Keelybasie A Beautiful Friendship

A great date from the non-Louis Prima years of Keely Smith – a rare radio performance done with backing from the Count Basie Band! Both Keely and Basie are at the height of their powers here – and the album has a format that alternates vocal numbers with some equally great instrumental tracks – played by the Count's group with all the soulful, dynamic qualities of their best recordings for Roulette Records! Given the radio presentation, the recording quality is great – and the combination of talents makes for a really unique date that's quite different than any of Smith's other solo records. Titles include "Corner Pocket", "Cherry Point", "Gonna Build A Mountain", "Crazy He Calls Me", "Basically Blue", "Why Not", "Make The Man Love Me", and "My Heart Cries For You". © 1996-2024, Dusty Groove, Inc.

The third studio long-player from the Connecticut-based indie/emo rock troupe, "Always Foreign" finds the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die nixing the mostly positive vibes of their two prior outings in favor of a deep dive into miseries both internal and external.

It's a Beautiful Day is an American band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1967, featuring vocalist Pattie Santos along with violinist David LaFlamme and his wife, Linda LaFlamme, on keyboards. David LaFlamme, who as a youth had once performed as a soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, had previously been in the group Orkustra playing five-string violin. The other members of It's a Beautiful Day in its early years were Val Fuentes (drums), Mitchell Holman (bass) and Hal Wagenet (guitar). Although they were one of the notable San Francisco bands to emerge from 1967's Summer of Love, the band never achieved the success of contemporaries such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana, with whom they had connections. The band created a unique blend of rock, jazz, folk, classical, and world-beat styles.

San Francisco psychedelic folk-rock unit It's a Beautiful Day was primarily the vehicle of virtuoso violinist David LaFlamme, born April 5, 1941 in New Britain, Connecticut but raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. After beginning his musical education at age five, LaFlamme later served as a soloist with the Utah Symphony, following an army stint by settling in the Bay Area in 1962. There he immersed himself in the local underground music scene, jamming alongside the likes of Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin; after his short-lived Electric Chamber Orchestra splintered, LaFlamme also co-founded an early incarnation of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks before assembling It's a Beautiful Day in mid-1967.

As the title implies, this disc captures the Bay Area-based It's a Beautiful Day in concert at the venerable New York City performance Mecca Carnegie Hall. Although the band was on the road supporting their third long-player, Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime, the track list contains only "The Grand Camel Suite" from that disc. So, rather than re-treading material, Live at Carnegie Hall includes several new tunes from the band, as well as a couple of classics and well-chosen covers. As with many of the San Francisco groups to gain prominence during the late '60s and early '70s, It's a Beautiful Day is best experienced in the interactive and reciprocal atmosphere of a live performance.