Grant Green, being known mainly as a soul jazz guitarist, eventually gravitated into the popular boogaloo sound. The Latin Bit is the natural bridge to that next phase, though a bit premature for most in 1961-1963, even relative to the subsequent bossa nova craze. Pianist Johnny Acea, long an underrated jazzman, is the nucleus of this session, grounding it with witty chops, chordal comping, and rhythmic meat. The Latino rhythm section of drummer Willie Bobo and conga player Carlos "Patato" Valdes personify authentic, seasoned spice, while at times the chekere sound of Garvin Masseaux makes the soup too thick. At its collective best, the group presents a steady, serene, and steamy "Besame Mucho" and the patient, slow, slinky, sultry "Tico Tico"…
Great album by the top Japanese jazz players of the time (Sadao Watanabe, Akira Miyazawa, Hideto Kanai, Takeshi Inomata, Eiichi Fuji…).
Here is another winning combination of two best-selling easy listening albums from music conductor Enoch Light, who produced a long string of hit stereo percussion albums in the 1960s. Stereo 35 MM Volume 2 was a Top Ten album in 1962 and with the coupling of "Far Away Places" Volume 2, are both on CD for the first time and re-mastered in glorious stereo.
Portrait In Jazz (1960). The first of two studio albums by the Bill Evans-Scott LaFaro-Paul Motian trio (both of which preceded their famous engagement at the Village Vanguard), this Portrait in Jazz reissue contains some wondrous interplay, particularly between pianist Evans and bassist LaFaro, on the two versions of "Autumn Leaves." Other than introducing Evans' "Peri's Scope," the music is comprised of standards, but the influential interpretations were far from routine or predictable at the time. LaFaro and Motian were nearly equal partners with the pianist in the ensembles and their versions of such tunes as "Come Rain or Come Shine," "When I Fall in Love," and "Someday My Prince Will Come" (which preceded Miles Davis' famous recording by a couple years) are full of subtle and surprising creativity. A gem…
"…Now, I will speak briefly about this SACD, because I cannot say anything more than this: it is a miracle. The way EMI remastered these old takes from 1961 and 1963 is astonishing. I am not saying that this SACD will sound as perfect as a new production, but… what levels of mastery had those technicians in the past that used to edit the tape sometimes cutting it with razor blades.
Not to tell the clarity that Schuricht gives to the music. He is probably an old fashioned conductor for nowadays standards, as we can say about Furtwängler, Klemperer or Jochum, for example. But those good old days gave us lots of great musicians that are now a source of inspiration for the new stars…" ~SA-CD.net