Downbeat From June 2016

Count Basie & His Atomic Band - Complete Live At The Crescendo 1958 (2016) {5CD Box Set, Phono Records 870245}
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© 1958, 2016 Phono Records | 870245
Jazz / Big Band / Bop / Swing

This superb 5-CD collection compiles all existing live recordings made by the Atomic band at the Crescendo Club, in Hollywood, in the summer of 1958, for the first time ever on a single edition. The sound quality is excellent throughout the set. Count Basie’s career was revived in late 1957 thanks to the success of the Neal Hefti-arranged LP Atomic Basie, which became one of his biggest hits. The orchestra was filled with stars, and Joe Williams’ vocals were heard to great effect supported by Hefti’s excellent scores and the superb quality of the band.

Over ten years ago the DJ duo from Cologne (Blank & Jones) decided to strike quieter, more relaxed tones. From the passion for Ambient, Chill Out, Downbeat, Lounge Music, Beach House, Bar Grooves and Co. was created the idea of ​​Milchbar Seaside Season - a summer soundtrack for the cult Norderneyer Location milk bar. On the first compilation followed in recent years regularly further new Chillout compilation.
Blank & Jones invite you their Milchbar Seaside Season 8 - the essential must-have music collection for those quality time days. The kings of laid back grooves selected 16 tracks to bring you their famous Good Vibes Sound with the finest in Chill Out, Lounge, Downbeat and Beach House.

Over the last few years Aki has quietly been building a name in the international jazz world both as a leader and as a sideman. With Amorandom, he delivers his most authoritative work to date. There’s a fluidity in his playing and a boldness in his composing that deserves widespread praise and real recognition for one of the finest young European pianists. Described by Downbeat as a ‘rising star around Europe, Amorandom is the work that will introduce Aki Rissanen’s startling new talent to a global audience.

When guitarist Bill Frisell first began a more decided focus on roots music, bluegrass and country & western music with the release of 1996's Nashville (Nonesuch), despite being largely very well-received, jazz purists rankled when the largely bluegrass/folk-informed album began to garner awards like Downbeat Magazine's Best Jazz Album of the Year. While Frisell's oftentimes Americana-tinged work has, in the ensuing years, become more fully accepted for the wonderful music that it is, fellow six-stringer John Scofield is unlikely to find himself the subject of such purist criticism with Country for Old Men.

'Avvolgere,' the forthcoming LP from Texas trio TRUE WIDOW, perfects the formula that 2013's 'Circumambulation' established. The album rocks and rolls with serene, rounded climaxes and steep, jangling choruses that engulf the listener with waves of downbeat, saccharine melodies and mesmerizing distortion. TRUE WIDOW's signature alternation between male and female vocals helps further blur the boundaries between the heft of stoner rock, the droning atmosphere of shoegaze, and the twangy catchiness of blues and indie rock. It's both concise and circuitous - the album takes you on a journey that you can't ever quite predict or expect. 'Avvolgere' is TRUE WIDOW sounding more infectious and consummate than ever before.

Kooper's seventh solo release opens daringly enough, with his own funky version of "This Diamond Ring," which he transforms completely from its Drifters-inspired origins. Most of the album is in a mid-'70s soul-funk vein, with Tower of Power turning up elsewhere and Kooper trying (with considerable success) to sound soulful on songs like "She Don't Ever Lose Her Groove" and "I Forgot to Be Your Lover." The playing throughout is excellent, with guitars by Kooper himself (who also plays sitar, Mellotron, organ, and synthesizer) as well as Little Beaver and Reggie Young, with Joe Walsh sitting in on one song, and horn arrangements by Kooper and veteran soundtrack composer Dominic Frontiere. The real centerpiece is the epic-length "Hollywood Vampire," which can't quite sustain its seven-minute length. The funkier numbers work, but some of the rest, like "In My Own Sweet Way," don't come off so well. This is two-thirds of a pretty fair album, and only lacks consistency.

Among the many obscure British prog rock albums of the early '70s, Second Hand's Death May Be Your Santa Claus has to be one of the strangest, though not necessarily one of the best. While it's the kind of record likely to fire up genre enthusiasts, it's equally likely to inspire scorn from more general rock listeners unlikely to take a shine to its over the top frivolous absurdity…

Along with Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver, the prolific Benny Golson created some of the most memorable compositions in the jazz repertoire. This reissue features his first albums as a leader, and many of his most familiar originals are to be found here. In a 1958 Downbeat article Ralph Gleason highlighted “the extraordinary attention jazz musicians are currently paying to his compositions”. Indeed by the early 60s it seemed that every rehearsal band in the UK and everyone on the jazz club circuit had at least three or four of his originals in the book…