Kenny Burrell Blue Lights

The second of two CD reissues of a jam session led by guitarist Kenny Burrell features the talented if forgotten trumpeter Louis Smith, both Junior Cook and Tina Brooks on tenors, pianist Bobby Timmons (Duke Jordan was on the first volume), bassist Sam Jones and drummer Art Blakey. The all-star group performs two standards ("Caravan" and the guitarist's feature on "Autumn in New York"), Sam Jones's "Chuckin'" and Burrell's "Rock Salt." This is excellent music that easily fits into the bop mainstream of the period.

The music on this 1997 two-CD set was originally on two LPs and already previously reissued as a pair of CDs. Guitarist Kenny Burrell leads a very coherent jam session in the studio with a particularly strong cast that also includes trumpeter Louis Smith, both Junior Cook and Tina Brooks on tenors, either Duke Jordan or Bobby Timmons on piano, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Art Blakey. The material consists of basic originals and standards and has excellent playing all around; six of the nine tunes are over nine minutes long. At that point in time, Cook and Brooks had similar sounds, but, fortunately, the soloists are identified in the liner notes for each song.

Kenny Clarke - Klook's The Man (2007) {4CD Box Set Properbox 120 rec 1938-1956}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 826 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 621 Mb
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© 1938-56, 2007 Proper Records | P1577–P1580 / Properbox 120
Jazz / Bebop / Bop / Cool / Drums

Kenny Clarke was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the BeBop style of drumming. As the house drummer at Minton's Playhouse in the early 1940s, he participated in the after hours jams that led to the birth of modern jazz. He is credited with creating the modern role of the ride cymbal as the primary timekeeper. Before, drummers kept time on the snare drum ("digging coal", Clarke called it) with heavy support from the bass drum. With Clarke time was played on the cymbal and the bass and snare were used more for punctuation. For this, "every drummer" Ed Thigpen said, "owes him a debt of gratitude." Clarke was nicknamed "Klook" or "Klook-mop" for the style he innovated.

2009 eight CD box set. The Blue Note Highlights Collectors Box was compiled by Jazz icon Hans Mantel commemorating the 70th Birthday of Blue Note Records. This box set contains four single CD's, and two double CD's, each with their own specific theme. The emphasis is on Blue Note's golden era between 1955 and 1967 with all material taken from commercially available recordings…

A double CD collection of Blue Note recordings mainly hard bop tracks from between 1953 and 1958. There are many great periods in Jazz music, and the five years covered on this collection is no exception. New York was a Jazz mecca and this collection features the best of Blue Note's roster creating music that sounded, felt and smelled like New York. 20 tracks from the likes of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin, The Jazz Messengers, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Burrell, Sonny Clark, Lee Morgan, Clifford Jordan and others.

Craft Recordings is pleased to announce the release of Chet Baker’s The Legendary Riverside Albums. The deluxe album set presents the artist’s output as a leader for the renowned jazz label, recorded and released between 1958 and 1959: (Chet Baker Sings) It Could Happen To You, Chet Baker In New York, Chet and Chet Baker Plays The Best Of Lerner And Loewe. The recordings, which feature such icons as Bill Evans, Johnny Griffin and Kenny Burrell, have been cut from their original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio.

Louis Smith was a talented, but underrecorded, straight-ahead bop trumpeter who led two dates in the '50s before retiring to teach at the University of Michigan and the nearby Ann Arbor Public School system. For most of his career, he remained a teacher, making a brief comeback in the late '70s before returning to education. It wasn't until the mid-'90s that he began a recording career in earnest, turning out a series of albums for the Steeplechase label. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Louis Smith began playing trumpet as a teenager. He graduated high school with a scholarship to Tennessee State University, where he studied music and became a member of the Tennessee State Collegians. Folllowing his college graduation, Smith did a little graduate work at Tennessee before transferring to the University of Michigan, where he studied with professor Clifford Lillya.

When it's quarter to three and there's no one in the place except you and me, drop another nickel in the machine and play some tracks from Bar Jazz, another smartly compiled entry in Verve's Jazz Club series. This 18-track collection of standards, ballads, and novelties celebrates the fine art of boozing, capturing in richly atmospheric detail the smoke, sex, and sorrow so pungent in corner bars and cosmopolitan nightclubs the world over. Toast to highlights including Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Captain Bacardi," the Three Sounds' "After Hours," and Shirley Scott's "Dreamsville."

Jimmy Witherspoon - Goin' To Kansas City Blues (1957) {RCA Victor–Mosaic MCD-1011 rel 2007}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 288 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 108 Mb
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© 1957, 2007 RCA Victor / Mosaic Records / Sony BMG | MCD-1011
Jazz / Jazz Blues / Jump Blues / Vocal / Urban Blues

A reunion of sorts with McShann, with whom Witherspoon had sung for four years in the late '40s. A relaxed, swinging set that bisects jazz and blues, it holds no great surprises, but 'Spoon fans will find this an enjoyable and accomplished record. About half of the material was penned by McShann or Witherspoon, including "Blue Monday Blues" (Witherspoon's adaptation of "Kansas City Blues") and a remake of "Confessin' the Blues."