Reissue features the latest DSD remastering and HR cutting. Also features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD players). Good feelings and plenty of soul – some very early work as a leader from Hammond hero Johnny Smith! The set's got Johnny using the organ with lots of stops out – that full, wide range of the instrument that initially knocked so many folks for a loop when it first came into jazz – then really took strong formation in the hands of a player like this! The groove's a bit like a Jimmy Smith record for Blue Note, but a lot grittier too – with some occasional elements of R&B mixed in with the more far-reaching jazz sensibilities. The group features Thornel Schwartz on guitar, who'd played famously with Jimmy Smith – plus George Tucker on bass and Leo Stevens on drums.
Reissue features the latest DSD / HR Cutting remastering and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). Comes with a description. Features the original LP designs. Roots is an album by the Prestige All Stars nominally led by trumpeter Idrees Sulieman recorded in 1957 and released on the New Jazz label. More big-band bop with a stellar cast, it includes Cecil Payne, Pepper Adams, and Idrees Sulieman on saxes and Bill Evans on piano.
Reissue features the latest DSD / HR Cutting remastering and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). Comes with a description. Features the original LP designs. In a perfect world, Curtis Peagler's Modern Jazz Disciples would have had a longer run and built a much larger catalog. But regrettably, the Cincinnati quintet is only a small footnote in the history of hard bop and gave listeners only two albums. The first was this self-titled LP, which was recorded for Prestige's New Jazz subsidiary in 1959. The Modern Jazz Disciples shows the late Peagler, who turned 29 that year, to be a hard-swinging alto saxman in the Charlie Parker/Sonny Stitt/Cannonball Adderley/Phil Woods vein – his hot-blooded solos on tracks like "A Little Taste," "Slippin' and Slidin'," and the standard "After You've Gone" make this record well worth the price of admission.
Reissue features the latest DSD / HR Cutting remastering and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). Comes with a description. Features the original LP designs. Creatively, the Modern Jazz Disciples show no sign of a sophomore slump on their second album, Right Down Front, which was recorded for New Jazz/Prestige in 1960. Here's the bad news: The Disciples' second album turned out to be their last; after Right Down Front, Curtis Peagler's short-lived outfit broke up. But the honeymoon was nice while it lasted. With this LP, the Disciples unveiled one personnel change: Wilbur "Slim" Jackson was on drums instead of Ron McCurdy. But the rest of the lineup was still in place, and that includes leader Curtis Peagler on alto and tenor sax, William Brown on piano, Lee Tucker on bass, and William "Hicky" Kelley on the rare normaphone.
Reissue features the latest DSD remastering and HR cutting. Also features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD players). On Johnny "Hammond" Smith's first album as a leader, the organist simply sits himself down in front of a standard guitar-bass-drums trio (featuring guitarist Thornel Schwartz, who had previously worked with Jimmy Smith) and lets rip. The songs are a nice combination of standards, like "Secret Love," "The Masquerade Is Over" and "Pennies From Heaven," along with Smith originals that have a more blues-based, gospel-like air.
Reissue features the latest DSD / HR Cutting remastering and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). Comes with a description. Features the original LP designs. A really great title for this classic late 50s set – as the record showcases a host of young alto players who've all come up in the generation of Charlie Parker – but who are each bringing their own sense of style to the instrument! There's hardly any "bird feathers" here – as the Charlie Parker modes are never used slavishly, but instead as a way to sprout wings and really take off in new direction – a difference that really comes through wonderfully on the tracks that feature two different altoists playing together.
Reissue features the latest DSD / HR Cutting remastering and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). Comes with a description. Features the original LP designs. An excellent piece of early soul-jazz, 1960's Talk That Talk isn't as bop-oriented as Shirley Scott's albums with Stanley Turrentine from the same period, as flashy and ornate as the albums Jimmy Smith was starting to make with Creed Taylor and Lalo Schifrin, or as funky and blues-based as the best of Jimmy McGriff or "Brother" Jack McDuff. Smith's playing on this album is low-key almost to the point of being conservative, deeply soulful without resorting to what would soon become tired funk clichés.
Groove Holmes and Gerald Wilson – a wonderful combination on this late 60s session – in a style that's everything great about mainstream LA jazz at the time! Wilson really has a way with the charts on the session – and although the group is large, they've got a lean, clean sound that bounces along nicely – slightly funky at times, always soulful at others – a perfect backdrop for the well-played Hammond lines that Groove brings to the set! The album's not as much of an all-out organ wailer as some of Holmes' albums for Prestige – but that's a-ok with us, because Wilson's group features some other great players too – including Dennis Budimir on guitar, Tony Ortega and Arnie Watts on saxes, and Paul Humphrey on drums!
A striking little set from vibesman Freddie McCoy – not just for the cool superhero image on the front cover, but also for the tight grooves underneath! The album's one of McCoy's most unified for Prestige – as all tracks feature a core quartet with Freddie on vibes, Charlie Wilson on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Rudy Lawless on drums – not your usual Prestige players, and all musicians who really make the album sparkle! There's a bold soul jazz vibe running through the set – similar to some of Freddie's other work, but a bit more open too – and titles include a groovy take on "Girl From Ipanema", plus the soul jazz classics "Speak Out, Deagan!" and "Hav' Mercy" – as well as the cuts "Yesterdays" and "Spider Man".
Reissue features the latest digital remastering and the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and the latest DSD / HR Cutting remastering. Comes with a description. Features the original LP designs. A unique all-star set recorded in various combinations between 1949 and 1951, Conception is an underappreciated masterpiece of cerebral cool jazz. Although Miles Davis gets top billing, he appears on only half the album and then most often as a sideman with only occasional solos. Saxophonists Lee Konitz, Stan Getz, and Gerry Mulligan are the true stars of the album, with Konitz particularly shining.