Recording News

Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus (Ojc, 1956)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
January 20, 2011

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was beginning an awe inspiring burst of creativity when this album was recorded on June 22, 1956 in the company of Tommy Flanagan on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Max Roach on drums. Developing some of the thematic material that he would continue to explore for the rest of his career, the album opens with the immortal “St. Thomas" one of the most immediately recognizable songs in jazz, with a calypso melody that imbeds itself ...

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Joe Lovano Us5 - Bird Songs (Blue Note, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
January 20, 2011

Multi saxophonist Joe Lovano began his unique two drummer band Us5 a few years ago, releasing their first unsettled album on Blue Note last year. Touring and greater familiarity with each other has led the band to the music of Charlie Parker, not a tribute exactly, but an exploration of Parker themes brought into the present day. The band sounds tightly focused on this album, consisting of Lovano on saxophones and reed instruments, James Weidman on piano, Esperanza Spalding on ...

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One Track Mind: Pinetop Perkins, with Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, "Grinding Man" (2010)

Source: Something Else!
January 20, 2011

By Nick DeRiso With “Grinding Man," a rollicking rapscallion highlight from his Grammy nominated album with Willie “Big Eyes" Smith, we get a winking glimpse into how 97-year-old Pinetop Perkins has kept himself going all these years. Perkins, who like Smith made his bones playing with Muddy Waters, connects the dots between blues music's rustic era pioneers like Robert Johnson and the gritty post-war urban sounds that succeeded them. Born in July 1913 in Belzoni, Miss., Perkins backed Robert Nighthawk ...

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Unsigned Treasures: Sasha and the Indulgents - Love in a Box (2010)

Source: Something Else!
January 20, 2011

By Nick DeRiso Sasha and the Indulgents' Love in a Box is shot through with a devastating sense of foreboding, from the crafty creep-rock of its opening title track almost all the way through to its desolate final moments of lonesome acceptance. Yet, and this is the power and magic of the record, they never bog down musically. Instead, this New York-based group finds a series of interesting contexts to surround their dark ruminations. Sasha Papernik is a conservatory-trained child ...

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Gimme Five: Five Disco Songs That Don't, You Know, Suck

Source: Something Else!
January 20, 2011

By Nick DeRiso Nobody is arguing that there weren't excesses. “Disco Duck," that song about CB radios, Barry Gibb's chest hair. But don't let one or two—OK, a teetering truckload—of bad apples spoil the whole batch. The 1970s had their moments. Even amidst those dark days when pointing straight up counted as a dance move. Here are five examples of disco songs that don't, you know, suck ... No. 5: LOVE UNLIMITED ORCHESTRA, “LOVE'S THEME" This track, which lumbered to ...

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Jazzwax List: 10 Singing Boppers

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 20, 2011

By the late 1940s, bebop was all the rage—thanks largely to radio disc jockeys who hyped the music and artists through the air-play of records on late-night shows. What began in the mid-'40s as a spectacular, secular jazz style flourished by 1948 as more musicians figured out how to play and arrange it for small groups and big bands. [Photo by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com] By 1949, more singers were glamorizing bop, giving the novel form a novelty feel. Here are 10 ...

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CTI 40th Anniversary Celebration Continues With 6 More Classic Reissues by Sony Masterworks

Source: Chris M. Slawecki
January 19, 2011

CTI RECORDS 40th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION CONTINUES!

SONY MASTERWORKS JAZZ RELEASES CLASSIC REISSUES FROM GEORGE BENSON, DEODATO, MILT JACKSON, PAUL DESMOND, JIM HALL AND RON CARTER: Available January 25, 2011

Also available: Critically acclaimed CTI Records: The Cool Revolution deluxe 4-CD box and California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium 2-CD set featuring previously unreleased tracks

Masterworks Jazz continues the celebration of the 40th anniversary of CTI Records, the beloved jazz label founded in 1970 by producer Creed Taylor with the release of ...

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Ivan Julian Readies His First New Album in Years, "The Naked Flame," out March 29 on 00:02:59

Source: conqueroo
January 19, 2011

Former guitarist in Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Outsets and Lovelies, who has also backed Garland Jeffreys, Afrika Bambaata, Matthew Sweet and the Clash, steps to the fore. NEW YORK, N.Y.—Although his new release The Naked Flame is his first album under his own name, Ivan Julian has been one of rock's most celebrated players and most in- demand collaborators for more than three decades. The album, Julian's first collection of his own songs in more than 20 years, finds ...

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