A feast of fantastic music

[Guest]

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/vinyl2.php

The link above is to a selection of my favourite LPs recently uploaded for your enjoyment.

Anita O'Day at the Berlin Jazz Festival 1970

I mentioned this before as the second part of a youtube clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyRByrx0fwU

which shows her with the same musicians in Oslo. Do listen to the second song "Your Wings", it's not well known and it's great. (...but she's bare-headed, Calum, sorry!)

Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band

I don't know how well this is known but it is worth a listen. There is a very wide stereo sound stage and the arrangements are full of charm and even intensity at times. Bob Brookmeyer is the other main soloist apart from Gerry. "All About Rosie" is a three-section suite by George Russell.

Stan Getz plays Bacharach and David

Well, this is going to cause some dubious comments, I reckon. On the other hand, whatever the foibles of past and present boarders you'll do yourselves a disservice if you don't chose to luxuriate in these wonderful arrangements of a great songbook. Getz is backed by a big band with Chick Corea on piano ( not that you hear a lot of him!).

Miles, Mobley, Kelly, Chambers, Cobb at the Black Hawk, Friday and Saturday

I've put these up as a service to those who would like to hear the sets as they would have sounded to those in the audience. As was made clear by a contributor to another Forum the piano is on the right of the Black Hawk stage and is pictured so on the covers of the famous Shelly Manne 4-LP set.

Fred Astaire with Oscar Peterson, Charlie Shavers, Flip Phillips, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown and Alvin Stoller

Also mentioned before in the "Six degrees........." thread where I claimed a 1-step link to Fred through Tommy Tune, the lanky tap-dancer in Ken Russell's "The Boy Friend". As Martin Drew played drums with the Ken Gibson Big Band on occasion I can claim a 1-step link to Oscar!! As mentioned before I first met this music in the mid-50s and have loved it ever since and maybe I'm not the only one....

"Oscar Peterson spoke warmly of the sessions that produced The Astaire Story in his autobiography, noting that vocally, Astaire was not naturally attuned to Jazz phrasing, and that Astaire enjoyed playing the drums at home. Astaire gave each of the musicians on the album a gold identification bracelet, inscribed 'With thanks, Fred A'. Ray Brown lost his bracelet, Alvin Stoller's was stolen, but Peterson wore his for the rest of his life" ( from Wiki)

....maybe not that "attuned" but these are originally just songs and he certainly has a way with a lyric. This the first instalment of 2, if you can bear to wait....? Just give the first track a listen, Shavers comes in with a great solo after Fred's chorus and then Barney has a go and then Oscar, who on many of these tracks is at quite relaxed and lyrical and a lot less pyrotechnical than he can be, which to my mind is a fault of his.

P.S. having checked these uploads out on headphones and then as a result of a fault rechecked them on the laptop-hi-fi full front room stereo I can't understand why anyone would seriously listen to music on headphones for more than a recce. Anybody with me on this?

P.P.S It was a year ago in a Spanish restaurant in St. Helier, Jersey, where my grandfather was born, that we heard a female vocalist singing the great American standards only it was .............Rod Stewart!! and today the son and heir gave me the other two volumes to go with the 2nd volume that we picked up for a fiver in a CD-DVD sale in Cromer (pretty chilly with the North Sea fog paying a visit) the week before last. Am I allowed to say that Volume 2 was very pleasant?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

wonderful stuff as ever Clive. if one lands on your Home page, goes to LPs and finds the Classical, it is not entirely obvious how one might find the jazz ... finally i did see the here to click!

many thanks great stuff, currently rocking to Miles Ahead in wonderful sound!

[clive heath]

There are now a further selection of fantastic LPs for you to enjoy on the site as above.

Nat Adderley and the Big Sax Section ...this is my suggestion as a follow-on for the Benny Carter's "Further Definitions" mentioned in another thread. The five sax players add a great section sound and good solos. The guitar in the rhythm section gives a lift missing from many contemporary (1960-1) big-band issues. You will hear jazz flute and even oboe from Yousef Lateef.

Nat Adderley, Wes Montgomery and others. Apart from Nat's compositions "Sack o'Woe" and "Work Song" there are some wonderful ballad and standards performances as well as the up-tempo numbers. "Mean to Me" has to be one of the most perfect performances in all jazz. Montgomery's guitar chuntering away behind the trumpet solo is a delight. You will also hear ( spoiler alert!) cellists adding to the sonic mix and soloing. Please, pretty please, don't let this put you off.

Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans Just over 1 year after "Kind of Blue", Adderley and Evans met up again for this recording accompanied by the MJQ rhythm section's bass and drums, maybe the only time that they did. If you want a contribution to the "Best Jazz Intro" thread then listen to the intro to "Toy". Drums and bass set the rhythm and Cannonball enters leading up to a rim-shot! Off we go with the theme and next to "Mean to Me" on brother Nat's LP this track is as close to small group perfection as you will get. In my view Evans is as sprightly on this recording as on any of his own.

Terry Gibbs and his Big Band I don't know how well the several LPs by this group are known. So, if the name is new to you, get stuck in! This is a worthy companion to "Sax No End" with its amazing arrangements and memorable tunes. The one that I really like is "T and S" on side 2. A boppish theme (AABA) gets it all going but then a repetitive figure takes over and leads to solos and band interjections which develop both ideas.

You can still enjoy Oscar Peterson's amazing Celeste solo on " No Strings ", Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band, Pepper and Mel Lewis on "Jazz West Coast"

Incidentally, last Saturday's SOTS, praised by me on the "Breakfast" thread as intelligent listening on a Saturday morning, had Georgie Fame singing Jon Hendrick's (?) lyrics to the trumpet solo on "Li'l Darling" from Neil Hefti's "Atomic Mr. Basie" originally sung by Annie Ross and Mel Tormé with his own composition "Swingin' on the Moon" with Russell Garcia's orchestra and a lively alto-sax soloist (Art Pepper?)

[Serial_Apologist]

Ooooh Trevor - what you might be missing!

[clive heath]

Ooooh-er

I seem to have inadvertently crossed some cultural demarcation line which has Stan Getz on the wrong side!!... and loads of other worthy musicians as well.

Which side of the line are these performances?

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/vinyl6.php

[clive heath]

This is to introduce my latest and 11th CD's worth of restored Jazz 78s.

The selection includes some stunning tracks, here are a few to whet your appetite:

Louis Armstrong's "Knockin' a Jug" with a washboard being played very close to the mike!

Earl Hines' amazing solo "Fifty Seven Varieties" which has a few bars toward the end where he seems to be using a rapid crossed hand technique.

Three tracks from Horace Henderson's Orchestra with Henry "Red" Allen, Dicky Wells and Benny Carter.

Teddy Wilson's immaculate piano on the "Chocolate Dandies" tracks.

Garland Wilson's solo piano beautifully recorded in Paris.

Six years before the famous track "Body and Soul", Coleman Hawkins gives a rhapsodic reading of "It Sends Me" with Buck Washington on piano.

Buck Washington, again, Frankie Newton, Choo Berry and Jack Teagarden are the backing group for four sides from Bessie Smith

These are all to be found under the heading Jazz.....8 on this page of my site

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_12.php

Happy listening! and Happy New Year

P.S. referring to the LPs described in previous posts, as mentioned in the preamble to the LP pages, they will be replaced from time to time and that will be in a week or two. However, the Nat Adderley big-band selection "That's Right!" will remain for a while as it has contributions from Yusef Lateef on Oboe, Flute and Tenor Sax.

[clive heath]

I'm stuck with this thread's over-enthusiastic title but, hey, to get the New Year off to a start, here is an almost complete reloading of my non-classical LP page. The only ones to remain are Nat Adderley's "That's Right!" which has contributions from two recent departures, Jim Hall and Yusef Lateef, and the Eydie Gormé LP who also left us last year.

As to the new selections, first, the Quintets.

Carl Perkins is a contender for the "before their time" thread dying at the age of 30 from a drug overdose. Here he is with the Curtis Counce Quintet in a LP dedicated to him which has Jack Sheldon on some tracks (also heard on the Art Pepper LP). Harold Land is on tenor sax and gives the ballad "La Rue" a special intensity.

Thad Jones fronts a quintet with Pepper Adams on baritone sax and Duke Pearson on piano. Thad has the knack of choosing an ethereal melodic line and seems to me at times like a lady in a tower while Pepper is a scruffy herbert trying to win her over!

Chet Baker has George Coleman as his front line partner, which might be thought quite a contrast. A forthright rhythm section binds them together although George copes better with the frenetic speed of "Cherokee" than Chet!

Hank Mobley has just a quartet, but what a quartet! Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Philly Jo Jones. Better known than the quintets, "Another Workout" shows off Hank's oblique style and they manage to make a good jazzer out of "Hello, Young Lovers".

For the larger groups: Another offering from the Terry Gibbs Dream Band. Marvellous arrangements, soloists and a joie-de-vivre feeling to the whole experience. They sometimes say that the thing about jazz is that the performers are having more fun than the audience.... not here.

Marty Paich, Art Pepper, Jack Sheldon are the main contributors to "Modern Jazz Classics" although the powerhouse drumming of Mel Lewis is vital ( as it is with the Dream Band and on the Thad Jones LP).

