Gin Label

Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang cut different figures. Joe was combative, a joker and man about town. Eddie was quiet, considerate and careful with money. They were born in Philadephia - Eddie in 1902, Joe in 1903 - to Italian immigrant parents. Both studied the violin. Their partnership began in their mid teens when Eddie joined Joe's newly-formed band as a guitarist. Soon they were performing as a duo. Eddie made the early running. In 1919 he joined Charlie Kerr's Orchestra as a violinist, switching to banjo.

Afrobeat’s rise to common musical currency has been mercurial during the last 5 years as dance music producers embrace more complex Afro rhythms and original West African pioneers like Fela Kuti and Tony Allen receive their dues. Featuring new hip hop from Ty alongside seminal house beats from Masters At Work and ultra-funky original music from Nigeria and Ghana courtesy of Fela Kuti, highlife God E.T. Mensah and more. 2 CD collection of 29 tracks then hits the groove straight away with Aslhley Beadle’s ‘Afrikans On Marz’ mix of Femi Kuti’s ‘Beng Beng Beng’, next up the classic Dennis Ferrer track ‘Funu’ which then leads us to a nicely different track with Tony Allen’sAfrobeat mix of Gigi’s ‘Gudfella’. So many more I could pick out too including DJ Food ‘Dub Lion’ and Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo De Cotonou Benin’s ‘Houe Towe Houn’. Suffice to say this does the job big time.

In the U.S., few music listeners have any awareness of the British skiffle phenomenon of the late '50s, and the only performer from this era to enjoy any kind of profile in America is Lonnie Donegan, whose "Rock Island Line" charted here. Other notable skiffle acts, such as Johnny Duncan (not the '70s country star), the Vipers Skiffle Group, and the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group are unknown except to an elite few. The genre itself was basically an attempt to replicate American folk music in Britain by playing American folk and blues songs in an affectedly rural-sounding manner, and the result often sounded something like a strummy, energetic cousin of bluegrass coupled with the instrumental sound of Elvis' Sun sessions.

Anyone casually searching for guitarist Grant Green's first recordings might easily wind up standing at a discographical crossroads, as three different albums claim to contain his earliest work. Technically speaking, Gambit's 2007 reissue of Grant Green's First Recordings is the definitive article; even if tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest was the leader on these sessions, what you hear are the guitarist's first performances in a recording studio. Recorded in New York City on December 10 and 12, 1959, this music represents Forrest's transition from a decade-long adventure as an R&B star to a jazzier, more stretched-out phase of his existence. Seven of these tracks were issued by Delmark records as Jimmy Forrest's album All the Gin Is Gone…