Johnny Coles

Miles Davis - George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 259 MB | Full Artwork: 81 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: CBS "Jazz Masterpieces" # 450985 2 | Country/Year: Netherlands 1987, 1958
Genre: Jazz | Style: Hard Bop, Contemporary Jazz, Modal

"Tomes are available annotating the importance of this recording. The musical and social impact of Miles Davis, his collaborative efforts with Gil Evans, and in particular their reinvention of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess are indeed profound. However, the most efficient method of extricating the rhetoric and opining is to experience the recording…." ~AMG

This is an important release for Dolphy fans and jazz lovers in general, as it contains two of the rare occasions in which Eric Dolphy was captured on film. All of the footage presented here features pristine image and sound quality. The first clip was shot for a TV performance given by Eric's quintet in Berlin in 1961, the same year he participated in a series of performances as a member of John Coltrane's quartet.

This CD reissues a rather unusual James Moody date. Best known for his tenor and alto playing (although he is also recognized as a talented flutist), Moody is here heard exclusively on soprano and flute. Trombonist Tom McIntosh contributed a tune and arranged all eight pieces (which also include four Moody originals). Five of the numbers feature Moody in a nonet, including an emotional "Old Folks" and an advanced reworking of Duke Ellington's "Main Step.

Happy Frame of Mind finds Horace Parlan breaking away from the soul-inflected hard bop that had become his trademark, moving his music into more adventurous, post-bop territory. Aided by a first-rate quintet - trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Butch Warren, drummer Billy Higgins - Parlan produces a provocative set that is grounded in soul and blues but stretches out into challenging improvisations. None of the musicians completely embrace the avant-garde, but there are shifting tonal textures and unpredictable turns in the solos which have been previously unheard in Parlan's music. Perhaps that's the reason why Happy Frame of Mind sat unissued in Blue Note's vaults until 1976, when it was released as part of a double-record Booker Ervin set, but the fact of the matter is, it's one of Parlan's most successful efforts, finding the perfect middle ground between accessible, entertaining jazz and more adventurous music.

Miles Davis - Miles Davis At Carnegie Hall. The Complete Concert (1998) [2CD]
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 140 Mb + 127 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 75 Mb + 74 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300dpi (jpg) -> 8 Mb
© 1998 Sony Music / Columbia / Legacy | C2K 65027
Jazz / Modal Music / Classical Jazz / Big Band

This two-CD set makes the entire Carnegie … Full DescriptionHall concert of May 19, 1961 available again in its entirety. The Miles Quintet at the time–the post-Coltrane, pre-Shorter era band, with its sound balancing bop and cool schools–is joined by an orchestra arranged and conducted by Miles' longtime friend/frequent collaborator Gil Evans.

The recording has more than its share of assets. The sound is pristine. Miles' playing is heartbreaking, romantic, and searingly beautiful. The late Hank Mobley's performance proves he is one of jazz history's most under-appreciated soloists (with that firm yet creamy-soft-at-its-core tenor tone). The orchestration, which balances jazz with subtle classical influences, compliments Miles' band but does not compete with it. One of the best live Miles albums available.

Sure, the serious jazz collector will have no particular need to pay this release any mind. It has eight 1956-1967 Davis ballads, encompassing "'Round Midnight," orchestrated pieces with Gil Evans, and tracks with stellar sidemen like John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, and Herbie Hancock. The selections are ones that highlight Davis' more sultry and melancholy horn tones, played on the trumpet with the exception of "Blues for Pablo" on which he plays flügelhorn. ~ AllMusic

Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. An extended version of the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez is included, as well as a song called "Will o' the Wisp", from the ballet El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla. Sketches of Spain is regarded as an exemplary recording of Third Stream, a musical fusion of jazz, European classical, and styles of world music.