Jazz /
Abstraction
*2022 stock* Gianni Cazzola confesses that he would have never expected that an one of his albums from the late sixties would be re-discovered and re-issued. Thirty years after its release people are again talking about “Abstraction”. Recorded in Nov…
What's happening?
*2022 stock* Giorgio Azzolini was never a front man bt played with the best Italian musicians of the day, as well as American Expats going through like Chet Baker or Bobby Jaspar. Here he has a trio which is amazing for 1966 in that it combines fuild…
Crucial Moment
*2022 stock* «Crucial moment» the title assigned by Giorgio Azzolini. And as a fact, jazz in the past years has been going through a crucial, decisive period. On one side the conservation of traditional values of the language and its well-known inspi…
Night In Fonorama
*2022 stock* Night in Fonorama. And it was a night in the real meaning of the word, that the five jazzmen spent at the Fonorama, one of the most important studios in Milano. It was the night of May the 31st 1964. They met at nine o’ clock in the even…
Our Kinda Strauss
**CD Digipak issued with 28 page book and a slip case** This album of waltzes by the Clarke-Boland band is a compilation of pieces from four different sessions, the first of which, in February 1966, produced the album Swing, Waltz, Swing. This LP was…
Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie
"Clap Hands, Here comes Charlie Drewo, the most famous of all the Viennese tenorists! – Well now, without exaggeration – Karl Drewo, 32 years of age – or Charlie as his American friends like to call him – is undoubtedly one of those rare specimen of …
At Her Majesty's Pleasure
Inspiration in jazz has many sources. Who would have thought that British prisons could have inspired a Belgian-born composer, arranger, co-leader of a truly international band? The fact is that when the Clarke-Boland band came to this country at the…
Summer Dawn
*2020 small repress* Here is music for your strange mood. The piano starts the first track, slow tempo beat, a strict beat, a swinging beat. Lillemor—here minor harmonies give the tune a rural, romantic feeling of some place in Spain or France. The …
Jazz (Now) in Italy
*2022 stock* At the Jazz Festival which took place in Sanremo in March ’66, out of the seven bands present only one was Italian; that is of course if you exclude Guido Manusardi, an Italian pianist that has been living in Sweden for years. What I’m t…
Smoke Stack
On his second Blue Note album Smoke Stack, pianist and composer Andrew Hill used an unusual line-up of two bassists (Richard Davis and Eddie Khan) along with the masterful Roy Haynes on drums. Blue Note founder Alfred Lion considered Hill to have as …
The Rumproller
After trumpeter Lee Morgan set the music world on fire with the runaway success of his hit soul-jazz single “The Sidewinder” in 1964, many artists tried to duplicate his triumphant feat in search of another boogaloo sensation. Even Morgan himself coo…
Introducing Johnny Griffin
Johnny Griffin had been kicking around in R&B bands for years before his Blue Note debut in 1956. And what was "introduced" was a tenor saxophonist with a fresh sound, a warm, soulful style and the fastest technique in jazz. He moves from lyrical bal…
In 'N Out
Recorded in April 1964, In ‘N Out falls square in the middle of the formidable run of five classic Blue Note albums that launched tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s legendary career. The line-up featured the transcendent frontline of Henderson and tru…
Mr. Jones
After his six years with the seminal John Coltrane Quartet, the mighty drummer Elvin Jones signed with Blue Note Records in 1968 and made a series of 10 fantastic albums including 1972’s Mr. Jones, produced by Francis Wolff and George Butler, and fea…
Doin' Allright
Though he first recorded in the late-1940s, Dexter Gordon’s Blue Note debut Doin’ Allright—recorded and released in 1961—marked a rebirth for the great tenor saxophonist after a decade in which drug addiction and legal troubles limited his output. Bu…
A Swingin' Affair
Just 2 days after saxophonist Dexter Gordon recorded his classic album GO! in August 1962 he brought the same quartet with pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Butch Warren, and drummer Billy Higgins back into Rudy Van Gelder’s studio to record the equally s…
Open Sesame
Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard burst upon the Blue Note scene in June 1960 with his auspicious debut album Open Sesame. Within 6 months Hubbard had already recorded a follow-up (Goin’ Up) and appeared as a sideman on sessions with Tina Brooks (True Blue),…
Think!
One of the funkiest & most inventive organists to ever walk the earth, Dr. Lonnie Smith made his name on Blue Note beginning with his 1968 label debut Think! Produced by Francis Wolff, the album featured trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist David …
Blue Mode
For his third Blue Note album Blue Mode (1969), organist Reuben Wilson kept it right in the pocket and laid down one of the funkiest soul jazz workouts of the late-60s. Produced by Francis Wolff, the date featured Wilson at the helm of an airtight qu…
Grant's First Stand
Grant Green's debut album, Grant's First Stand, still ranks as one of his greatest pure soul-jazz outings, a set of killer grooves laid down by a hard-swinging organ trio. For having such a small lineup, just organist Baby Face Willette and drummer B…