★Music On CD
Bert And John
Donovan includes a hearty shout-out to his contemporary, Bert Jansch, with the tracks “Bert’s Blues,” and “House Of Jansch”. This collaboration between English folk guitar legends Bert Jansch & John Renbourn of Pentangle fame is astonishing from first note to last. You can sense the intense pleasure of two gifted men not only matching one another as they play, but combining their talent to create something more than the admittedly impressive sum of its parts. It’s rare to hear two guitarists so …
Red Clay
This is the sequential classic of Freddie Hubbard‘s catalog. Bandmates on this musical journey are Herbie Hancock on Fender Rhodes, Ron Carter on electric & acoustic bass, Lenny White on drums & Joe Henderson on tenor sax & alto flute. ‘Red Clay’ is accessible, grooving and one of the first fusions of R&B & Funk with Post-Bop. “Red Clay” sprung from his memories of his childhood in Indianapolis, noting that many of the neighborhood’s residents had come from the deep South, and he wanted the tune…
The Blue Yusef Lateef
On “The Blue Yusef Lateef” (1968), listeners get an amazing chapter from the late ’60s, an amazing period when everything in the world of Jazz was changing. Yusef Lateef was big on concept recordings. This album examines all the different ranges of emotion contained within the blues genre. With a band that included Detroit Jazz gods Roy Brooks on drums and Kenny Burrell on guitar, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Hugh Lawson on piano, Sonny Red on alto, Bob Cranshaw on electric bass, and a very young C…
Moon Child
Recorded in France in 1989, Sanders plays here with an all-star line-up consisting of Stafford James on bass, William Henderson on piano and Eddie Moore on drums. Great percussion work from Cheikh Tidiane Fall, particularly on “Moon Rays”, and as always Sanders’ sax work is rich, full and throaty. On this album, the legendary saxophonist clearly reinvented himself as a more traditional improviser, capable of thoughtful and pensive deliberations. Catchy mystical New Age vocals and astrological re…
Africa
On this 1987 album Pharoah Sanders is accompanied by the great Idris Muhammad on drums, John Hicks on piano and Curtis Lundy on bass. Five of the eight compositions are by Sanders, one track by pianist Hicks, Coltrane’s “Naima” is a tribute to Trane and “Speak Low” is a beautiful standard from Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash. A real smoky slower number “Heart To Heart” shows Sanders can be subdued and romantic and John Hicks plays some beautiful jazz piano. The whole album exudes energy and joy. On “D…
Faro Annie
*2022 stock* This is John Renbourn’s fifth and most blues influenced album, backed by the Pentangle rhythm section of Terry Cox and Danny Thompson. The singer/guitarist often takes a folk-rock approach, and often investigates American folk songs, on ‘Faro Annie’, beginning with the traditional “White House Blues”, a song about the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley. Next is “Buffalo Skinners” another traditional piece made famous by Woody Guthrie. Then there is “Country Blues”, a p…
Daughters of Darkness
* 2021 Stock * The French film composer François De Roubaix recorded compositions for a lot of movies. One of them is the Belgian cult horror classic Daughters of Darkness. The soundtrack to the erotic vampire - a stylish, cold, and sinister meditation on sex, compliancy, and vampirism- film consists of a lot of different musical elements and is an seductive score. It’s one of François’ finest pieces of music. The colourful compositions supports the love story and the different ways the vampires…
Starsailor
Remastered CD Starsailor is a culmination of Buckley's experiments and with former Mothers of Invention Bunk Gardner on sax and alto flute, the story is complete. This album endures as one of the most legendary albums ever made by a singer/songwriter. Tim Buckley's most experimental album and one of his most artistically successful. Buckley's recorded output was uneven; he never quite comfortably fit into the singer-songwriter mold and tried out all sorts of musical personas during a cut-short c…
Dance Pieces
“Glasspieces” was originally performed in 1983, “In The Upper Room” suite premiered in 1986, and both accompanied a ballet performance. This is the only place you can find the ensemble version of the “Funeral” from ‘Akhenaten’, which was a show-stopper from Glass's ensemble concerts of the mid-80s. There are a number of musicians on both pieces and “In the Upper Room” includes conductor Michael Riesman on piano and synthesizers. In addition to the keyboardist, there are a number of string, brass…
Brilliant!
Why some artists achieve the recognition they deserve while other equally talented ones don't depends on many things. But one thing is clear, that obscurity does not always mean lack of talent. Regardless, it is always a pleasure to discover little known but immensely gifted musicians and it is really a great pleasure to hear the reissue of The Diamond Five's Brilliant!. The Diamond Five, a Dutch quintet led by pianist Cees Slinger, was founded in 1959 and lasted until 1965. They were based at t…
Side Trips
Like a mind-boggling combination of Summer of Love acid-rock, goodtime saloon music and a Middle Eastern jam session, Side Trips, the debut album by Kaleidoscope, stood out, even in the eye of the psychedelic hurricane, as something altogether different! Staffed by a hall of fame roster of multi-instrumentalists? David Lindley, Chris Darrow, Solomon Feldthouse, Chester Crill (aka: Fenrus Epp) and John Vidican's This San Gabriel Valley, Calif.-based combo cut their dazzling 1967 album with a star…