Boss Organ
by Chris May
Originally released on CD on the Criss Cross label in 1993, Hammond B3 organist Melvin Rhyne's Boss Organ is issued here for the first time on vinyl. Spanish archive label Elemental, under license from Criss Cross, has repackaged it as a double LP in a gatefold sleeve on 180-gram audiophile vinyl. It is a blinder. Not because Rhyne deals in surging, heavily amped block chords, a la Jimmy Smith, but because his style is utterly unlike that, ...
read moreAlbert Ayler: Revelations
by Chris May
There are lovingly curated box sets and there is Albert Ayler's Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings. The 5 x LP / 4 x CD set documents in full the two concerts Ayler gave at the high-end performance and visual arts facility in Provence, France in July 1970, just four months before he passed, so tragically and prematurely. Everything about the release is near perfect, from the sonics through to the hundred-page booklet which project producer Zev Feldman ...
read moreChet Baker Trio: Live In Paris
by Chris May
Aside from a new album by a favourite musician, few things hold so much promise as the release of a previously unavailable recordingand if it comes up to expectations, rather than being a barrel-scraping exercise, one has lucked out. Live In Paris: The Radio France Recordings 1983 -1984 hits the sweet spot. Available as a 3 x LP box set from April 23, 2022, which is Record Store Day, and a week later as a 2 x CD box, these ...
read moreBill Evans: Behind The Dikes – The 1969 Netherlands Recordings
by Dan McClenaghan
Zev Feldman, co-president of Resonance Records, seems to have made it his life's mission to present every unreleased note that pianist Bill Evans ever recorded. Live At Art D'Lugoff's Top Of The Gate (2012), Some Other Time (2016), Another Time: The Hilversum Concert (2017), Evans In England (2019) and Live At Ronnie Scott's (2020) represent the Bill Evans discography on the Resonance Records label, all produced by Feldman. And now 2021 finds Feldman teaming with the Elemental Music label, to ...
read moreDexter Gordon Quartet: Espace Cardin 1977
by Karl Ackermann
Dexter Gordon left us almost three decades ago, but his presence in 2018 has virtually brought him back to center stage. The release of his biography Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon (University of California Press) by his wife Maxine Gordon, and the previously unreleased Dexter Gordon Quartet Tokyo 1975 (Elemental Music) have revitalized interest in one of the most influential early leaders of the bebop movement. Elemental follows up the Tokyo concert release with Espace Cardin ...
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