Blue Stack

Recorded live at the New Daisy Theater with Bland's regular working road band, this captures him in fine form, bringing together old favorites with some other numbers for a heady blend. When called for, the old Joe Scott heavy horn-laden arrangements are summoned up on tunes like "St. James Infirmary," "Farther on Up the Road," "That's the Way Love Is," "I Pity the Fool," and "I'll Take Care of You" with consummate ease. But even more telling is how effortlessly and seamlessly material like Buddy Ace's "Love of Mine," "Members Only," "Soon as the Weather Breaks," and Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Get Your Money Where You Spend Your Time" meshes with the old standbys. A lengthy slow blues medley brings guest appearances from Johnnie Taylor and Bobby Rush on "Stormy Monday," but the real star here is Bland himself. He's in good voice and good humor, and this makes a fine addition to his stack of latter-day recordings.

Andrew Hill - Smoke Stack (1963) {Blue Note Japan TOCJ-4160 rel 1994}
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© 1963, 1994 Blue Note / Toshiba-EMI Japan | TOCJ-4160
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano

A fantastic session by this groundbreaking modernist – essentially a piano trio album, but recorded with two bass players – Richard Davis & Eddie Kahn – one of whom plays rhythm, the other who solos along with Hill. The result is one of Hill's darkest piano outings, brought even deeper by the bass accompaniment, and the lack of any other horns to support the set. The album includes Hill's brilliant "Ode to Von", dedicated to Von Freeman, one of his early teachers – plus the tracks "Verne", "Not So", "Wailing Wall", and "The Day After".

Broke, Black & Blue delivers multiple surprises within its 100 songs of prewar blues. Arranged chronologically by Joop Visser, the set admirably covers the first 22 years of recorded blues, 1924 to 1946, from vaudeville and Delta to boogie-woogie and jump blues. It's a swell gift for anyone wanting to learn more about the history of blues. But old-timers will be pleased, too, as special attention has been paid to culling rare and idiosyncratic tracks by the well-known and the obscure. The first three discs present single tracks by artists as diverse as the Memphis Jug Band, De Ford Bailey, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Skip James, Peetie Wheatstraw, Lonnie Johnson, and Bukka White, alongside unknowns such as Isaiah "The Mississippi Moaner" Nelson, Barbecue Bob and Laughing Charley, Ed Andrews, Chicken Wilson, and Bumble Bee Slim. On the fourth disc, this convention is jettisoned to luxuriate in a series of very rare sides of lovely, oddly subdued boogie-woogie and jump blues by Jimmie Gordon, Johnny Temple, and Lee Brown.

Art Hodes - Midnight Blue (1989) {Jazzology JCD172 rec 1987}
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© 1989 Jazzology Records | JCD 172
Jazz / Hot Jazz / Dixieland / Piano

Hode's trip to Britain in 1987 was a laying-on of hands, a chance to make contact with someone who belonged to an apostolic line back to the origins of jazz. Traditional jazz players of all sorts made their way to listen to and sit in with the great man. The results are pretty uniform, with most of the best music coming in solo performances by Hodes himself. … The larger groups [i.e. than on Jazzology JCD 237 & JCD 307] called on more seasoned and experienced musicians and the playing is better in proportion, with some excellent moments from that Chris Barber stalwart, Pat Halcox. Fawkes is still underrated and Greig is as good in this style as one could hope to find.