Quincy Jones explores the music of Henry Mancini is not one for the purist, but let your hair down and go with it! Read the 5* review in the All Music Guide

http://www.allmusic.com/album/quincy-jones-explores-the-music-of-henry-mancini-mw0000817111

and prepare to enjoy the double-cream richness of the brass choir in "Dreamsville", the pounding 6 bass-notes-a-bar in "Charade" and the sophisticated trombones in "Mr. Lucky". As it happens only one of the added LPs gets less than 4 stars in the AMG.

..and the Lambert, Hendricks and Ross Basie songfest gets five. "Fiesta in Blue" is one of the standout tracks for me.

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/vinyl2.php

is the link.

[clive heath]

A new batch of "fantastic" music is recently uploaded. In order of presentation;

Freddie Roach has Kenny Burrell guesting on several tracks and the whole thing is great getting-up music especially for a Saturday morning after SOTS.

Hampton Hawes with his quartet including the late Jim Hall are heard in one of the three LPs from the all-night session recorded as far back as 1956 in stereo.

Keely Smith is one of my favourite jazz-inflected singers, backed here by a Billy May ensemble. There can't be many singers who have recorded in front of as big, bold and brassy band as this one ( and there are strings too!).

You'll probably all know Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers' famous recording "Moanin' " but you might enjoy my take on this classic.

Ornette Coleman and his trio are caught at a gig in Stockholm. A stunning sequence of high powered melodic and rhythmic invention.

Benny Bailey, a stalwart of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland big band, is recorded with Francy as pianist and arranger accompanied by Tony Coe doing his "Gonsalves" inspired tenor thing and Sahib Shihab giving us some close-miked flute as well as the bari. I said hello to Benny at Ronnie's once reminding him of an LP "Midnight in Europe" which he had made in Berlin with the guy who I was then working for.

7 tracks from Manny Album and his "Jazz Giants": Travis, Farmer, Brookmeyer, Woods, Sims, Mulligan, Jones (Hank), Hinton, Johnson (Osie). Smooth swinging jazz of the highest order.

Larry Coryell and John McLaughlan are joined by Miroslav Vitous and Billy Cobham in a guitar,bass,drum frenzy alleviated from time to time with some quieter moments of strange beauty.

Art Pepper's LP "Smack Up" is one of his best with contributions from Jack Sheldon, Pete Jolly, Jimmy Bond and Frank Butler. One of the tracks is an Ornette Coleman composition "Tears Inside".

(coming shortly to replace the Thad Jones) The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco. This is the gig that Dmitri Shostakovich attended with his minders and none of them cracked a smile although they did applaud. Do we have Cannonball to thank for those insipid "jazzy" Shostakovich items so beloved of the Breakfast team? or was it Victor Sylvester? whose two pianists fooled Art Tatum to develop his fantastic technique!!! allegedly. You'll have gathered that my default position on small groups is drums on the left, piano on the right unless otherwise indicated and in the case of this recording the picture on the back of the sleeve is unequivocal agreeing with what you will hear, not what the recording engineers produced.

[clive heath]

Another CD's worth of Duke Ellington's marvellous music has been added to my site, it is labelled " Duke1". When I started on this lark I used about a third of my father's Ellington 78s with a fair number of tracks that were lively and would show off the process, when/if successful. Then, when the website came into being I chose to process all the other ones so as to come fresh to them, as I was a bit over-familiar with the third I'd used. Anyway, these new tracks are from the original third and there are some gems.

There is the existential angst of "Haunted Nights" and the mellow charm of the first recording of "In a Sentimental Mood" which must be one of Duke's most recorded compositions. Listen out for the interesting harmonisation of the second "B" 8-bar section, the overall structure being AABA. " High Life" has a marvellous trumpet solo and a surprise toward the end ( well, only if you don't know the piece). "Jubilee Stomp", "The Duke Steps Out" and "Double Check Stomp" have an infectious joie-de-vivre and the final track "Steamboat Shuffle" is a musical portrait of the steam-driven paddle-wheels.... and on top of all that is the extraordinary "The Mooche" with its insistent rhythm sounding for all the world like coconut shells.

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_14.php

[clive heath]

The latest additions to my site are quite varied, beginning with

Jascha Heifetz in the Brahms Violin Concerto with John Barbirolli and the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 78s. A scribbled note on the insert to the album which gives the analysis of the thematic components of the movements suggest that it was reviewed in the Gramophone in 1936. This will be found here

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_07.php

A selection of Benny Goodman tracks with his orchestra, trio and quartet. There is some marvellous stuff here beginning with four tracks featuring Jack Teagarden's lugubrious vocals and his trenchant tombone. Lionel Hampton gets to deliver "Exactly Like You", very much to my taste but maybe not universal.

