Grace+jones

Three CD edition. 2015 release from the Pop icon containing a trio of albums plus rarities and unheard tracks. Signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records, Jones' three albums Portfolio, Fame and Muse were produced by none other than Tom Moulton, 'the father of the disco mix,' who earned his title by assembling the first continuous mix side of an album in 1974 with Gloria Gaynor's Never Can Say Goodbye. After working with the Three Degrees, MFSB and Trammps, he was hot property, and Jones seemed a natural choice for him to work with. Disco a beguiling time capsule. Exciting, vibrant, camp, showy, it is the intro-to-coda of this early flowering of Grace Jones. It's a look back to another time, one that seems much further removed than the constantly evolving modernism of her Compass Point trilogy. This is the music that established Jones; glossily theatrical, toughly camp party pieces with portentous overtones. This beautiful newly-remastered collection brings together the three albums and unreleased tracks, in-era mixes and instrumental versions.

80s GROOVE 2 SESSIONS is 2CDs spanning the era’s rich variety of styles, from Gwen Guthrie and Cheryl Lynn’s party starters to electro anthems from Joyce Sims and Tyrone Brunson and the mellow soul of Lonnie Hill. A terrific era for dance music, which is still regularly referenced, sampled and plundered by the new soul generation.

Jimmy Jones was an in-demand arranger and pianist throughout the 1950s and '60s, working with most leading jazz vocalists and soloists of the era. If you go into Tom Lord's Jazz Discography, you'll find Jones on 307 sessions. But if you modify your search, screening just for Jones's leadership dates, you'll find the number dramatically reduced to eight. In truth, there were only seven, since the tracks for an Atlantic Records session in 1957 were strangely never released.
Among these seven leadership recordings, the only trio session released as a six-song 10-inch LP was Jimmy Jones Trio. Jones recorded the album for the French Vogue label in October 1954 in Paris. The only explanations for Jones recording just one trio album over the course of his career is either that he was too busy or he was under contract as an arranger or accompanist to other artists and couldn't record legally under his own name…

"Labor of love" is the inevitable phrase to describe this album on which composer/conductor/arrangers Quincy Jones and Sammy Nestico, both of whom wrote for Count Basie and His Orchestra, assemble a top-flight big band to perform some of their vintage charts. Despite the use of the bandleader's name in the title and the pictures of him with the two principals on the front and back of the album, the music is more "beyond" than "Basie." It is true that both Jones and Nestico are steeped in the Basie band's light, rhythmic approach to playing and their music is imbued with that style. But both are better understood as graduates of the Basie school than true adherents, people who have spent the better parts of their careers applying their knowledge of swing to other endeavors, notably film scores…

Giuseppe Clemente Dall'Abaco (1710-1805), son of the composer Evariso Dall'Abaco, learned to play the cello as a child. Raised in Munich, he found employment at the court of the Elector of Cologne as early as 1729 and embarked on a fascinating musical career that made him famous in London, Paris and Vienna, among other places, and even features several "eventful" episodes. French grace, German thoroughness and Italian joy of virtuosity meet in his magnificent sonatas and duos for violoncello, some of which are recorded here for the first time.