What jazz music are you listening to?

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Ella Fitzgerald - Let No Man Write My Epitaph
Analogue Productions SACD



Ella + piano: as pure as jazz ballads can get!

One of our top favourites to go into the night.
Streaming it via Qobuz 24/192.

[joel_hifi]

Originally Posted by bart

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers - First Flight To Tokyo - The Lost 1961 Recordings
Qobuz 24/192




Some very good solos on this one!
Sound is not ideal, unfortunately especially Blakey is badly taped, but trumpet and piano come nicely through.
'Round About Midnight is one of the finest versions I've ever heard. Timmons but especially Morgan are outstanding here.

In 1961, Art Blakey did his first tour of Japan with his then-current lineup of the Jazz Messengers. It was a young crew of players—Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Timmons, and Jymie Merritt were all in their early 20s, while Blakey was comparatively an elder statesman at 42—and the group only been together for a little more than a year with just two albums (The Big Beat and A Night in Tunisia) under their belt. This two-week tour could have been a straight cash grab, with Blakey and the band giving jazz-starved Japanese audiences a well-mannered and highly competent run through a collection of straight-ahead bop standards. It quickly became clear that—thanks to the enthusiastic reactions of crowds at every single tour stop—they had considerable license to let things rip. And indeed they did. The engaged energy of the crowd fed the players on stage and the result was, as documented on this previously unreleased recording from a Tokyo concert at the end of the tour, some near-electric performances. Instead of acting like ambassadors, the band here is acting more like explorers, taking the crowds' deep and informed affection for jazz as a license to walk with them into some new terrain that was truly transitioning from the bop era. This set opens with a rambling, jaunty version of Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time" that goes on for 20-plus minutes. Far from a hoary old chestnut being brought out to warm up the audience, it kicks off the show with a lengthy and intense solo from Blakey that is followed up with some expansive and exploratory interplay between Shorter and Morgan. The tone is set for the rest of the show, which runs a warm, but inquisitive vibe through a number of standards. Timmons' piano work shines so brightly on "'Round About Midnight," as one would expect, but near the last third, his keyboard work gives way to some near-cosmic playing from Morgan that totally reshapes the character of Monk's standard. There's a great balance in the set between solos and communicative group improvisation, but there's no mistake that Blakey is the leader, as he not only clocks the most spotlight time, but also provides the necessary bridge between jazz's past and future. And while he's obviously not digging into the same vibes he would in the late '60s and early '70s with albums like Roots and Herbs and The Witch Doctor, it's also clearly a few evolutionary clicks beyond the Messengers' name-making work from the late '50s. Worth noting: although the sound quality here is not quite audiophile-level (it's a little thin in places, especially—and unfortunately—on low end/percussion), for a "found" recording, the fidelity is nonetheless rich and transportive. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Great performance Too bad RVG wasn't around on that tour!

PS: my understanding is that Roots And Herbs and The Witch Doctor were both recorded in 1961, the same year as this Tokyo live performance (and released in 1969/70).

[bart]

Originally Posted by audio bill

Arianna Neikrug - "Changes" available on Tidal

Streaming it via Qobuz 24/96.
She's pretty good.

[ehoove]

Christmas Songs
with the
Ray Brown Trio
With some great guest vocalists!
Telarc Jazz 20bit CD-83437
Regards,
Jim

[bart]

Ella Fitzgerald - Sings Sweet Songs For Swingers
Arrangements and Orchestra Conducted by Frank DeVol
Qobuz 24/192




This is not Ella's best album, but around that time, in the prime of her life, any album of hers was better than those of 99,99% of her colleagues.
Good sound!

Recorded just before and after the period that she made the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook, Ella Fitzgerald is in fine form on this obscure LP, performing a dozen standards. Although two songs are by Harold Arlen, the composers were in most cases less prolific than the ones she saluted in her songbook series. Ella is backed by a large unidentified orchestra conducted and arranged by Frank DeVol. Swingers alternate with ballads, and as usual, Ella uplifts everything, including "Let's Fall In Love," "Moonlight Serenade," "Gone With the Wind" and "East of the Sun." An enjoyable if not classic release.

© Scott Yanow /TiVo

[joel_hifi]

Billie Holiday - The Lady Sings

Early recordings from 1945-50 (Decca)... that Voice

[rjinaz86323]

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me

[JoeN]

Jacintha, what a voice!

[bart]

Time for one of the great Song Book albums of Ella:

Ella Fitzgerald - Sings The Irving Berlin Song Book
Paul Weston and his orchestra
Qobuz 24/192





Like the other 7 sets, this belongs the core collection of our library.

Among Ella Fitzgerald's gigantic discography, the eight volumes of her Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Complete American Songbook form a sacred pantheon. The idea for these records came from producer Norman Granz, who managed the singer and was the boss of Verve. The first volume, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, which came out in 1956, was a runaway success with critics and the public alike. So much so that in that same year, Ella followed it up with Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook and then again in 1957 with Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook. This volume, which is given over to the songs of Irving Berlin, was conceived in sessions from 13 to 19 March 1958, with an orchestra directed by the classy and reserved Paul Watson. It's hard to sum up this double album in few words (it originally came out in two separate volumes) without breaking out reams of superlatives. Newcomers to her work can take this record as an easy base camp from which to ascend Ella Everest. Across a repertoire to die for (Berlin passed away in 1989 at the age of 101, having written more than 800 songs!), with light and gay numbers taking centre stage, Ella's voice picks out the great writer's romanticism, which never feels cloying. For fellow composer Jerome Kern, at the heart of Irving Berlin's writing was his faith in American vernacular: his songs were indivisibly linked with the country's history and image. Here, in ubiquitous favourites like Cheek to Cheek, in Watson's arrangements, in ambient swing, in freewheeling and sensual singing, we see the then-41-year-old American reaching the summit of perfection. This is one to play and play and play, again and again and again... © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

[ehoove]

Street Life
The Crusaders
Always a solid pull with Randy Crawford!
MCA Records MCA-3094
Regards,
Jim