V. A. Jazz 2024

John di Martino is a jazz pianist, arranger and producer, based in New York City. He has been described as a "shape-shifter", for his creativity across musical genres. For this tribute to the King of Pop, John and his Romantic Jazz Trio perform some of Michael Jackson's best-loved songs.

Asako Toki's new album, which marks her 10th anniversary this year since her solo debut in 2004, is the fourth in the "STANDARDS" series, which has been long awaited by her fans for the first time in nine years! Just like her time, this is a jazz standards album produced by her father, Japan's leading saxophonist Hidefumi Toki. In addition to standard songs such as “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Round Midnight,” “Smile,” “Stardust,” “The Look of Love,” “Misty,” and “Cheek to Cheek,” an original song “Lady Traveler” with English lyrics written based on the works of Eiji Toki "After Dark" is also included. She also covered Red Hot Chili Peppers' ``Californication'' as a surprising song choice. Asako Toki's favorite jazz singer Blossom Dearie's Christmas song "Christmas in the City" is a duet with her beloved Haruomi Hosono! This is a new jazz standard album full of "songs that only Asako Toki can sing today" to be delivered on the anniversary year!

This is the fourth compilation sampling the blues roster of Alligator Records as it existed in its earliest incarnation. The style varies greatly from the blues/rock of The Kinsey Report, to the country blues of Elvin Bishop, to the jazz of Charles Brown. The album is the best of the 'HouseRockin' series and offers a link to the various artists of the Alligator label at that stage. The many highlights include Lonnie Mack, Delbert McClinton, Kenny Neal, Tinsley Ellis, Lucky Peterson and William Clarke.

Following the success of Jazz for a Rainy Afternoon, this clever release presents thirteen cookin’ blues tracks that deal head-on with the woes of the world. Highlights include Junior Wells’ marvelous rendition of "Why Are People Like That?" with the electric slide guitar work of Sonny Landreth and Derek Trucks, "Life Will Be Better" by Sugar Ray Norcia and Charlie Musselwhite, and "Misery and the Blues" from the seductive and sultry Maria Muldaur. Also features Terry Evans’ driving "Credit Card Blues," Debbie Davies’ searing "Money" and cuts by Son Seals, Kenny Neal, Sam Lay, Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson and other stellar blues players.

In the mid Seventies, the heyday of "classical rock", the best British musicians gathered together to release an adaptation of Prokofiev's masterpiece "Peter And The Wolf". Featured in this interesting adventure are Phil Collins, Cozy Powell, Manfred Mann, Bill Bruford, Jon Hiseman, Jack Lancaster, Gary Moore, Brian Eno, Robin Lumley, Julie Tippetts, Percy Jones, Gary Brooker, John Goodsall, Keith Tippetts, Alvin Lee, Chris Spedding… Written in three other languages apart from English (French, Spanish and German), this version is told by Viv Stanshall. One can also notice the surprising presence of the legendary French violinist Stephane Grappelli, who usually performs jazz music.

Thanks in part to the luridly alluring title and the enthusiastically informative liner notes by Bob Koester, this solid collection was many a young musician's introduction to the men who pioneered blues piano in the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt Sykes is the best represented artist here, and his leering vocals are hard to resist: After hearing the ribald metaphor of "Dresser Drawers," you'll never view furniture quite the same way again. His "Kickin' Motor Scooter" is truly a marvel of smiling euphemism, with the song devoted to boasts of how he's "A dangerous motor scooter…A tricky motor scooter!" Other artists, while not always as inventive lyrically, show a wide range of piano styles, from the bouncing syncopated jazz of "Stendahl Stomp" to the trickling upper registers and restrained bass coaxed by Curtis Jones from a battered old piano in "Tin Pan Alley Blues #2"…

While some purists would like to compartmentalize boogie woogie into a nice, neat box as strictly a form of piano blues, this 18 track collection clearly demonstrates that the form lends itself to a wide variety of treatments. Tracks like "Baby Boogie Woogie" by country picker Curley Weaver, "Boogie Woogie" by Delta Cum. Detroit bluesman Calvin Frazier and jazz visionary Art Tatum's "Tatum Pole Boogie" do much to support that claim, as does the inclusion of tracks from Red Saunders, Adrian Rollini and Harry James. Much of the material reprised here comes from one of the very first Columbia 78 RPM 'albums, ' a collection of boogie woogie classics produced by John Hammond, the man who brought the music into national vogue in the late 30s by simply letting giants like Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson and Big Joe Turner do their thing…

This unusual set was one of the most successful uses of a gospel choir in a jazz context. Trumpeter Donald Byrd and a septet that includes tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, guitarist Kenny Burrell, and pianist Herbie Hancock are joined by an eight-voice choir directed by Coleridge Perkinson. The arrangements by Duke Pearson are masterful and one song, "Cristo Redentor," became a bit of a hit. This is a memorable effort that is innovative in its own way, a milestone in Donald Byrd's career.

Reissue on CD with two extra songs of this album released, only on LP format, in 2018 by the Galician band JUZZ. An unlikely, but more than successful, cocktail of progressive jazz rock seasoned with RIO suggestions, stoner avalanches and post rock and free jazz fury. All flavored with the elegance of the Canterbury scene.