Month: January 2013

Jef Lee Johnson – Jungle (2001)

It’s somewhat amazing that this bold, bizarrely eclectic CD by three guys from Minneapolis would come out on a French label. All three players on this CD are renowned session musicians who have played with everybody from Miles Davis to Billy Joel, but News From the Jungle is anything but the slick production you might expect from a trio of session men. The album starts out with a heavy, menacing sound portrait of a bad night in a bad neighborhood, with Sonny Thompson grimly reciting crime statistics over a pounding beat, wailing guitar, and a collage of police calls and urban sound effects. [Source]




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[In memory of Jef Lee Johnson – via Jamaaladeen Tacuma]

Le Nimba De N’Zerekore – Kori Magnin (1980)

Kori Magnin is the second track on the album Le Nimba De N’Zerekore – Gön Bia Bia, released in 1980. Nimba de N’Zerekore is the name of a  market town in Guinea’s forested south east highlands, and the musicians is people from that city. Wild rhythms, spiky guitars and blasting saxes; the sound of West Africa 1980.

Tracks: A1: Gon Biya Bia (7:50) / A2: Kori Magnin (4:25) / A3: Ziko (4:10) / B1:  Babaniko (8:35) / B2: Kongoroko (4:55) / B3: Zoo Mousso (4:42)

Musicians from the city of Nimba N’zékékoré / Moussa Konate – Engineer Recording  / Samaké Namakan – Leader. Released on Editions Syliphone Conakry ‎Records.

Full Album:

 

Le Nimba de N'zerekore, front

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Chick Corea – Children’s Song No. 6 (1999)

Children’s Song No. 6 is recorded at Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall, Yokohama, Japan, November 28, 1999. From the CD Chick Corea Solo Piano: Originals.

While his chameleonic ways over the years have yielded some mixed results, this is Coreas “unplugged,” if you will, and at his very best. [source]

Chick Corea – Piano

 

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[Dedicated all Children in the World. With the best wishes for the future]

Art Tatum & Ben Webster – My One And Only Love (1956)

 My One And Only Love is track number 7 on the album Art Tatum – Ben Webster: The Album.

The only album-length collaboration between pianist Art Tatum and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster (accompanied by a rhythm section of Red Callender, bass, and Bill Douglass, drums) was this September 11, 1956, session under the auspices of Norman Granz’s Verve Records label. (It was also Tatum’s last recording session before his death.) Granz probably suggested the repertoire of standards by the likes of Kern and Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, and Cole Porter, but the melodies, of course, only provide a framework. On each track, Tatum leads things off, with Callender and Douglass coming in discreetly (and low in the mix). Then, at a certain point, Webster appears in the foreground, playing comparatively few notes and sticking much more to the melody than his partner. This is a good approach, since Tatum never subsides to simple comping; he just keeps soloing away under Webster’s rich tenor tones until Webster stops playing, and then keeps on to the end. So, although this is billed as a group effort, it’s not a group of equals or really one in which the players are cooperating with each other. Tatum might as well be playing solo, since he takes very little account of what’s happening around him. Granz makes it work by varying the volume of the different instruments in the mix, and the result is a fascinating study in contrasts. [source]

Art Tatum – Piano
Ben Webster – Tenor Saxophone
Red Callender – Bass
Bill Douglass – Drums

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The Revolutionary Ensemble – The People’s Republic (1975)

The People’s Republic is the fourth track on the album of same name by Revolutionary Ensemble, recorded in 1975.

This record has a fearsome reputation that is completely undeserved. On the contrary, while the sound of strings seems strange to a jazz-trained ear, the music these people make on this record is beautiful, fragile, and — considering that it’s all completely improvised — astonishingly tight as well. These men played together for a long time, not for tangible reward, but for themselves and whoever cared to listen. This is definitely a different record, and what happens here might not even be called jazz, but the salient quality of the music is beauty, not the ferociousness one might expect. This is highly recommended, if only for the inclusion of Sirone’s bass playing, a voice that should have been recorded more often. [source]

Jerome Cooper – Vocals, Balafon, Temple Block, Wood Block, Gong, Bells
Sirone – Vocals, Bells, Shaker, Wood Block, Bass
Leroy Jenkins – Vocals, Claves, Recorder, Violin, Kalimba (Thumb Piano)

 

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