London Elektricity Big Band Song In The Key Of Knife

Maria Schneider & SWR Big Band - Live! - Plays The Music Of Maria Schneider & Kurt Weill (2000) {2 CD CK Records - CK00400}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 648 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 253 Mb
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© 2000 CK Records | CK00400
Jazz / Modern Big Band / Progressive Jazz

Concerts with Maria Schneider are something special. They are stylistically not only out of the ordinary, they also manage to bring large orchestras to perform artistically at high voltage, with an energy and at a creative level which is otherwise known only in much smaller ensembles. It is not the music alone that drives the participants, but rather the serene seriousness of a band leader who demands a maximum of intensity from her compositions and passes this premise on to their interpretation. It is impossible to conceive of compositions for jazz orchestras more stringently. The instrumentalists know this too, and therefore feel called upon not only to reproduce the charts accurately but to work out all the contained hints, implications, and visions of sound down to the deepest levels. This original recording was made in May 2000 when Schneider appeared alongside the SWR Big Band. And for the SWR Big Band, those days in May 2000 are some of the highlights of their orchestral history.

Southside Johnny Lyon has been fronting one of America's most consistently hard-rocking R&B show bands, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, for well over 30 years, so this album should come as something of a surprise to longtime fans - here Southside sings a dozen tunes from the songbook of Tom Waits alongside a jazzy, full-bodied big band led by Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg, a longtime fixture in the Asbury Jukes horn section (and a member of Max Weinberg's band on Late Night with Conan O'Brien). While this is very much a change of pace, it's one that both Lyon and Rosenberg handle with confidence and aplomb; Lyon's voice shows a touch more grain than it did in his salad days with the Jukes, but his sense of phrasing and showman's touch is superb, and he brings swagger, heart, and sincerity to every performance here, and when Waits shows up for a duet on "Walk Away," the two trade lines as if they've been singing together for years…

Terry Gibbs and His Big Band - Swing Is Here! (1960) {Verve Originals rel 2009}
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© 1960, 2009 Verve / Universal | Verve Originals Series | 0602517967137
Jazz / Bop / Big Band / Vibes

The title Swing Is Here would have been more appropriate for the 1930s instead of 1960 when this album was originally issued, and the big-band era had long since waned. Yet vibraphonist Terry Gibbs kept the home fires burning out in California with this exceptional orchestra of cool jazz giants playing a stack of standards and modern compositions by Bill Holman or Gibbs, and one look back with an Artie Shaw number. What is most interesting about these arrangements is that they are always different in emphasizing the fleet, dampened sound of Gibbs in contrast, apart from, or in tandem with the woodwinds and brass instruments.

In the Land of Hi-Fi with Julian Cannonball Adderley is the fourth album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and his third released on the EmArcy label, featuring a nonet (six horns, three rhythm) with Nat Adderley, Jerome Richardson, Ernie Royal, Bobby Byrne, Jimmy Cleveland, Danny Bank, Junior Mance, Keter Betts, and Charles "Specs" Wright.