Horn 1997

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 7 & No. 8
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich / David Zinman
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 263 MB | Full Artwork: 73 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Arte Nova # 74321 56341 2 | Germany 1998
Genre: Classical | Style: Classical Period

"…This set deserves the most enthusiastic recommendation which words can muster. It has few rivals even in the top price range. (…) Zinman is Beethoven: I can pay him no greater compliment." ~musicweb-international

It's an unwritten rule in smooth jazz that within every great sideman there is a solo artist itching to emerge, and saxman Paul Taylor – who's added soulful spark and texture to Keiko Matsui's live band for several years – makes the most of his first big moment alone on the horn…

The circumstances surrounding the composition and first performance of the Suite in B flat major, Op 4, were to prove enormously significant for Strauss’s career. Von Bülow decided to give the premiere of the new work in Munich in the winter of 1884 during an orchestral tour. Furthermore, since the players had already familiarized themselves with the music in Meiningen that autumn, he thought it would be appropriate if the composer himself conducted this performance according to his own interpretation.

This CD reissues a rather unusual James Moody date. Best known for his tenor and alto playing (although he is also recognized as a talented flutist), Moody is here heard exclusively on soprano and flute. Trombonist Tom McIntosh contributed a tune and arranged all eight pieces (which also include four Moody originals). Five of the numbers feature Moody in a nonet, including an emotional "Old Folks" and an advanced reworking of Duke Ellington's "Main Step.

J.J. Johnson finds himself at the helm of a dream band here - a full brass orchestra with French horns, euphoniums, tubas, and a harp - and gets to exploit its possibilities wherever they might lead. The results are beyond category, where the veteran trombonist's writing has a feathery richness, urbanity, and a depth charge in the bass reminiscent of, but not really indebted to, Gil Evans. There is plenty of straight-ahead jazz grooving but also several episodes of formal, almost classical writing, as in the suitably joyous "If I Hit the Lottery," and rigorous combinations of both, like the angular tribute to Béla Bartók, "Canonn for Bela." The generous Johnson doesn't even appear on a piece he commissioned from Robin Eubanks called "Cross Currents" - Eubanks performs the sputtering trombone solo - nor on Slide Hampton's blazing "Comfort Zone"…

Evan Parker - Chicago Solo (1997) {Okkadisk OD12017 rec 1995}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 226 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 141 Mb
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© 1997 Okkadisk | OD12017
Jazz / Free Jazz / Free Improvisation / Saxophone

Recorded in a Chicago studio and feeling as if it were a live concert, despite his many solo saxophone recordings, the Chicago Solo by Evan Parker is very special. For one thing, this is a completely tenor saxophone set; the trademark soprano is nowhere in evidence. For another, Parker seems very interested in the extended tones of the horn rather than in the fiery creation of microtonal knots of sound. On "Chicago Solo 3," he pulls his tone right from the bell, rolling out notes along the physical properties of the horn itself, exploring each vibration and sub-tone as a color and of its own territory, worthy of exploration and he follows them into the bell and back.

Clark Terry - Clark Terry - EmArcy MG 36007 (1955) {Verve Elite Edition 314 537 754-2 rel 1997}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 157 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 114 Mb
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© 1955, 1997 EmArcy / Verve / PolyGram | 314 537 754-2
Jazz / Bop / Trumpet

Aside from a three-song session for V-Disc during the late 1940s, this CD contains Clark Terry's first recordings as a leader. Already an alumni of both Charlie Barnet's and Count Basie's bands, and a then-current member of Duke Ellington's orchestra, Terry is more focused on bop in these dates, with a terrific band including trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne, pianist Horace Silver, cellist/bassist Oscar Pettiford, bassist Wendell Marshall, and drummer Art Blakey, with charts by Quincy Jones.

Miles Davis - Miles Ahead (1957) {1997 Columbia Remaster}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 318 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 124 Mb
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© 1997 Columbia / Legacy | CK 65121
Jazz / Cool / Experimental Big Band / Trumpet

This album is perhaps most significant for the process it set in motion – the collaboration between Gil Evans and Miles Davis that would produce Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain, two of Davis' best albums. That said, this album is a miracle in itself, the result of a big gamble on the part of Columbia Records, who put together Evans and Davis, who hadn't worked together since recording the critically admired but commercially unsuccessful sides that would later be issued as The Birth of the Cool. Columbia also allowed Evans to assemble a 19-piece band for the recordings, at a time when big bands were far out of fashion and also at a time when the resulting recordings could not be released until two years in the future (because of Davis' contractual obligations with Prestige).