Results for "Greg Simmons"
Hank Mobley: Soul Station
by Greg Simmons
Music Matters continues to release exceptionally high quality, all analog reissues of classic Blue Note Records' albums from the golden mid-century age of small-combo jazz. They've recently upped their game with the introduction of a higher-quality raw material formulation they call SRX Vinyl. Hank Mobley was Blue Note Records' most prolific artist, with over ...
Lee Morgan: The Sidewinder
by Greg Simmons
Legend tells us that 1964's The Sidewinder was the album, and indeed the song, which saved Blue Note Records at a time when the label was struggling financially. Dashed off to fill some tape, at the end of the recording session, it peaked at number 25 on the Billboard charts—almost unheard of for a hard-bop record—stabilizing ...
Joe Henderson: The State Of The Tenor • Live At The Village Vanguard • Volume 2
by Greg Simmons
If any jazz performance from the 1980s could be thought of as a landmark statement, Joe Henderson's live State of the Tenor sessions would surely float to the top of the list. Recorded at the Village Vanguard over three nights in November 1985 and originally released on Blue Note Records two years later, State of the ...
Music Matters: SRX Vinyl
by Greg Simmons
Music Matters, the vinyl reissue house known for it's long string of high-quality all-analog pressings of classic Blue Note records, has released a dozen additional titles just a year or so after completing what was supposed to have been their final offerings. The new records include some that Music Matters had released in earlier series, as ...
Wayne Shorter: Adam's Apple
by Greg Simmons
In all the perpetual hubbub surrounding Blue Note records from the 1950s--the aggressive opinions and stratospheric prices--it's sometime easy to forget that the label released really high quality music all the way through the 1960s, and some of the recordings from the later years of the decade are every bit as worthy of attention as the ...
Grachan Moncur III: Evolution
by Greg Simmons
One of the more unusual records in Music Matters series of Blue Note Records reissues is Grachan Moncur III's avant-garde classic Evolution, released here on a 45 rpm double LP. The Music Matters Blue Notes are among the highest quality jazz vinyl available, with fanatical attention to sound, packaging, and pressing quality, here doing serious justice ...
Lee Morgan On Music Matters
by Greg Simmons
Somewhere up in the sky there's a pantheon of jazz legends. Lee Morgan rightfully has a seat in the top tier, and the jam must be extraordinary. Morgan hit the scene in 1956, an obvious prodigy who'd scored two triumphs at the tender age of eighteen: a standing gig in Dizzy Gillespie's big band ...
Duke Pearson: WAHOO!
by Greg Simmons
Duke Pearson occupied an unusual position within Blue Note Record's roster of artists. In addition to recording as both leader and sideman he also served as the label's A&R man, following in the footsteps of Ike Quebec. Pearson also served as the arranger on many albums, including sessions--Stanley Turrentine's Rough 'n' Tumble, comes to mind--where other ...
Hank Mobley: Hank Mobley
by Greg Simmons
During the 1950s and '60s Hank Mobley was an especially prolific musician. In addition to many dates as a sideman, his string of 26 or so records under his own name for Blue Note certainly makes him the one of, if not the label's productivity champion. Most of his dates are excellent performances, yet somehow his ...
Thad Jones: The Magnificent Thad Jones
by Greg Simmons
It's all about the swing. Featured in the Count Basie Orchestra, one of the hardest swinging bands ever, Thad Jones had more swing in his little toe then most musicians will ever dream of. Even when he slowed the tempo he still swung, and his second date as a leader for Blue Note Records, The Magnificent ...
