Double Kenichi Shimaz

Arranger Kenichi Tsunoda's big band has been one of the top jazz orchestras in Japan since its formation in 1990. This set is particularly impressive for the wide range of the arrangements, the band's musicianship, and the individual solos. "Be Bop" is given a rapid treatment worthy of Jon Faddis, "My Favorite Things" has two heated soprano saxophonists (Yuji Kawamura and Tatsuya Sato) trading off at its climax, and altoist Hideo Oyama sounds very close to Johnny Hodges on "Memories of Duke." Also quite memorable are an explosive "For J.G.," an unusual jazz waltz version of "Shiny Stockings," and rollicking renditions of "Donna Lee" and "Night Train." Despite the lack of name recognition in the United States, the Kenichi Tsunoda Big Band should greatly interest fans of modern jazz orchestras.

Despite the economic difficulties in sustaining a large ensemble, trombonist, composer, and arranger Kenichi Tsunoda has kept his stellar, Tokyo-based big band together for over a decade. Showing off the band’s versatility, Tsunoda presents a program of his own compositions, a combination of the First Movement of “Concierto de Aranjuez” and Chick Corea’s “Spain,” as well as smart arrangements of standards such as “Caravan” and “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To.” The well-drilled ensemble includes a number of able soloists such as tenor saxophonist Tatsuya Sato, flutist Seiji Tada, alto saxophonist Keiji Hori, and pianist Yuichi Inoue…

Commemorating the 45th Anniversary of Mixer's Lab! Fifth in the Kenichi Tsunoda Big Band "BIG BAND SOUND" series produced by Mixer's Lab! 10 songs selected from Jazz and Latin masterpieces of the past! The famous performances by the Kenichi Tsunoda Big Band were recorded, mixed and produced by recording engineer Eiji Uchinuma (Chairman of Mixer's Lab and Honorary Chairman of the Music Studio Association of Japan), and recorded in high sound quality using the most advanced recording technology!

Epic's The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble gathers two discs' worth of the late blues guitarist's work, including many live performances and a few tracks with the Vaughan Brothers. The collection presents Vaughan's material in roughly chronological order, from the 1980 live recording "Shake for Me" to 1989's "Life by the Drop." It also touches on most of Vaughan's definitive songs and performances, including "Tightrope," "Wall of Denial," "Couldn't Stand the Weather," and "Cold Shot," and live versions of "The Sky Is Crying," "Superstition," and "Rude Mood/Hide Away." Though this album doesn't offer anything that hasn't already been released in some form or another, it does go into slightly more depth than several of the other Stevie Ray Vaughan retrospectives by presenting both his greatest studio hits and some of his best live work.

Epic/Legacy expanded Stevie Ray Vaughan’s second album Couldn’t Stand the Weather in 1999, adding four outtakes and an interview excerpt to the eight-track original, but the 2010 Legacy Edition expands it further still, retaining those four cuts, adding four songs from the posthumous compilation The Sky Is Crying (“Empty Arms,” “Wham!,” “Close to You,” “Little Wing”) along with three previously unreleased alternate takes (“The Sky Is Crying,” “Stang’s Swang,” “Boot Hill”), and a full, unreleased concert SRV & Double Trouble gave at the Spectrum in Montreal on August 17, 1984. Apart from “Empty Arms” and “Stang’s Swang,” every studio outtake is a cover, underscoring how Vaughan spent much of Couldn’t Stand the Weather drawing from his influences and synthesizing them into his own voice, and their addition actually strengthens the album considerably. With that in mind, the lively concert on the second disc is a bonus treat, evidence that SRV & Double Trouble were flying very high during 1984 and one of the better complete live sets in Vaughan’s discography.

These "double bass quartets" of Franz Anton Hoffmeister, a Viennese composer and publisher well known to both Mozart and Beethoven, are not written simply for one member each of the string family from violin to double bass; the bass is explicitly conceived of as a replacement for the first violin. That might seem an awkward order, but the charm of the music resides in the variety of elegant solutions Hoffmeister finds for the problems this configuration causes.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble formed the most impressive blues act of the 1980s, which made Vaughan's death in a helicopter crash at the start of the '90s all the more tragic. He grew up in Dallas, the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan (cofounder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds). Stevie began playing in clubs at 12, and by 17 had dropped out of high school and moved to Austin. There followed years of struggling until April 23, 1982, when Vaughan and his group, Double Trouble, played a private audition for the Rolling Stones in New York. The gig led to an invitation to appear at the Montreux Jazz Festival, at which Vaughan was seen by David Bowie, who hired him to play guitar on his Let's Dance album, and Jackson Browne, who offered the free use of his recording studio. Vaughan took up that offer after being signed by legendary talent scout John Hammond to Epic, recording his debut album, Texas Flood, in the fall of 1982…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: The Complete Epic Recordings Collection includes the group s original four studio albums, five electrifying live releases (including the commercial debut of A Legend In The Making Live At The El Mocambo, a rare Canadian radio promo album) and a double-disc set of killer studio outtakes from throughout Stevie Ray Vaughan s incredible career, including recordings from previous reissues, box sets and posthumous compilations.

If judged solely on its fabulous array of sonorities, Green Dolphy Suite by Double Trio (the combined forces of Trio de Clarinettes and the Arcado String Trio) would have to be considered a real find for intrepid listeners, especially those with a taste for jazz and avant-garde explorations. Every conceivable extended technique for clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, violin, cello, and double bass is tried at least once, and there is music here for fans of anything between hard bop and frenzied skronk. But what makes this album extraordinary is its profound musicality, in what may seem an extremely difficult idiom for both technically precise and emotionally connected playing. The music is often angular, brusque, cerebral, and fiendishly virtuosic, yet it is also remarkably expressive, richly colorful, and entertaining for its great variety and frequent wit…