Martin Sasse a Groovy Affair

Oh, what hasn't been done to good old Christmas music?

Steve Grossman plays only with the best musicians. First he replaced Wayne Shorter Miles Davis and his jazz-fusion band. The collaboration was documented impressively on six shots. This was followed by years in the band of Elvin Jones. And now is the Martin Sasse Trio's turn. Steve is just simply always better.

After their stunning duo album "Monk" from 2016, baritone saxophonist Marcus Bartelt and pianist Martin Sasse come together again and celebrate with "Still Here" in a unique way the continuation of their intimate, harmony-rich "Art of the Duo". And again one missed nothing at all in view of this only at first sight meager instrumentation: Sometimes the seemingly symbiotically connected musicians breathe the grandeur of a whole orchestra, sometimes they prefer the fragile dialogue as equal masters of aesthetics and improvisation. No, nothing is missing, everything is in its right place here.

A very special "summit meeting": U.S. saxophonist Harry Allen meets Cologne pianist Martin Sasse at Basel's "Bird's Eye."

"A Swingin' Affair" was recorded two days after Dexter Gordon's classic album "Go" in 1962 with the same quartet consisting of Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. The songs include three originals and three standards, giving Gordon lots of room for his brand of melodic musical improvisation.

Three CD set. Although the lushly-arranged, harmony-based late 60s Sunshine Pop sound is most readily associated with America in general and the sun-kissed California region in particular, the reality is that it was always an international phenomenon. What A Groovy Day is a thrilling four-hour celebration of Britain's contribution to the genre, ranging from household names (The New Seekers, Cliff Richard, Petula Clark, The Hollies, Herman's Hermits) to terminally obscure acts like Infinity and The Mellow Yellow, who failed to release anything at the time. Naturally our compilation includes contributions from the two uncrowned kings of the 60s British harmony pop sound, vocalist Tony Rivers (who provides us with our title song) and studio all-rounder John Carter, represented as both performer and songwriter. Other highlights come from posthumously-acclaimed Sunshine Pop maestros Design, a trio of music library recordings by the largely overlooked but hugely talented backroom auteur Barbara Moore and, perhaps most intriguingly of all, the first-ever release of The Sweet's first demo recording, cut when they were still known as Sweetshop.

Three CD set. Although the lushly-arranged, harmony-based late 60s Sunshine Pop sound is most readily associated with America in general and the sun-kissed California region in particular, the reality is that it was always an international phenomenon. What A Groovy Day is a thrilling four-hour celebration of Britain's contribution to the genre, ranging from household names (The New Seekers, Cliff Richard, Petula Clark, The Hollies, Herman's Hermits) to terminally obscure acts like Infinity and The Mellow Yellow, who failed to release anything at the time. Naturally our compilation includes contributions from the two uncrowned kings of the 60s British harmony pop sound, vocalist Tony Rivers (who provides us with our title song) and studio all-rounder John Carter, represented as both performer and songwriter. Other highlights come from posthumously-acclaimed Sunshine Pop maestros Design, a trio of music library recordings by the largely overlooked but hugely talented backroom auteur Barbara Moore and, perhaps most intriguingly of all, the first-ever release of The Sweet's first demo recording, cut when they were still known as Sweetshop.