Willie Bobo pulled an impressive lineup for his debut as a leader, due in part to a profile gained from his work with Cal Tjader and Herbie Mann. Leading the brass section in this midsized group is trumpeter Clark Terry, who lends the necessary grit and fire, while Joe Farrell's burring tenor gives the record dynamic range. Though Bobo's percussion kit is displayed on the front, it's occasionally difficult to appreciate his playing on the record; he sounds bored and in the background during a trio of Brazilian crossover numbers (this was the year of Jazz Samba, after all), leaving organist Frank Anderson to flare his way playfully through his own "Bossa Nova in Blue." Bobo does finally allow himself some solo space at the end of "Capers," after several minutes of brilliant interplay between brass and reeds. The highlight comes with the group's interpretation of Freddie Hubbard's "Crisis," a slow-burning hard bop number with Bobo's timbales shuffle framing more excellent sectioning, with Farrell's tenor and an unnamed trombone positioned in counterpoint to Terry's trumpet.
He has sold 14 million records worldwide and has released 10 studio albums as well as a few compilation albums which have included his previous hits in a reworked format…
Together with John Lee Hooker and Eddie Kirkland, the magnificent but overlooked Bobo Jenkins was a pivotal figure in the Detroit blues scene of the ‘50s and ‘60s. An electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, Jenkins worked at the Packard Motor Company and on the side, managed a garage, before landing a job at Chrysler, where he worked for 27 years. He wrote most of his great songs while working on the assembly line. He got his rhythms from the machines on the line, and he would state that it was like listening to a band all day. This collector’s CD release contains those hard-to-find 7” sides Bobo Jenkins made for different imprints like Chess, Fortune, and Boxer. Highlights include the sensational “Democrat Blues,” “10 Below Zero,” and “Bad Luck & Trouble.” In addition, this remastered set also presents other obscure recordings Jenkins cut in Detroit at the peak of his career, some of them on his own record label, Big Star.
Recorded and released in 1967, Bobo Motion is one of percussionist Willie Bobo's best-known recordings of the 1960s. The album is best-known for its version of the Sonny Henry nugget "Evil Ways" that Carlos Santana and his band made their own a couple of years later, but there's more to it than that. Since Bobo signed with Verve in 1965, he'd been releasing wily blends of hot Latin tunes, and soul-jazz interpretations of pop tunes of the day. His five previous albums for the label had all been variations on this theme…
The Bobo Stenson Trio’s ability of covering far-reaching idioms and wide-ranging repertoire within the scope of their personal diction has become both hallmark and custom, inspiring the New York Times to say the pianist “makes sublime piano-trio records without over-playing. It’s pulsating, with long improvised phrases; it’s alive.” Charting an equally subtle and idiosyncratic path through originals and melodies derived from various Scandinavian composers, the distinguished group proves of a particularly supple alchemy on Sphere.