Fantastic 90s

Welcome to the unforgettable Instrumental Gold of the 1950's! Our 14 song trip down memory lane begins with a Number One hit from 1955, Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White. This latin-flavored song, a hit by Perez Prado and his Orchestra, comes from France and was written by “Louiquy.” It was heard on the soundtrack of the film Underworfer which starred Jane Russell and Gilbert Roland. The 1959 hit film, A Summer Place, starring Richard Egan and Sandra Dee gave us a fine score by Max Steiner. The Percy Faith Orchestra release of the Theme From A Summer Place reached the top of the charts that year and earned a Grammy Award in 1960.

The steady increase in recordings of his music has now established Suk as one of the great musical poets of the early 20th century. Too much is made of his affinities with his teacher and father-in-law, Dvorák; for his own part, Dvorák never imposed his personality on his pupils and Suk's mature music owes him little more than a respect for craft and an extraordinarily well developed ear for orchestral colour. His affinities in the five-movement A Summer's Tale, completed in 1909 – a magnificent successor to his profound Asrael Symphony – reflect Debussy and parallel the music of his friend Sibelius and Holst, but underpinning the musical language is a profound originality energising both form and timbre. Mackerras's recording joins a select band: Šejna's vintage performance on Supraphon and Pešek's inspired rendition with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; his is an equal to them both and the Czech Philharmonic's playing is both aspiring and inspiring. While their reading is suffused with a feeling for the work's myriad orchestral colours, they recognise that Suk's music is much more than atmosphere. In particular they excel in their handling of the drama and overwhelming emotional urgency of this remarkable, big-boned symphonic poem.

Paul McCartney's return to the stage in 1989 for the Flowers in the Dirt tour was heavily hyped, since it was not only his first extensive tour since the '70s, but also marked the first time he incorporated large portions of the Beatles' catalog into his set list. The double-disc, 37-track Tripping the Live Fantastic documents the tour, and it's a pleasant, if ultimately inconsequential, nostalgia trip that puts the weaknesses of Flowers in the Dirt in a little too sharp relief…

For "Classical 90s Dance 3" Alex Christensen has again brought national and international superstars as guests into the studio: Natasha Bedingfield, Maite Kelly, Eloy de Jong, Thomas Anders and Giovanni Zarrella. There is a reunion with one or the other voice of the first two albums like Yass, Linda Teodosiu, Asja Ahatovic and Polina.

The duo Scarlet Fantastic were formed in Birmingham, West Midlands, England in 1985 when the briefly successful Swan’s Way collapsed. After a single album the trio lost Robert Shaw, which left vocalist Maggie DeMond and instrumentalist Rick Jones to continue as Scarlet Fantastic. Dressed in garish costumes befitting the New Romantic era, Scarlet Fantastic achieved two hit singles, ‘No Memory’ (number 24, October 1987) and ‘Plug Me In (To The Central Love Line)’ (number 67, January 1988). They also recorded a sole, non-charting album which Jones remembers as ‘disjointed’. They broke up 1988.

Frank Strozier - The Fantastic Frank Strozier (1997) {Vee Jay VJ-012 rec 1959-1960}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 453 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 173 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 18 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1959-60, 1997 Vee Jay / Blue Moon | VJ-012
Jazz / Hard Bop / Saxophone

Altoist Frank Strozier's first session as a leader has been reissued on this Vee Jay CD with the original six selections joined by five additional and previously unreleased performances, only one of which is actually an alternate take. The altoist's quintet consists of Miles Davis' rhythm section of the time (pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb), along with the late, great trumpeter Booker Little. The music, mostly comprised of Strozier originals, is advanced hard bop, and the music is both enjoyable and (due to Little's presence) somewhat historic.