Ron Affif Solotude

Ron Boots: This is our third official live release and it gives an impression of the music we play as specials and encore pieces. In other words: This is all new music. You don't hear any familiar pieces from other CDs. That makes this CD unique, with music that was played once and will never be heard in this form again.
For us musicians this is the greatest way to perform; not being limited to studio versions, it gives us a feeling of freedom on stage and it certainly increases the amount of adrenalin in our vains during the performance…

Marin Marais published his last collection in 1725, eight years after the appearance of his Quatrième Livre de Pièces de Viole . He was no longer playing in the Chambre du Roi by that time and had moved to a house in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau where he cultivated plants and flowers in his garden. He continued, however, to give lessons to people who wanted to improve their viol playing. The Cinquième Livre de Pièces de Viole reflects this image of a peaceful life; today we regard it as the final testament of a musician who was looking back upon his past years as their undisputed master — and which he remains today.

Canadian songwriting hero Ron Sexsmith comes back into our lives with a new album on Cooking Vinyl. Ron worked with producer Don Kerr to create this album; the two set up in Ron’s living room to record where Ron played all the instruments for the album, with the exception of the drums. The result is the songwriter’s most self-assured collection, still charmingly subtle yet increasingly full of musical vigor, as on Chateau Mermaid, an ode to his own Stratford Graceland, or the surprisingly hopeful Small Minded World in which Sexsmith croons, "Oh now don’t feel blue ‘cos they don’t get you, you’ll win this small minded world". This new zen can be heard from the first moments of Kinks-esque album opener, Spring of the Following Year, as the serene sound of birds situate the listener into Sexsmith’s state of grace.

2 complete albums ("The Master Trio" and (Blues In The Closet") on 1 CD. Only previously available on 2 separate limited Japanese editions.
On June 16 & 17, 1983, three legendary instrumentalists recorded what would be their only collaboration as a unit. While the group's instrumentation consisted of a standard piano trio, the combination of Flanagan together with Carter and Williams was anything but standard. The studio sessions produced 14 tracks of superlative music - mostly modern jazz standards (including Rollins' "St.Thomas", Monk's "Misterioso", Davis' "Milestones", Dameron's "Good Bait" and many more great choices). The date also featured three classic standards as well as an original by each member of the trio.

Ron Boots is the most well-known and successful electronic musician from The Netherlands.
Hearing the first notes of the title track it is not hard to hear Ron’ recognizable signature: innovative rhythms, great sequences nice solos and a lot of room for the finest sounds around. "Save It For A Rainy Day" shows the melodically side of Ron, almost like symphonic rock. In the epic "Well! So What?" (with 18:25 minutes one of the longest tracks he has ever recorded) Harold van der Heijden plays drums in the middle part. "Well! So What?" gives us some of the best Boots-sequences ever. "Giants Of Once Before" is a live recording from the Gruga Park in Essen, Germany of Ron together with his friends Harold van der Heijden and Kees Aerts. It is a rather melancholically piece with a driven solo.
"Close, But Not Touching" really sets new standards in melodically electronic music.

"Area Movement", which was conceived during the last 15 years (with many long intervals), describes some special places in the world. This ranges from Ron’s own country The Netherlands (The "Wadden Sea") to Canada and the Serengeti National Park. The style on "Area Movement" is quite melodically, sometimes even symphonic. In this case, "Area Movement" sometimes bares some of the same fine atmospheres of his early albums. The first track "The Grand Banks" already shows it. Starting with a soft piano part, this piece really "rocks". It features Harold van der Heijden on drums. Also, the sequences are excellent again. Another great track is "Rapids" in which the sequences somewhat remind of Ron’s masterpiece "Tainted Bare Skin"…

Ron Carter is one of the most recorded bassists in jazz. In his mid-seventies at the time of these sessions, he is very much still at the top of his game as he leads the first big-band date of his own, with potent arrangements by conductor Robert M. Freedman and including some of New York's busiest musicians, including Jerry Dodgion, Steve Wilson, Wayne Escoffery, and Scott Robinson in the woodwind section, brass players Steve Davis, Douglas Purviance, and Greg Gisbert, plus pianist Mulgrew Miller and drummer Lewis Nash, among others. Freedman's charts are short and sweet, all of them under five minutes, with much of the focus on imaginative writing and Carter's melodic bass central in the mix. The material spans from the 1920s to the present, played with imagination…

After establishing himself as a science fiction hero in Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston went on to do a string of films in this vein. One of the most beloved of these films is The Omega Man, a post-apocalyptic adventure that featured Heston as a scientist battling a vengeful group of mutants as he searched for fellow survivors in the ruins of Los Angeles. One of the most distinctive elements of the film was its score, which was composed by sci-fi vet Ron Grainer (The Prisoner, Dr. Who) and combined traditional orchestral film score elements with strong elements of pop and light jazz. A great example of this style is the film's main theme, "The Omega Man": its first part layers lush strings and gently jazzy horns over a pop-inflected rhythm section and its second part allows a mournful, jazzy trumpet solo to take the fore over a backdrop of acoustic guitar and spacey electronic keyboards. The score also features a preponderance of exciting action cues, like "On the Tumbril" and "Surprise Party," which combine the regal horn arrangements of traditional film music with spacey synths and exciting rock-style drumming. Elsewhere, Grainer shows a gift for crafting easy listening-style melodies on lighter cuts like "Bad Medicine for Richie," which mixes a string-sweetened melody with acoustic guitar and a subtle rhythm section.

Current was an important album for the Dutchman. It came as a follow-up of some rather successful albums and can perhaps be regarded as a "warm-up" for his brilliant album Tainted Bare Skin from 1998. Now, again ten years later, "Current" has been carefully remastered by Ron and re-released on the Groove Unlimited label.
Current is a solo-album in the true sense of the word. Where on many other albums Ron is accompanied by guest-musicians, he works alone on "Current". The only exception are the drums on "Close Call" which are played by Harold van der Heijden. Two things play an important part on "Current". First of all, the sequences; they are beautifully crafted and long-stretched…

Always one of the most in demand bassist and session men. He does not have a large body of work as a featured artist, but here you can catch him in a rare environment. This time he gets to lead and pick the tracks. A great find.This needs to be added to a serious jazz library, as the important jazz figure he is.