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Various Artists: Swingin' Jazz for Hipsters Vol. 2
by Robert Spencer
Again with the hipsters. Same packaging, same kind of track selection, even much the same personnel as Volume One. This time we have Jim Hall with a sprightly version of “Bemsha Swing," Ken Peplowski as “Mr Gentle & Mr. Cool," Charlie Byrd's “Frenesi," Gary Burton with “Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs (Theme From 'Frasier')," Frank Vignola and “Tico Tico," the Heath Brothers with “Dave's Haze," Brother Jack McDuff doing (are you ready?) “The Age of Aquarius," Gerry Mulligan and Scott ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Swingin' Jazz for Hipsters Vol. 1
by Robert Spencer
That most prolific of jazzmen, Mr. Various Artists, is back again from Concord in a slick postmodern Fifties retro package crafted to appeal to folks who would never admit that they like “Feelin' Groovy," but groove to it all the same underneath their gentle sneer. Inside is a program heavy with pop tunes latter-day jazzed: “The Candy Man," “Isn't She Lovely," “The 59th Street Bridge Song" in the flesh-plus crossover things like Donald Fagen's “Walk Between the Raindrops" (presented here ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Standards On Impulse!
by Robert Spencer
Standards on Impulse! is a collection disc with a few twists, but not as many as one might expect from that label's classic Sixties roster. Art Blakey kicks off the proceedings with a driving version of Gershwin's “Summertime" that seems to owe a bit to John Coltrane's 1960 version, three years before this recording. Here Sonny Stitt plays lines that explain why they call it “hard bop," McCoy Tyner displays his characteristic intensity of the period, and Art Davis is ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Priceless Jazz Collection Sampler
by Robert Spencer
Okay, so your officemate, or your son, for goodness' sake, comes up and asks you, “What is this 'jazz,' anyway?" Time to haul out GRP's Priceless Jazz Collection Sampler. You get Billie Holiday sounding a trifle detached ("Good Morning Heartache"); Ella Fitzgerald scatting with as much verve as ever ("Oh, Lady Be Good"); Louis Armstrong playing no trumpet at all but singing as paradoxically sweetly as his famously grainy voice ever managed to allow ("What a Wonderful World"); Johnny Hartman ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture "Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil"
by Jim Santella
Clint Eastwood, who in 1971 incorporated footage from the Monterey Jazz Festival into his film directorial debut ("Play Misty For Me"), has released a Johnny Mercer songbook to accompany the current box-office hit set in Savannah and centered around a true-life murder that took place in the Mercer House. Established in 1860 by Mercer's great grandfather, General Hugh Mercer, the mansion sits in the center of a picturesque section of Savannah, and easily conveys visually the mood intended for much ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Songs That Made the Phone Light Up
by Robert Spencer
A compilation package with an interesting twist: Joel Dorn, the mastermind behind the controversial (and great) Rhino boxes of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Mingus, Trane, et al, has collected 13 songs beloved of his listeners on WHAT-FM in Philadelphia during the Sixties. He explains that besides all being favorites of his audience, none of these songs were hits. He has a high regard for the taste of his listeners from those days, even crediting them with production of this disc. From ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: B-3in' Organ Jazz
by Robert Spencer
A groove-drenched various artistas reissue from Joel Dorn's 32 Jazz. Richard “Groove" Holmes, Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy Ponder (with Big John Patton handling the organ), Charles Earland, Willis Jackson (with Mickey Tucker on organ on one track and Earland on another), and Houston Person (with Jon Logan on organ). Person plays his silky and sinewy tenor on two other tracks: “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me" with Holmes, and “Walking the Dog" with McDuff. He also produces McDuff's track ...
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