Jazz Articles about Various Artists

Various Artists: Stone Jazz

by AAJ Staff
October 16, 2003

“A-one and a-two: Can’t get me no...duh, duh, duh...Satisfaction, baby.”

When you really think about it, Mulgrew Miller sort of looks like Keith Richards. Take out the Grecian Formula and Lenny White might be Charlie Watts. Charles Fambrough may be from Philadelphia, but with a little work, I see Bill Wyman. Stone Jazz proves that when rockers age enough, even jazz cats like to imitate them. This collection is 48 minutes of almost dysfunctional retro. If you didn’t ...

Various Artists: The Big Horn: The History of Honkin' & Screamin' Saxophone

by Norman Weinstein
October 15, 2003

The saxophone style heralded by this handsomely packaged, budget-priced four-disc box exists somewhere between jazz and R&B. Spawned most famously by Illinois Jacquet's “Flying Home," a hit for Lionel Hampton's 1942 big band, this sound emphasizes the raw, gutteral, dramatic, extreme high and low registers of the sax. Subtle it is not, and has never been, but the "honkin' & screamin'" style propelled many avant-garde saxplayers of the 1960s and beyond. It also fuelled the development of ...

Various Artists: Trombones on Parade

by Norman Weinstein
October 15, 2003

Trombones on Parade offers 23 classic performances spanning the years from 1927 to 1950, and every selection is a worthy addition to this cleanly remastered, budget-priced collection. Odd how American jazz labels so like to collect tunes unified by musician, style, or era – or even listener mood ("Jazz for a Sad Afternoon") – but U.K. jazz reissue labels often perceptively anthologize by instrument. It makes for an entertaining and enlightening overview. The collection starts with Kid ...

Various Artists: Birth of Be Bop

by Norman Weinstein
October 15, 2003

The Savoy catalog has been sliced and diced in so many combinations over the years that yet another Savoy compilation might invite moans. Yet there is good news in this one disc bop overview. The remastering is the best ever, meaning that Tommy Potter's bass on Charlie Parker's live at the Royal Roost version of “Be Bop" is sketchy but present; Bird sounds fully dimensional. The usual suspects appear – Gillespie, Navarro, Dexter Gordon – but there ...

Various Artists: 50 Years of Jazz and Blues: Jazz

by C. Michael Bailey
October 12, 2003

As part of the label’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, Chicago’s own Delmark Records has released two double-disc sets, highlighting the label’s jazz and blues lines respectively. Presently reviewed is the jazz set. This set is composed of 28 songs, five of which are not previously released on compact disc. These included Art Hodes’ interpretation of "Cake Walkin’ Babies From Home," in which the pianist pay great attention to 1920s performance practice, giving the song an authentic Chicago feel. One wonders when ...

Various Artists: Viva Cubop 3: The Essential Latin & Afro-Cuban Jazz Collection

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 11, 2003

This set layers thirteen tracks from the Cubop roster of Afro-Cuban masters past and present into a thick forest of steamy, sweltering percussion funk.

Timbalero Bobby Matos was the first artist the label signed and is represented by “Kimbisa” from his album Footprints. Matos also produced “Back to the Roots,” a reminder that the marimba is a percussion instrument too, from Peligroso, the second Cubop album by marimba player Dave Pike. A longtime veteran of the Latin groove, ...

Various Artists: Exile on Blues Street

by C. Michael Bailey
October 10, 2003

With Exile on Blues Street, Randy Labbe and Telarc Blues did not merely hit a home run, but a grand slam to win the World Series by one in the bottom of the ninth. Where The Blues White Album was a troublesome fit and The Blues on Blonde on Blonde was a near fit, Exile fits like a glove.

It begs the question: were the Rolling Stones the purveyors of New Blues, or is the music so ...