The first of six Ella Fitzgerald CDs in the European label Classics "complete" series has her earliest 25 recordings with two numbers ("My Melancholy Baby" and "All My Life") from a session with Teddy Wilson, three songs (including "Goodnight My Love") cut with Benny Goodman's big band, four tunes from her initial session as a leader and the remainder with Chick Webb's Orchestra which mainly acted as a backup band for the young singer. Even at the age of 17, Ella Fitzgerald had a beautiful voice and a strong sense of swing (although she would not seriously scat for another decade). "I'll Chase the Blues Away," "When I Get Low I Get High," "Sing Me a Swing Song" and "You'll Have to Swing It" are among the highpoints of this fine set. Scott Yanow
Tracklist + Credits :
12.7.23
ELLA FITZGERALD – 1935-1937 | The Classics Chronological Series – 500 (1990) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
15.11.22
ARCHIE SHEPP - Black Ballads (1992) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, who was one of the enfant terribles of the free jazz generation in the 1960s, once said, seemingly uncharacteristically, "You can hear every minute of every hour of every day of every year a player puts into practicing his horn when he plays a ballad." He was being prophetic, of course, as this date from 1992 suggests. Teamed with pianist Horace Parlan -- with whom he recorded the magnificent duet of spirituals Goin' Home -- bassist Wayne Dockery, and drummer Steve McCraven, Shepp leads the quartet through an astonishing series of ballads that are as revelatory for their understatement as they are for their musical aplomb. Shepp takes the Ben Webster approach on these 11 sides and comes off as a singer of songs (he is not singing) rather than as a saxophone player. His readings of "Angel Eyes," "All Too Soon," and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," and his souled-out cover of "Georgia on My Mind," are stunning for the restraint and nuance they contain. Parlan's comping slips toward fills of uncommon texture and dimensionality in the bridges of these tunes, and on Shepp's own "I Know About the Life," he reinvents the tune itself. The high point of this glorious record is Shepp's own "Déjà Vu," as it comes out of an uncommonly long "Lush Life," where the lyric of both compositions becomes a kind of recitation on the blues in stretched time. Issued on the Timeless label, this is a must-have for all Shepp fans, but more importantly, it is for all followers of the development in harmonic thinking about the ballad form in jazz.
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Tracklist :
1 Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? 7:11
Composed By – Eddie Delange, Louis Alter
2 I Know About The Life 5:20
Composed By – Archie Shepp
3 Georgia On My Mind 4:58
Composed By – Hoagy Carmichael, Reginald Connelly, Stuart Gorrell
4 Embraceable You 4:41
Composed By – George & Ira Gershwin
5 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes 5:18
Composed By – Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach
6 How Deep Is The Ocean 5:25
Composed By – Irving Berlin
7 Lush Life 8:33
Composed By – Billy Strayhorn
8 Déjà Vu 5:08
Composed By – Archie Shepp
9 Angel Eyes 7:56
Composed By – Earl Brent, Matt Dennis
10 All Too Soon 5:55
Composed By – Carl Sigman, Duke Ellington
11 Ain't Misbehavin' 5:16
Composed By – Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Harry Brooks
Credits :
Bass – Wayne Dockery
Drums – Steve McRaven
Piano – Horace Parlan
Tenor Saxophone, Alto Saxophone – Archie Shepp
14.11.22
ARCHIE SHEPP QUARTET | DAR GNAWA - Kindred Spirits Vol. 1 (2005) FLAC (tracks), lossless
Tracklist :
1 Main Street Medina 12:01
Archie Shepp
2 Suite Blue 13:09
Archie Shepp
3 Middle Passage 10:10
Archie Shepp
4 Groove Mosso 9:03
Archie Shepp
5 Dawn Of Freedom 7:38
Archie Shepp
6 Kindred Spirits 13:23
Archie Shepp
Credits
Artwork [Drawings] – Wozniak
Bass – Wayne Dockery
Design – Marjorie Guigue
Drums – Steve McRaven
Ensemble – Dar Gnawa
Piano – Tom McClung
Saxophone – Archie Shepp
Vocals, Percussion – Abdelkader El Khlyfy, Abdou El Gourd, Khalid Rahhali, Maalem Abdellah El Gourd, Noureddine Touati
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JOACHIM KÜHN — Europeana : Jazzphony No. 1 (Michael Gibbs) (1995) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless
Europeana won the Annual German Record Critics' Award upon its initial CD release in 1995. ACT Tracklist : 1 Castle In Heaven 4:16 Fr...