The soprano voice occupies a central place in Robert Groslot’s vocal music, and in The Intimacy of Distance he has created his most ambitious composition yet for voice and orchestra. Exploring how elements of life can only be realized through the experience of distance, this concerto for soprano and orchestra moves through various contrasts to huge transformative effect. The calm sounds of nature alternate with melodic lines and dissonant chords in My Green Shade Forest, while Trittico incantevole is a radiant piece composed in honor of the painter Peter Paul Rubens. Composer Robert Groslot is 70 this year; an appropriate anniversary disc with three more premiere recordings. He is one of Belgium’s leading living composers – his catalogue consists of large orchestral works, 50 concertos, three multimedia works and many solo and chamber music works.
The first recording by trombonist Wilbur DeParis' "New New Orleans Jazz Band" (although it was actually released after their 1955 session) is full of fresh and lively Dixieland. DeParis and his all-stars (cornetist Sidney DeParis, clarinetist Omer Simeon, pianist Don Kirkpatrick, banjoist Eddie Gibbs, bassist Harold Jackson and drummer Freddie Moore) play a wide variety of material which includes the leader's colorful "Martinique," "Under the Double Eagle," Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C Sharp Minor," a couple of Jelly Roll Morton tunes and "When the Saints Go Marching In"; the second part of the latter is taken at a blistering tempo. The DeParis band was one of the most consistently inventive Dixieland-oriented groups of the 1950s.
The Chicago Sound is the sole album led by American jazz bassist Wilbur Ware. It features a quintet with the saxophonist Johnny Griffin and was recorded in 1957 for the Riverside label. It was subsequently re-released by the Jazzland label as: Johnny Griffin & Wilbur Ware with Junior Mance and renamed "The Chicago Cookers" in 1960.Allmusic reviewer Scott Yanow considered the album "a fine debut by Ware. It seems strange that in his remaining 20-plus years the bassist never led another album".
Tanganyika Strut is the last of the three 1958 Savoy recordings made by jazz musicians John Coltrane and Wilbur Harden. The album would be Harden's last as a leader. The sessions also produced a couple of alternate takes which can be found on some compilations, most notably the ones featuring the complete Savoy recordings made by Harden and Coltrane together, The Complete Mainstream 1958 Sessions (2009) and The Complete Savoy Sessions (1999).
Tanganyika Strut is the last of the three 1958 Savoy recordings made by jazz musicians John Coltrane and Wilbur Harden. The album would be Harden's last as a leader. The sessions also produced a couple of alternate takes which can be found on some compilations, most notably the ones featuring the complete Savoy recordings made by Harden and Coltrane together, The Complete Mainstream 1958 Sessions (2009) and The Complete Savoy Sessions (1999).