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Album Review

Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: Live at I.U.C.C. 11/26/1978

Read "Live at I.U.C.C. 11/26/1978" reviewed by Danen Jobe


In November of 1978, Horace Tapscott had some advantages that any other iconoclastic, idealistic, idiosyncratic jazz bandleader would greatly desire. For one, he was approached by a socially minded professional gambler named Tom Albach about starting a label (Nimbus West) devoted to Tapscott's music, allowing complete creative control, never expecting to make a dime of profit, and providing living money to keep the band going. Another was a steady gig in the only area in the nation that Tapscott truly ...

349
Album Review

Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra: The Definitive Thad Jones

Read "The Definitive Thad Jones" reviewed by George Kanzler


Recorded in 1988, over two decades after the creation of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and a decade after Jones left the band, this is also its last recording under Lewis' helm (he died two years later, 20 years ago in February, 2010). As such, it reflects Lewis' concept as well as his and the band's adaptations of Jones' charts. The instrumentation is also different than both the early incarnation and today's Vanguard Jazz Orchestra--the brass including two bass ...

388
Album Review

Benny Goodman: Benny Goodman Yale University Archives Volume 1

Read "Benny Goodman Yale University Archives Volume 1" reviewed by Andrew Velez


The sound of the opener is unmistakable; it's the familiar, driving urgency of Benny Goodman's clarinet, which made him the undisputed “King of Swing," heard again in all its electrifying glory on “Sweet Georgia Brown," the 1967 take which opens this collection. Recorded live in New York's old Rainbow Grill, Goodman is in solid company with pianist Bernie Leighton, bassist George Duvivier and especially saxophonist Zoot Sims. With a simpatico honed by playing together over the decades, Sims' sleek, rhythmic ...

257
Album Review

Eastern Rebellion: Mosaic

Read "Mosaic" reviewed by Terrell Kent Holmes


Eastern Rebellion is a jazz super group that has toured and recorded, with various personnel changes, since the mid-1970s. The reissued treasure, Mosaic, features the 1992 version of the band, with charter members Cedar Walton and Billy Higgins on piano and drums respectively, David Williams on bass and Ralph Moore on tenor. These stellar players combine to produce an album that is almost effortless in its excellence. The interplay throughout Mosaic is a pleasure to hear, whether ...

379
Album Review

Jesse Sharps and the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra: Sharps and Flats

Read "Sharps and Flats" reviewed by Rex  Butters


Nimbus West reached into the vault for Sharps and Flats to pull out sessions by Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra leader, composer, and reedist Jesse Sharps. The program features six tracks with quintet recorded in '85, followed by a warm chunk of '79 PAPA playing a Sharps composition live. The music is rich and urbane, unafraid of appealing melodies and varying time signatures.

Opening with “The Goat and the Ramjam, snaky bass and a light piña colada piano from ...

342
Album Review

Nate Morgan: Journey Into Nigritia

Read "Journey Into Nigritia" reviewed by Rex  Butters


At the dawn of the Reagan years, LA jazz pianist Nate Morgan recorded his first album for Nimbus West. Finally on CD, Journey Into Nigritia portrays an artist marked by the icons of his day, and striving for reinvention. Although he came from a solid jazz background, coming up through the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra, Morgan found more exciting work with pop bands in the seventies, including glory years with Rufus w/Chaka Khan. On Journey into Nigritia, Morgan re-embraces jazz. ...

220
Album Review

Various: The Haunted House

Read "The Haunted House" reviewed by Dave Nathan


This album was issued just in time for Halloween with a 20 tune play list of songs about skeletons, ghosties and ghoulies and other “things that go bump in the night". Obviously designed to create the proper atmosphere for that one time during the year - - Halloween - - when households are threatened with all manner of devious tricks unless a ransom in the form of a treat is paid post haste. These tributes are usually deposited in a ...

439
Album Review

Billie Holiday: Billie Holiday Sings Standards

Read "Billie Holiday Sings Standards" reviewed by Larry Koenigsberg


This collection of mostly gems from the great and influential singer who peaked in the late 1930's and early 1940's holds many pleasures: Holiday's caressing, behind-the-beat swing with its great feeling of relaxation, and that quivering slide as her phrase ends; a great repertoire of songs from the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and their lesser peers, so that the sincerity of her interpretation, usually called on to make gold from garbage, finds material worthy of it; small-band ...


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