Diethard Stein Modern Drumming

Gil Melle Quartet - Primitive Modern/Quadrama (1957) {Prestige OJCCD-1712-2 rel 1991}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 357 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 163 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 16 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1957, 1991 Prestige / OJC / Fantasy | OJCCD-1712-2 (P-7040/PRLP-7097)
Jazz / Bop / Cool / Third Stream / Saxophone

I was refreshingly suprised the first time I heard this album. I had been bored with most of my music collection when I stumbled upon this "nugget of pure gold". What's even more exciting is when you find out more about the man himself. Gil Melle is a true original, still going strong. His art will surely last the test of time. I write this based on my somewhat worn vinyl copy of "Primitive Modern". I found it in a thrift store for 50 cents and have thanked the powers that be every day that I had such luck. As the quote above indicates, Gil Melle and his outfit were serious about rhythm and doing interesting things with rhythm. Listen, for instance, to "Ironworks."

Portuguese pianist Daniel Bernardes studied both composition (with Emmanuel Nunes and Karlheinz Stockhausen) and jazz (with Carlos Barretto and João Paulo Esteves da Silva, two names of the Clean Feed catalogue). “Liturgy of the Birds” comes from his explorations of Olivier Messiaen's compositional techniques, applied here to a jazz setting, bringing together a piano jazz trio (with double bassist António Augusto Aguiar and drummer Mário Costa, the same of “Oxy Patina” and the Emile Parisien Sfumato Quintet) with Drumming GP, an international reference in the world of modern percussion. "Liturgy of the Birds" is an hommage to Olivier Messiaen, alluding to his profound devotion to Christianity and his love of the birds to the point of notating and using their chants throughout his works. To Bernardes, «the language of Messiaen is a possible path to contemporary jazz», and listening to this astonishing record we have to agree with him. If you’re searching for something new and surprising, search no more: here it is.

With the release of Lifeline, John Stein celebrates a musical career as one of the most diverse jazz guitarists of his generation. Selected highlights from Stein’s varied discography capture his eclectic spirit with his honey-toned guitar effortlessly guiding listeners across several decades of brilliance. After retiring from a longtime career at Berklee College of Music where he held a professorship since 1999, and upon recently contracting a rare autoimmune disease, the esteemed jazz veteran decided to synthesize his remarkable body of recorded work. The recorded output surveyed on this compilation spans more than twenty years, from Stein’s 1999’s Green Street to the most recent recording, 2021’s Serendipity. Throughout this assortment of releases, Stein has been consistently regaled for his expansiveness, turning heads with his emotive, subtle, grooving, and precise stylistic excursions. With dazzling guitar playing, notable contributions from the side musicians, creative arrangements, and compositions that are at once sophisticated and memorable, the full scope of John Stein’s instrumental and compositional prowess is on display on this prodigious, varied, and musically rewarding retrospective.

Experience illuminates the path to clarity, and nowhere is this more evident than in No Goodbyes by guitarist John Stein. As his 18th recording and 13th for the renowned Whaling City Sound label, Stein, along with his exceptional trio partners Ed Lucie on bass guitar and Mike Connors on drums, showcases a transcendent musical experience. Building upon their previous collaboration on 2021’s Serendipity, the trio creates an enchanting collection of interactive, conversational, and expressive melodies.