Jazzman Blues

This interesting collection finds Chick Corea playing seven then-new originals with a variety of musicians including flutist Hubert Laws, tenor saxophonist Joe Farrell, trumpeter Al Vizzutti, bassist Stanley Clarke and, on "Flamenco," tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. The music is pleasing and spirited if not all that memorable; an average release from a hugely talented jazzman.

Les Paul had such a staggeringly huge influence over the way American popular music sounds today that many tend to overlook his significant impact upon the jazz world. Before his attention was diverted toward recording multi-layered hits for the pop market, he made his name as a brilliant jazz guitarist whose exposure on coast-to-coast radio programs guaranteed a wide audience of susceptible young musicians.

Clifford Brown All Stars - Best Coast Jazz +1 (1954) {EmArcy Japan PHCE-3062 rel 1996}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 267 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 102 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 5 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1954, 1996 EmArcy / Mercury Japan | PHCE-3062 | 24/96 mastering
Jazz / Bop / Cool

Clifford Brown: "Best Coast Jazz" is the Five Star bookend session to "Clifford Brown All Stars", both having been recorded at the same session in Los Angeles in 1954. On the vinyl LP, each song took up a side, allowing for plenty of blowing room. "BCJ" would be released in 1955. One year later, Clifford Brown (and pianist Richie Powell and wife) would be dead from a car wreck on the Penn Turnpike during a rainstorm. Thus altering the course of jazz trumpet history in one tragic act. "CBAS" would be hurriedly released following the accident and we would once again shake our heads at the tremendous loss of trumpet genius Clifford Brown.

This album brings back into print-one of the most stimulating sessions of contemporary New Orleans music on record. Originally released on a 10" Jazzman LP (LP 331), Ice Cream, Down by the Riverside, Burgundy Street, When the Saints Go Marching In, Doctor Jazz and A Closer Walk with Thee were recorded in 1953.
Lewis and his men generate and communicate a remarkably unselfconscious-almost ingenuous-abandon in their playing. They are, to be sure, technically limited to begin with, but there is no faulting the wholeness, intensity and honesty of their emotions. The result is that the solos, though rough-edged, are a complete extension of the man into the horn; and the collective ensembles, while raggedy from a music critic's viewpoint, are totally of a piece in so far as these musicians' feelings about playing together are concerned…

Horace Parlan - Up & Down (1961) {Blue Note Japan Remaster TOCJ-6617}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 312 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 105 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1961, 2005 Blue Note / Toshiba-EMI Japan | TOCJ-6617 | 24bit remastering
Jazz / Hard Bop / Jazz Blues / Soul Jazz / Piano

In Memoriam. Horace Parlan RIP. We’ve lost another great jazzman. Horace Parlan died on Thursday evening peacefully in his sleep in Denmark where he lived since 1973. By adding guitarist Grant Green and tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin to his standard rhythm section of bassist George Tucker and drummer Al Harewood, pianist Horace Parlan opens up his sound and brings it closer to soul-jazz on Up and Down. Green's clean, graceful style meshes well with Parlan's relaxed technique, while Ervin's robust tone and virile attack provides a good contrast to the laid-back groove the rhythm section lays down.