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_15.php

On the page

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/vinyl.php

where I put Classical LPs up for a while and then remove them in due course I have added

Bartok's 2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos with Geza Anda and the Berlin RSO under Fricsay.

also his ballet "The Miraculous Mandarin" together with the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, performed by the LSO under Solti.

Other recent additions:

Brahms, two Clarinet sonatas with Janet Hilton and Peter Frankl.

Beethoven 7th Symphony from Zubin Mehta and the Philharmonia

Brahms, music for 2 pianos from the Kontarsky brothers

[gradus]

Just sampled the Kempff/Leitner Beethoven pf conc 1, very attractive sound indeed with lovely light tone, almost Mozartean, from the BPO, I'm really looking forward to hearing it in full.

[clive heath]

Here are the recent additions to my LP file.

As the musical " Kiss Me Kate" came up recently and the Mel Tormé version of "Too Darn Hot" presented, here is the whole LP "Mel Tormé swings Shubert Alley" with Marty Paich's ensemble. As I understand it, "Shubert" USA = "Tin Pan" UK i.e. popular song. Here the emphasis seems to be on Broadway links hence versions of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs not usually associated with jazzers: "Hello, Young Lovers", suggestions? " On The Street Where You Live", ditto apart from Andrè Previn? "A Sleepin' Bee" is one of my favourite songs and it's by Harold Arlen and Truman Capote ( who knew?).

To match the exciting live albums from Shelly Manne and Miles Davis at the Black Hawk here is the equally exciting "Integrity" from the Phil Woods Quintet recorded in Italy with Tom Harrell on trumpet and a superb rhythm section.

Nancy Wilson's "Yesterday's Love Songs, Today's Blues" with orchestra arranged by Gerald Wilson contains, as well as the two great songs I mentioned on the R.I.P. Gerald Wilson thread, "Please Send Me Someone To Love". You have to hear this!

Quite by chance I came across an unopened cellophane wrapped LP from Keely Smith which turned out to have her accompanied by a group of Jazzmen including Bud Shank who was a Gerald Wilson alumnus in the 1960s Pacific label big band recordings. I agree she is an acquired taste with her "ah" for "I" vowel idiosyncrasy but I like her anyhow and I hope some of you do too. "Ah'm In Love Again" also with Bob Cooper, Bill Perkins and Monty Budwig.

Still on the list; Art Pepper, Ornette Coleman, Cannonball, Benny Bailey, Larry Coryell and Freddie Roach's "Googa Mooga", still one of the best "get up and go" LPs ever.

(...referring to the preceding post, concerti 2 and 4 have been added to the classical list)

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/vinyl2.php

[clive heath]

More music to feast on:

My new heroes are Henry Holst and Antony Pini who along with Solomon made the record of the "Archduke" trio that was part of the previously most recent addition to my website. I realised that I only had one string quartet available and looking through the catalogues I noticed that the Philharmonia Quartet were represented twice and, lo and behold, Holst and Pini were common to both performances. In Beethoven's Opus 59 No.1 quartet they are joined by David Wise (2nd vln) and Frederick Riddle (vla) and on the Schubert's "Rosamunde" quartet by Ernest Element (2nd vln) and Herbert Downes (vla). To my mind the Beethoven is the superior recording with an almost cut-glass delicacy in sections contrasting with strong rhythmic vigour elsewhere.

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_13.php

Frederick Riddle is the soloist in Walton's Viola Concerto, a performance which was reportedly the preferred recording of the composer perhaps influenced by the fact that he was the conductor. When Casals recorded the Elgar Cello Concerto it was suggested that he didn't really get the feeling (engishness ?) of it which I don't really understand because his approach is quite reticent with very little vibrato and a great deal less of the attack that characterised his successful Dvorak recording. (autres temps, autres moeurs).

Lastly and only of special interest if you like me grew up on the Silbelius Society's 2nd volume containing two symphonies which were my first experience of Sibelius and made a lasting impression. Kajanus conducts the LSO in the third and Koussevitsky the BBCSO in the seventh. The sound quality is limited in places but overall I've enjoyed hearing them again.

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_07.php

By the way; Fats Waller is represented elsewhere on the site as are any number of Big Band records some including Berigan as soloist.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

many thanks Clive [if you would like the title changed i can do that for you] but i for one think it fitting!

[Roehre]

many thanks Clive [if you would like the title changed i can do that for you] but i for one think it fitting!

Seconded, and I do think "A feast of fantastic music" hits the nail on its head.