This CD is a straight reissue of the original LP. Guitarist Tiny Grimes, who led three albums for Prestige and Swingville from 1958-59, welcomed two extroverted horn players (tenor saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and veteran trombonist J.C. Higginbotham), plus pianist Ray Bryant, bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Osie Johnson, to his heated session. The group plays three original blues and "Airmail Special." Although J.C., who had a long decline, sounds a bit past his prime, plenty of sparks fly throughout the date, particularly from Grimes and Lockjaw.
Baden Powell de Aquino, widely known as Baden Powell and born in the city of Varre-Sai in Rio de Janeiro, is immensely revered as a premier acoustic guitarist in Brazil. Baden created a guitar style that is unmatched – a classical guitar technique with popular music harmony and phrasing. Baden became known for his Bossa Nova tunes, samba, and Brazilian instrumental songs, a Brazilian style of Jazz, and MPB. His father liked scouting therefore naming his son Baden Powell after the founder of the Boys Scouts Robert Baden Powell.
Don Byron is the quintessential clarinetist of the modern mainstream, and this is a tolerably good example of his work as an improvisor, composer, and bandleader. Byron swings and grooves well in a conventional sense, yet his slippery phrasing runs clear of rhythmic cliché. His tone is clear and pure, as well, but what's even more important than his considerable instrumental skill is the manifest originality and inspiration that drives his art.
The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for more than thirty years, has joined forces with Alpha Classics for a complete series of recordings devoted to Mozart's solo concertos. The best soloists of the young generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor, who considers that playing his music is like "looking in a mirror: you can hear if everything is right, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing"… These albums will immortalize this unforgiving challenge and reveal the great virtuosos of tomorrow. Performing concertos for violin, bassoon and piano, with Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, are Ziyu He, Theo Plath and Mélodie Zhao.