John Taylor As it is

Rooney - A Truly Californian Band: The CD Collection (2003-2011)
4x EAC | FLAC+CUE+LOG or MP3 CBR 320 kbps | Complete Scanwork | 1,27 GB or 415 MB

Rooney is a vintage pop-rock and garage-inspired combo with deep Californian roots. The musicians draws on some obvious influences – The Beach Boys, Queen, The Cars – to craft its own promising sound. Their music is reminiscent of British Invasion Rock and 1980s Power Pop, and has been compared to The Beatles, Blur, Jellyfish and Cheap Trick. Having toured the nation with acts such as Weezer, Kelly Clarkson and The Strokes, Rooney's official website states that the band "manages to capture elements from the past four decades and make them sound modern today". At this time, the collection includes all of officially released albums.

As is often the case with an artist as prolific as John Coltrane, not every release can be considered as essential. Black Pearls seems a bit ambiguous when placed in a more historical context. It was only three days later that Coltrane participated not as a leader, but rather a member, of the Miles Davis Sextet that recorded "Stella By Starlight" and "On Green Dolphin Street." There is an obvious disparity between these three mostly improvised and lengthy jams and the Davis session. This is in no way to insinuate that Coltrane's performance is anything less than par. Black Pearls indeed captures Coltrane at the height of perfecting the intense volley that would garner the name "sheets of sound"…

John Turville has put together a quintet that spans generations for this lively, self-assured release, with saxophonist Julian Arguelles, a mainstay of British jazz for over 30 years, joining younger musicians like drummer James Maddren and Robbie Robson on trumpet. Dave Whitford is on bass.

Although Chip Taylor is most famous for writing two especially iconic songs, that is only part of the story, as The New York Times wrote: “If you only know him as the as the guy who wrote ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Angel of the Morning’ — you don’t know him! Chip Taylor is making some of the most distinctive acoustic music around today.” With the release of Fix Your Words, he continues to create timeless, thought-provoking music.

It is a well rehearsed story that some of the major innovators of modern jazz were, in the early 1960s, struggling to get recording contracts or gigs in America. This led players like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor to try their hand across the Atlantic. These players found a particularly warm reception in Scandinavia, and live recordings from any of these in Sweden or Denmark are well worth looking out for. This nicely packaged reissue captures Taylor’s performances at Copenhagen’s Café Montmartre, with three bonus tracks recorded at Stockholm’s Golden Circle. For fans of Taylor, the material (with the exception of the bonus tracks which have not been previously released) will be familiar from the Live! At the Café Montmartre and Nefertiti: the beautiful one has come. This set comes with a booklet with the sleeve notes from these previous releases, featuring Erik Weidermann’s insightful comments on the performances and the developments of Taylor’s playing.

The final album of an (unintentional) trilogy, Crusade is most notable for the appearance of a very young, pre-Rolling Stones Mick Taylor on lead guitar. Taylor's performance is indeed the highlight, just as Eric Clapton and Peter Green's playing was on the previous album. The centerpiece of the album is a beautiful instrumental by Taylor titled "Snowy Wood," which, while wholly original, seems to combine both Green and Clapton's influence with great style and sensibility…

The MusiCares foundation pays special tribute James Taylor, and a special collection of music superstars are on hand to celebrate the beloved singer/songwriter's commitment to both his musical artistry and philanthropic efforts. Of course music fans are well familiar with Taylor thanks to such classic songs as "Carolina on my Mind" and "Something in the Way She Moves," but the enduring music man has also made a mark with his support of various environmental and humanitarian causes as well.

Wilbur Harden & John Coltrane - The Complete Savoy Sessions (1958) {2CD Set, Savoy Jazz 92858-2 rel 2012}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 773 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 345 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 95 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1958, 2012 | Savoy Jazz 92858-2
Jazz / Hard Bop / Bebop / Flugelhorn / Trumpet / Saxophone

This Savoy double CD brings together in one package all of the label's sessions led by Harden, a talented young musician who turned up briefly, disappeared and is presumed to have died in the 1960s. It includes several alternate takes, giving ample evidence of his attractiveness as a player. He wrote all the pieces, which are more substantial than the on-the-spot "compositions" of many Savoy sessions of the '50s. Sometimes playing trumpet and sometimes rotary valve flugelhorn, he was capable of range, power and bursts of speed, but he built many of his solos on a base of restraint, lyricism and a certain wistfulness.