Night of Jazz Guitars

As one of the pioneers of jazz-rock – perhaps the pioneer in the ears of some – Larry Coryell deserves a special place in the history books. He brought what amounted to a nearly alien sensibility to jazz electric guitar playing in the 1960s, a hard-edged, cutting tone, and phrasing and note-bending that owed as much to blues, rock, and even country as it did to earlier, smoother bop influences.

If jazz is a body, then Edward Vesala is its ligament of fascination. Flexing and creaking with the passage of emotion into life and life into silence, the drummer’s disarming soundscapes never fail to intrigue, to say something potent and new. In spite of its tongue-in-cheek title, Ode To The Death Of Jazz is, strangely, one of his more uplifting exercises in sonic production.
The title of “Sylvan Swizzle” sets the bar in both tone and sentiment, opening in a smooth and winding road of flute, woodwinds, percussion, and harp. Textural possibilities bear the fruit of the ensemble’s explorations in somatic sound: an exercise in pathos, to be sure, if only through the eyes of something not human. The space here is dark yet flecked with iridescence, sporting yet bogged down by infirmity, vivacious yet weak in the eyes…

Long before he'd evolved into a fully-fledged cult figure, Joe Meek was the UK's first fully independent record producer. This unique 2CD set traces his career from his earliest sessions, as a sound balance engineer in the mid-'50s, to his emergence as a major songwriter and hit maker in the early '60s. It includes many of Meek's biggest records, including five UK # 1s by, Anne Shelton, Lonnie Donegan, Frankie Vaughan, Emile Ford and John Leyton, plus several other major million selling hits! Indeed, more than half of the sixty sides included herein were significant UK hits. This set also includes several collectors' rarities, previously unavailable on CD, most notably Gary Miller's unfeasibly-rare 'Moby Dick'. John Fraser's 'Golden Cage' and Geoff Goddard's 'Girl Bride'. If you are looking for what is by far the most interesting Joe Meek-related compilation for years then this is it!

In the early 90s, after experiencing numerous artistic and commercial success, especially with Jean Michel Jarre and Christopher Francis Dreyfus embarks on the adventure of jazz. To win from the start in this universe in which we did not necessarily expected, Francis Dreyfus sign big names: Steve Grossman, Marcus Miller, Roy Haynes, but also Richard Galliano, Biréli Lagrène, Michel Petrucciani and Eddy Louiss. 20 years later, Dreyfus Jazz has become a prestigious and must label.
To celebrate its 20 years, Dreyfus Jazz publishes luxurious. box of 20 CDs.

Arv Garrison is relatively unknown today. His professional recording career spanned three years after the end of WWII. A majority of that legacy was with the Vivien Garry Trio. The Trio’s first recordings for Guild and Sarco demonstrated Arv’s phenomenal mastery of the electric guitar. He was on several Dial sessions led by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Howard McGhee, but his presence on these recordings is sparse due to the short duration of 78 singles.

With every recording Omar Sosa releases, his horizons continue to broaden within the context of world ethnic fusion, but with Across the Divide, he's bettered himself yet again. This collection of jazz-influenced, Latin-tinged music crosses the disparate genres of country folk and tribal sounds, recognizing the migration of the banjo from Africa to the Eastern seaboard of America, and percussion from the griot village to the rural Mid-Atlantic. In collaboration with vocalist and story teller Tim Eriksen, Sosa merges rhythm and ancestry via inspiration from Langston Hughes, John Coltrane, King Sunny Ade, Pete Seger, and contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor as popular reference points.

Django Reinhardt - The Complete Django Reinhardt and Quintet of the Hot Club of France Swing/HMV Sessions 1936-1948 (1999) {6CD Mosaic MD6-190}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.08 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 837 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 216 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1936-1948, 1999 Mosaic Records / EMI-Capitol | MD6-190
Jazz / Continental Jazz / Swing / Gypsy / Guitar

This is the Reinhardt mother lode – a six-disc collection of the Gypsy legend's oeuvre stretching from just before to just after World War II. Disc one includes several infectious cuts with vocalist Freddy Taylor, beginning with Stuff Smith's "I'se a Muggin'." Disc six closes with one of Reinhardt and Grappelli's last recording sessions together, which included an unusually dark reading of "Oh Lady Be Good" and a revisitation of the obscure "Bricktop" (the first version appears on disc two). In between are well over 100 marvelous tracks, with sound quality up to Mosaic's (and Michael Cuscuna's) impeccable standards. The booklet contains a learned essay and annotation by Mike Peters, as well as an impressive gallery of photographs, concert posters, and news clippings. Extraordinary, and for Reinhardt's most devoted fans, entirely worth the investment.