It is with a mixture of pride and sorrow that Smoke Sessions Records announces the release of Harold Mabern’s Mabern Plays Mabern on March 20th. Pride because Mabern’s 27th recording as a leader, culled from the same three January 2018 nights that generated his 26th, The Iron Man: Live At Smoke, documents the master pianist, then 81, in prime form, functioning as an inspired soloist, attentive accompanist, melodic interpreter, and crafty tunesmith. Sorrow because the release is posthumous — Harold Mabern died on September 17, 2019, at the age of 83.
An elegant and sophisticated pianist, his encyclopedic harmonic approach and wide range of his repertory made him one of the most distinctive jazz pianists to come out of Chicago, gaining the respect of local and visiting musicians for his notable mastery of the instrument.
This was a short lived, but essential band in the annals of what's called the Canterbury Sound, created by British progressive ensembles in the late sixties and early seventies. The band was formed when Robert Wyatt was ousted from Soft Machine, which he'd founded in the mid-sixties. "Matching Mole" was a wonderful debut that included tracks such as 'O Caroline', 'Signed Curtain' and 'Part of the Dance'. This edition has been newly remastered from the original master tapes and is expanded to include five previously unreleased studio session alternate takes, the single versions of 'O Caroline' and 'Signed Curtain', along with two BBC Radio One sessions from 1972…
Set of Fremeaux’s definitive Integrale Django Reinhardt collection. Mastered by Daniel Nevers, there are 20 volumes of these, and each volume has 2 CDs – 40 CDs total. Each volume also comes with a fairly thick booklet with discography and notes. And the booklets and inserts have very nice B&W pictures of Django. Une réédition d’exception ! Depuis quelques années maintenant, les éditions Frémeaux ont entrepris la publication d’une intégrale des enregistrements de Django Reinhardt.
This was a short lived, but essential band in the annals of what's called the Canterbury Sound, created by British progressive ensembles in the late sixties and early seventies. The band was formed when Robert Wyatt was ousted from Soft Machine, which he'd founded in the mid-sixties. "Matching Mole" was a wonderful debut that included tracks such as 'O Caroline', 'Signed Curtain' and 'Part of the Dance'. This edition has been newly remastered from the original master tapes and is expanded to include five previously unreleased studio session alternate takes, the single versions of 'O Caroline' and 'Signed Curtain', along with two BBC Radio One sessions from 1972…
Amid the ever-growing tide of Deep Purple box sets (this was at least their eighth in nine years), Listen Learn Read On stands alone, not only as the ultimate round-up of the band's greatest moments, but also as the answer to more collectors' dreams than most collectors were even aware they'd had. You want Deep Purple's long-legendary, but forever unavailable BBC sessions? They're here. You want the killer live encores that other albums omitted? They're here. You want a solid introduction to the band members' pre-Purple passages? They're here. And, of course, you want the hits. So they're here as well…