Harry Joe+copulas

The first fact one needs to know about the Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet is that it is, as described in the liner notes, a "working band." This may sound like a negligible fact on Hey, Look Me Over, but it isn't. A number of famous combos in the history of jazz have only played together in the studio. Here, however, guitarist Cohn, tenor Allen, bassist Joel Forbes, and drummer Chuck Riggs have developed the synchronicity that only comes from performing together night after night. For Hey, Look Me Over, that equals an hour of lovely ensemble work highlighted by some well-wrought guitar and tenor workouts on a solid set list. The next thing one would want to know about the Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet is that they play traditional mainstream jazz with such pizzazz that one would never mistake it for regurgitated classics…

This is an album of good, old-fashioned Dixieland standards played by a great group, with Harry Connick Jr. at the piano. Although he's only 11 years old, he plays some fun and creative solos, and in general, the CD is wonderful for all lovers of Dixieland, and will put you in a good mood instantaneously. The loose group jams through nine familiar Dixieland standards and includes trumpeter and leader Teddy Riley and bass player Walter Payton.

This 1975 Kudu album by Joe Beck was never reissued on CD in the United States but available only as a Japanese import on the King label. Beck is a masterpiece of mid-'70s funky jazz and fusion. Beck retired in 1971 to be a dairy farmer. He returned to make this album his opus. Featuring David Sanborn, Don Grolnick, Will Lee, and Chris Parker, all of the album's six tracks were recorded in two days. Overdubs were done in another day and the minimal strings added by Don Sebesky were added on a third day. "Star Fire" opens the set and features the interplay of Beck's riffing and lead fills with Sanborn's timely, rhythmic legato phrasing, and the communication level is high and the groove level even higher. On "Texas Ann," another Beck original, Sanborn hits the blues stride from the jump, but Beck comes in adding the funk underneath Grolnick's keyboard while never losing his Albert Collins' feel. On "Red Eye," Beck's two- and three-chord funk vamps inform the verse while Sebesky's unobtrusive strings provide a gorgeous backdrop for Sanborn, who stays in the mellow pocket until the refrains, when he cuts loose in his best Maceo Parker. The deep funk of Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin's "Café Black Rose" showcases the band's commitment to groove jazz with a razor's edge.

To call Harry Manx a wizard of slide guitar is perfectly true, but not the whole story. Add banjo, harmonica, and the Indian veena to that, and you're approaching the real story. On Wise and Otherwise he demonstrates the full range of his talents, which are firmly based in the blues, but extend far beyond – all the way to Indian music, with his own "Raga Nat Bhariav," a short, but beautiful journey for the veena. As a writer he continues to improve by leaps and bounds, making songs like "Roses Given" fit well with his version of "Death Have Mercy" or his covers of "Crazy Love" and "Foxy Lady" (where his acoustic playing has all the intensity of an electric Hendrix).

After 30 years, this is the reissue of the classic Columbia Masterworks recording from January 1969. It was one of the first commercially produced tapes of a Harry Partch tape performance, and the first opportunity most listeners ever had to hear a large-scale Partch music drama in fine sound.

Over the course of three albums and an EP, Ugly Kid Joe managed to parlay their pronounced Guns N' Roses fixation into something of a career. On their best songs – "Everything About You," "Neighbour," and "Milkman's Son" – they blended cartoon rebellion and a sense of humor best described as pre-adolescent into powerhouse singles full of tasteless good fun. Perfect for that time of life when all one wants to do is go around breaking things. Though routinely flagged as a hair band, their twin-guitar attack and fondness for funky, bottom-end heavy riffing also places Ugly Kid Joe among the forefathers of the late-'90s rap-metal explosion. As Ugly as They Wanna Be showcases the band in all their juvenile glory – from their surprise hit version of Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" to their tight cover of Black Sabbath's "NIB" to "Busybee" – pretty much the best Guns N' Roses song Guns N' Roses never recorded – all the hits are here, present and accounted for.

Avid Jazz continues with its Four Classic Albums series with a re-mastered 2CD set release from Joe Williams complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details.
“A Night At Count Basie’s”; “A Man Ain’t Supposed To Cry”; “Everyday I Joe Williams was born Joseph Goreed in Georgia 1918 but was raised by his mother and grandmother on the south side of Chicago. His early years were spent singing gospel in church choirs and he began his professional solo career in 1937. Joe played with many of the big bands of the era including Lionel Hampton and Jimmy Noone as well as touring with Coleman Hawkins in 1941. From 1954 to 1961 Joe was to play with the man whose name he is perhaps synonymous with, the legendary Count Basie…