Professor Longhair The Complete Concert in London

An exciting 2CD collection / 36 Tracks of studio and live recordings. Almost every musical history contains at least one crucial forebear whose inventions were too bold to translate to a broad audience, but who was nonetheless a profound influence on subsequent generations, and therefore changed the culture at an odd remove'a musician's musician". In the nineteen-forties and fifties, that was Fess's stature. Roy Byrd aka Professor Longhair, his legacy looms larger than any other musical figure with the possible exception of Louis Armstrong. On THE BACH OF ROCK, Longhair bounces buoyantly through old favorites while adding some new songs into the mix. Fess's infectious vocals, jaunty ivory-tickling, and funky groove provide the ultimate soundtrack to the Crescent City and show exactly why the city has the reputation that it does.

A lot of people first became aware of French pianist Michel Petrucciani through his work with Charles Lloyd in the early '80s. Standing barely three feet tall, he lived with complications from glass-bone disease, a painful, genetically transmitted condition known to medical science as osteogenesis imperfecta.

Recorded in 1974, this album almost never saw the light of day. Fortunately, the master tapes were found and the album was released posthumously. Professor Longhair was a giant in the New Orleans music community, but had not recorded in over ten years when he was convinced to start playing again. From the opening riffs, one can understand the stature of Professor Longhair as a great pianist – he demonstrates that he is equally at home playing rhumba boogie, blues songs, and calypso. He plays New Orleans standards (many penned by himself), but what makes this recording a classic is the chance to hear him play with guitarist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. The interplay of these music veterans is mesmerizing. The piano playing is breathtaking, and has a percussive quality unlike any other player before or since. It is hard to believe that Professor Longhair languished in obscurity for so many years after hearing the jubilance of "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," a song that will have you tapping your feet and hands as if you were in the parade. This album is essential for fans of New Orleans music and those aspiring to be rock & roll pianists.

Recorded in 1974, this album almost never saw the light of day. Fortunately, the master tapes were found and the album was released posthumously. Professor Longhair was a giant in the New Orleans music community, but had not recorded in over ten years when he was convinced to start playing again. From the opening riffs, one can understand the stature of Professor Longhair as a great pianist - he demonstrates that he is equally at home playing rhumba boogie, blues songs, and calypso. He plays New Orleans standards (many penned by himself), but what makes this recording a classic is the chance to hear him play with guitarist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. The interplay of these music veterans is mesmerizing…

The Mozartists present an unprecedented survey of Mozart’s childhood stay in London from 1764-65. The wide-ranging programme includes Mozart’s remarkable first symphony (composed when he was eight years old), along with his two other London symphonies and his first concert aria. The repertoire also explores music that was being performed in London during Mozart’s stay, including works by J. C. Bach, Thomas Arne, Abel, Pescetti, Perez, George Rush and William Bates, many of which have not previously been recorded.

British tenor Mark Padmore brings together a collection of English and Italian arias from Handel oratorios and operas. Padmore, who performs works of many eras in a wide range of styles, has primarily settled into the kind of repertoire Peter Pears comfortably inhabited, but with a stronger emphasis on Baroque opera and oratorio. Padmore's voice resembles Pears' in some ways; it's a light instrument, and is capable of great agility. It has some of Pears' limitations, particularly a tendency toward tonal blandness and lack of variety in its colors, as well as a slight edge when pushed. Most importantly, though, Padmore does not have Pears' reedy quality or breathiness – his voice is pure and more mellow than Pears'.

The rhumba-rocking rhythms of Roy "Professor Longhair" Byrd live on throughout Rhino's 40-track retrospective of the New Orleans icon's amazing legacy. Most of the seminal stuff arrives early on: "Bald Head," the rollicking ode cut for Mercury in 1950, is followed by a raft of classics from his 1949 and 1953 Atlantic dates ("Tipitina," "Ball the Wall," "Who's Been Fooling You"), the storming 1957 "No Buts, No Maybes," and "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand" for Ebb, and his beloved "Go to the Mardi Gras" as waxed for Ron in 1959. The second disc is a hodgepodge of material from the Professor's '70s comeback, all of it wonderful in its own way but not as essential as the early work.

Professor Longhair - The Last Mardi Gras (1978) {2CD Set Atlantic–Real Gone Music RGM-0222 rel 2014}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 519 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 207 Mb
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© 1978, 2014 Atlantic / Real Gone Music | RGM-0222
Blues / R&B / Jazz / Rock & Roll / Piano

As the originator of the rhum-boogie, that amalgam of rhumba and boogie-woogie peculiar to New Orleans, Henry Roeland Roy Byrd a.k.a. Professor Longhair was a seminal influence on several generations of Crescent City stars, everybody from Fats Domino to Huey Smith to Allen Toussaint to Dr. John. But, as album producer (and controversial biographer of Elvis, John Lennon and Lenny Bruce) Albert Goldman writes in his liner notes to The Last Mardi Gras, the Professor was was wasting away in comparative obscurity while the record companies either refused to cut him or sat upon the records he had already made. So Goldman, who at the time was music critic for Esquire, campaigned in the magazine s pages for proper recognition of the New Orleans legend, and, lo and behold, Atlantic Records stepped forward with a 16-track mobile recording unit to get the job done.

Professor Longhair - The Primo Collection (2009) {2CD Primo PRMCD 6085 rec 1949-1957}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 281 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 203 Mb
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© 1949-57, 2009 The Primo Collection | PRMCD 6085
Blues / R&B / Piano Blues / Delta Blues

Singer/pianist Professor Longhair is the godfather of New Orleans R&B; his early recordings defined the style, setting the pace not just for pianists from James Booker to Dr. John, but for countless Crescent City soul/blues singers. Over the course of its two discs, THE PRIMO COLLECTION offers some of Longhair's most iconic tunes, the ones that cemented his legend, like the wailing, rollicking "Tipitina," and the funky "Hadacol Bounce." Second-line rhythms and pure blues piano licks melded like never before in Longhair's music, and you can hear it all happen right here.