Sincerely... 西原健一郎

Antiques, also known as "Antique Sorcery", the first Cuban-American crossover band of the 1970s to have hits on the radio is finally back with a vengeance. With four albums covering a decade of music, the group provides a fusion of funk and latin-rock.

Canadian folk band Timber Timbre announced their next release, "Sincerely, Future Pollution", earlier today through NPR. The album will be out April 7 and it is "heavily shaped by 2016's political upheaval". "Sewer Blues", the first single of the album, is "a dark take on the state of America".This will be Timber Timbre's first full length album after 2014's "Hot Dreams" and it will be released through City Slang Records.

One of the tightest, sharpest sessions ever from trumpeter Conte Candoli - an early date done for Bethlehem Records, with a quartet setting that gives Conte plenty of room to cook! The solos are bold and fierce right from the start - with an energy that goes beyond even Candoli's work in bigger groups - and the rhythms are often very lively, and seem to push Conte onto his best level of expression - thanks to work from Stan Levey on drums, Max Bennett on bass, and Claude Williamson on piano. There's a bit more bite here than you'd guess from the west coast pedigree of the group - and titles include "On The Alamo", "I Can't Get Started", "Tune For Tex", "Fine & Dandy", "Night Flight", and "I'll Remember April".

Legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died on November 7, 2016, one day before the 2016 Presidential Election, but the world didn’t find out for several days after. On January 24, 2017 (shortly after the inauguration of Donald Trump and the succeeding Women’s March), New York City finally paid tribute to the Poet Prince of Montréal with a concert featuring dozens of singers, songwriters and musicians, including Richard Thompson, Josh Ritter, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Amy Helm, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Elvis Perkins, Holly Miranda, Joan As Police Woman, Delicate Steve, and many more. It was an evening the Village Voice called “a loving, thoughtful tribute to Cohen’s life in music and poetry.” The live album features highlight performances from this nearly three-hour marathon concert, which the Voice also hailed as a “carefully constructed, expertly structured production.”

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - A Night In Tunisia (1960) {Blue Note Japan SHM-CD TYCJ-81010 rel 2013} (24-192 remaster)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 384 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 122 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 245 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit 192 kHz remaster
© 1960, 2013 Universal Japan / Blue Note | BN 75th The Masterworks | TYCJ-81010
Jazz / Hard Bop

One of a number of Art Blakey albums titled after "Night In Tunisia" – and most likely the best! The tune is a perfect fit for the Blakey Jazz Messengers format – long, rhythmic, really stretching out, yet allowing plenty of space for the horn players to solo. Players include Bobby Timmons on piano, Lee Morgan on trumpet, and Wayne Shorter on tenor – a killer lineup that's in really classic form here – driven on nicely by Blakey's drums and bass work by Jymie Merritt. Titles include "Night In Tunisia", with Blakey thundering through impeccably – plus the tracks "Yama", "Kozo's Waltz", and a version of Timmons' great "So Tired".

The group's second album, cut late in 1967 amid their first major British success, is less focused than their first, but also presents a more majestic sound than its predecessor. The opening track, "World," is a poignant, even somber yet gorgeous ballad filled with clever lyrics, and highlighted by a quavering Mellotron accompaniment, a very close grand piano sound (anticipating elements of the Odessa album), and twangy fuzz-tone guitar. "And the Sun Will Shine" is an even more serious, regretful ballad that is bearable because it is also prettier than "World." The enigmatically titled "Lemons Never Forget" breaks up the mood with a harder rocking sound, just the group without any orchestra, dominated by a pounding piano and volume-pedal guitar.

Art Blakey - The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of Art Blakey's 1960 Jazz Messengers (1992) {6CD Mosaic MD6-141}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.50 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 928 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 65 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1960-61, 1992 Blue Note / Mosaic | MD6-141
Jazz / Hard Bop

Drummer Art Blakey led many great editions of the Jazz Messengers from the inaugural mid-'50s sessions until his death in the '90s. While arguments rage regarding which was his best, there is no doubt that the 1960-1961 unit figures in the debate. This wonderful six-disc set, notated with care and painstaking detail by Bob Blumenthal, covers studio and live sessions from March 6, 1960, to May 27, 1961, with the same personnel on all but two songs. Producer Michael Cuscuna used only first issue dates, and while he included some alternate takes, he did not litter the discs with second-rate vault material. They smoothly detail the band's evolution, cohesion, and maturation. This set, as with all Mosaic boxes, goes beyond essential. Get it post haste.

The Bee Gees were a music group formed in 1958, featuring brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers of the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies; Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The Bee Gees wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists.