Louis Armstrong Portrait

Jazz is a music genre that originated from African American communities of New Orleans in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African American and European American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz spans a period of over a hundred years, encompassing a very wide range of music, making it difficult to define. Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swing note, as well as aspects of European harmony, American popular music, the brass band tradition, and African musical elements such as blue notes and African-American styles such as ragtime. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience and styles to the art form as well. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".

As easy as it is to characterize Howard Armstrong as the last link in the once great African-American string band tradition, he really had the kind of personality and talent that transcended simple genre labels. A visual artist as well as a consummate musician (he is rumored to have been able to play 22 different types of instruments), his grasp of musical styles was panoramic, ranging from blues, jazz, country, and pop to all manner of jigs, reels, waltzes, and spirituals, and he could sing and entertain in four languages, including German, Polish, and Italian as well as English. Although he tended to concentrate on fiddle and mandolin in his later years, no musical style or instrument was ever safely out of reach of Armstrong's sweeping vision.

Once upon a time it was virtually unheard of for musical performers to write their own songs. That was the province of a separate breed, the professional songwriters who worked for music publishers in New York's Brill Building, or else touted their wares down the Tin Pan Alleys of the world. Essential to the whole process were the vocalists, because someone had to sing the songs.These were often under contract with a specific dance band. In the parlance of the day, these singers were often referred to as 'crooners'. The hundred tracks on this 4-CD set are mostly drawn from the 1950s and early 1960s - largely a mixture of standards from the pens of classic songwriters like Cole Porter and George Gershwin, as well as showtunes taken from musicals like My Fair Lady and Showboat.

Five CD sets containing 100 classic tracks by legendary artists, one of the biggest selling and best remembered musical icons of all time.

One of the reasons we have so much Duke Ellington to enjoy on record is that he liked to tape everything - concerts, works in progress, prototypes, and alternate editions. That, plus the quality of his output, has left us with treasures like this - in contrast to MusicMasters' Benny Goodman archival releases, which are generally inferior to his official releases, the label's Ellington vault releases are essential and delightful. Anyone who has taken in Paul Gonsalves' extended solo from the 1956 Ellington Newport performance may want to own this disc, just for the equivalent Jimmy Hamilton tenor sax showcase on "The Old Circus Train" - Hamilton's clarinet gets center stage on "Girdle Hurdle"…

Lalo Schifrin - Jazz Meets the Symphony Collection (1999) {4CD Set with Bonus CD Aleph Records Aleph 012 rec 1992-1998}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.76 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 751 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 366 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1992-98, 1999 Aleph Records | Aleph 012 / 51702 63342
Jazz / Classical / Third Stream / Neo-Classical / Bop / Modern Post Bebop / Modern Arrangement

Here's yet another composer-performer who abhors the idea of building walls and fences between musical cultures. He's been carrying on parallel activities in the jazz and classical worlds ever since he was a youth in his native Argentina. Schifrin has composed a series of suites putting such jazz greats as Ray Brown and Grady Tate together with the London Philharmonic in a mix of originals, arrangements of standards, and several 13-14 minute tributes to the giants of jazz.