Jazz /
The Fox
Harold Land, one of the greatest West Coast tenor saxophone voices of all time. A strong player rooted in Bop language, famous for his role in the legendary Max Roach and Clifford Brown quintet and later as part of another great Los Angeles based combo such as bassist's Curtis Counce group. The Fox is a 1960 album originally released on the Hifijazz label and reissued by Contemporary in 1969. Here Land is at the head of a marvelous quintet, some sort of who's who of the LA jazz scene: Dupree Bol…
Letter From Home
Released on Riverside records in 1962, "Letter from Home" was the debut album of Jazz vocalist Eddie Jefferson. Often credited as the founder of vocalese, Jefferson wrote memorable lyrics to classic jazz standards including "Parker's Mood.", "Lady Be Good," "So What," "Freedom Jazz Dance,"... Eddie Jefferson is backed here by a bunch of Jazz heavyweights, all at the top of their game. Among them: tenor sax masters Johnny Griffin and James Moody, trumpeter Clark Terry, pianists, Winton Kelly, an…
Hard Luck Soul
If musical accomplishment is anything to go by, the members of the Ohio Penitentiary 511 Jazz Ensemble would immediately be given their pardon. Their privately-pressed LP from 1971 is a legend in obscurity, and a master class in what can be achieved in the most trying of circumstances.
The 511 Jazz Ensemble was made up entirely of serving prisoners in the Ohio State Penitentiary. It was founded in 1971 to give those prisoners with a musical aptitude an opportunity to be productive and creative. …
Swing im Bahnhof
*2022 stock* The Kenny Clarke-Fancy Boland Ensemble has its headquarter and management in Cologne. Many international recordings and releases presents the lineup of the Clarke-Boland in trio, quartet, sextet and in bands with 13 and 21 musicians from all over Europe. This time, they were a sextet that traveled to Rolandseck, a German ensemble with no Germans.Kenny “Klook” Clarke is one of the heads of the bebop movement. He was also one of the founders of the Modern Jazz Quartet and he is consid…
Quartetto Gianni Basso
*2022 stock* Gianni Basso represents one of the most solid institutions of the Italian jazz. He has been like this since the beginning, when he appeared in Milan after some years abroad. At that time he already had a long story behind him as an activist jazz musician: he started playing during his childhood in his hometown of Asti (where he was born in 1931) and then in Belgium, where his father emigrated with his family to work in the mines. It was there that he discovered the jazz music at its…
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 evening, and they saw the day-break on a working Milano while they still were trying to perfectionate the last tune.
We said they «met»: and no word is more significative to indicate the meeting of the five musicians at the studio. There was nothing deci…
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 cooked up funky follow-ups using “The Sidewinder” recipe including “The Rumproller,” which was recorded the next year. Beyond the groovy title tune (which was written by Andrew Hill) the quintet featuring Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Ronnie Mathews…
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 ballads to blistering tempos with ease. Within two years, Griff would become one of the leading tenor saxophonists in jazz as a member of Thelonious Monk's quartet.
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. But his Blue Note years put him back on top with a run of essential albums that stand as classics of the jazz canon. Doin’ Allright featured a top flight quintet with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Horace Parlan, bassist George Tucker, and drummer …
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 sublime A Swingin’ Affair. All the joy and beauty of the great tenor man’s music can be found in the irrepressible opener “Soy Califa,” a Gordon original that moves deftly between Latin and swing rhythms as Dex holds forth with his commanding horn. Th…
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), Hank Mobley (Roll Call), Kenny Drew (Undercurrent), and Jackie McLean (Bluesnik). Hubbard’s bravado style was already fully formed on Open Sesame with his brilliant tone and jaw-dropping technical prowess at the helm of sterling quintet with tenor s…
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 Ben Dixon -- the group cooks up quite a bit of power, really sinking its teeth into the storming up-tempo numbers, and swinging loose and easy on the ballads. From the first note of "Miss Ann's Tempo," they establish a groove, and swing like hell thro…
Inventions & Dimensions
For his third Blue Note album Inventions & Dimensions (1963), pianist Herbie Hancock began moving away from the modernist hard bop sound that defined his first two albums Takin’ Off and My Point Of View. Inspired by explorers like Eric Dolphy and Tony Williams, Hancock went in search of greater musical freedom by composing a set of ingenious originals each with their own unique inner logic that did away with what he considered the established jazz “assumptions” of the time. Hancock also pared th…
Impact
Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London Trumpeter/ flügelhornist Charles Tolliver often straddled the line between the lyricism of hard bop and the adventurous nature of the avant-garde. Released in 1975, Impact contained a stimulating progressive edge within an energetic large band (14 horns, eight strings, and rhythm section) format. Tolliver's arrangements are consistently bright and build momentum, while the soloists are given sufficient room to manoeuvre throug…
Aleksi Heinola Quintet
**250 copies** Three additional songs from the celebrated debut session, limited 10 inch! The talented drummer continues to explore the hard-bop sound of today with three more tracks; Bouncing at the S.U.P., Chasing the Spirit – two songs composed by the drummer and the quintet’s own hip rendition of Book’s Bossa by Walter Booker.“Heinola skilfully demonstrates the full range of his arsenal, skipping through his cherished hard bop style of jazz while interweaving subtle nods to Latin and Afro st…
Complete Uppsala Concert Vol. 1
Recorded Live in Sweden in September 1961, the Uppsala Concert is an important document from Eric Dolphy's first Swedish tour as leader of an obscure but talented local quartet featuring Rony Johansson (piano), Kurt Lindgren (bass), and Rune Carlsson (drums). Master Dolphy shines, as always, on all his instruments alto sax, bass clarinet, and flute, while the track list consists of a rare mix of standards such as Milt Jackson's Bags Groove, Monk's 52nd Street Theme, Cole Porter's What Is This Th…
Live at The Loosdrecht Jazz Festival
Charles Tolliver began his professional career and simultaneously his recording debut with the saxophone giant Jackie McLean on Blue Note Records in 1964. Since then he has become one of the all-time preeminent trumpeters in Jazz as well as one of its most gifted composer / arranger bandleaders. He is also a Grammy nominated recipient for his Blue Note Records recording With Love.With a career that has spanned five decades he has recorded and/or performed with such renowned artists as Roy Haynes…
Blue World
In 1964, John Coltrane and his quartet produced two great masterpieces in Rudy Van Gelder's studios, namely the albums Crescent and A Love Supreme. Between the two sessions the quartet entered the studio for another recording: the soundtrack of the French-Canadian film Le chat dans le sac. Today, the tape of that session has been found and remastered, so finally here's the third 1964 album: Blue World. The content is extraordinary: not only do we find the classic quartet (with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy…
Indestructible
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…
Una Mas (One More Time)
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…