Nancy G. Levenson

This is Barry Levenson's (Canned Heat) second Rip Cat Records release, featuring newly written and recorded songs. With special guest Billy Price. The Visit is Barry Levenson's tribute to the artists who set him on his musical path. Across a selection of the four cover songs (the first he has recorded), the guitarist puts his mark on material he learned from recordings by Albert King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Lightnin' Slim, and Otis Rush. Original compositions make up the balance of the album. Levenson's instrumentals build on a foundation of T-Bone Walker, Magic Sam, Grant Green, Ike Turner, Mickey Baker, Freddy King, Kenny Burrell, and others, with results frequently unique - no one else could have imagined "Last Train to Nowhere" or "The Visit" - and always astounding.

This is Barry Levenson's (Canned Heat) second Rip Cat Records release, featuring newly written and recorded songs. With special guest Billy Price. The Visit is Barry Levenson's tribute to the artists who set him on his musical path. Across a selection of the four cover songs (the first he has recorded), the guitarist puts his mark on material he learned from recordings by Albert King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Lightnin' Slim, and Otis Rush. Original compositions make up the balance of the album. Levenson's instrumentals build on a foundation of T-Bone Walker, Magic Sam, Grant Green, Ike Turner, Mickey Baker, Freddy King, Kenny Burrell, and others, with results frequently unique - no one else could have imagined "Last Train to Nowhere" or "The Visit" - and always astounding.

If the great players who stamped out Chicago's West Side as their cutting fields in the 1960's - Magic Sam, Freddie King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Albert King - had pushed their command blues melodies into new harmonic territory, one result may have been Barry Levenson's The Late Show. Interestingly, ten of the fifteen tracks here are instrumentals, although as befitting a 21st century roots stylist, Levenson has a broader, all-encompassing approach than your average blues album. In this way, The Late Show is a concept album that mines all facets of the blues and blues-based guitar. From the Meters-like groove of Meters Runnin' to the Bill Frisell-shaped twang of Steel Life to the Bobby Womack and Curtis Mayfield church-derived Whole Lotta Blues and the Les Paul sweep of Charlie's Ride, Levenson lays down line after line of single notes whose harmonic backdrop is Grant Green and Kenny Burrell's boplicity.

This fine album was sadly lost in the shuffle when it was released the same year as another Nancy Wilson album, The Swingin's Mutual!, her highly successful collaboration with the George Shearing Quintet. This is a shame, because Something Wonderful is one of Wilson's best albums, and her tastiest, with famed big-band arranger Billy May. Only 23 years old at the time, Wilson had a commanding blues- and soul-drenched jazz voice that was fully formed at the time of this recording, and unlike so many young singers, she was already committed to communicating lyrics rather than just showing off her vocal chops. This is beautifully illustrated in the narrative gem "Guess Who I Saw Today," which justly went on to become one of Wilson's signature tunes…

The music on The Swingin's Mutual!, a dozen selections featuring the George Shearing Quintet, includes six that have vocals by a young Nancy Wilson. This was one of Wilson's most jazz-oriented dates (even if she was never a jazz singer) and is highlighted by her vocals on "The Nearness of You" and "The Things We Did Last Summer," along with instrumental versions of "Oh! Look at Me Now," "Blue Lou," and "Lullaby of Birdland."

Despite being one of the major figures in the history of the flute, Michel de la Barre is almost wholly absent from the current recording catalogue. True, his reputation lay more with his playing than his composing, but the fact remains that he was the first person ever to publish solo music specifically for flute, and that his output of 18 books of flute music between 1694 and 1725 was a vital factor in the emergence of that instrument as one of the most popular of the eighteenth century.

This fine album was sadly lost in the shuffle when it was released the same year as another Nancy Wilson album, The Swingin's Mutual!, her highly successful collaboration with the George Shearing Quintet. This is a shame, because Something Wonderful is one of Wilson's best albums, and her tastiest, with famed big-band arranger Billy May. Only 23 years old at the time, Wilson had a commanding blues- and soul-drenched jazz voice that was fully formed at the time of this recording, and unlike so many young singers, she was already committed to communicating lyrics rather than just showing off her vocal chops. This is beautifully illustrated in the narrative gem "Guess Who I Saw Today," which justly went on to become one of Wilson's signature tunes…