A fantastically hip performance from trumpeter Kenny Dorham – a never-heard live set, recorded for radio at a time when he was really stretching out! The group is as compelling as the performance – and features the excellent Sonny Red on alto, hitting some of those incredibly edgey notes he'd play with Donald Byrd – plus a young Cedar Walton on piano, John Ore on bass, and Hugh Walker on drums – the latter an overlooked genius on the kit, who gave us some great work with John Patton and Harold Mabern! This group is featured in a 1966 performance that takes up most of the CD – with long performances of the titles "Jung Fu", "Spring Is Here", "Somewhere In The Night", "Straight Ahead", and "The Shadow Of Your Smile" – with a few interview snippets by announcer Alan Grant. Grant also presents the remaining three tracks on the set – material from a 1962 date that is equally great, but also shows just how much Dorham had evolved in the four years that led up to the later recording. Kenny blows trumpet with Joe Farrell on tenor, Walter Bishop Jr on piano, Larry Gales on bass, and Stu Martin on drums – on "Woody N You", "If I Should Lose You", and an incomplete performance of "Au Privave".
This version of Handel's 'Messiah' could quite possibly be feasible today only as a Bernstein reissue. The quest for authenticity has overtaken the performance and recording of early music, and even a conductor recording 'Messiah' without attempting a historically-informed style of performance wouldn't dare introduce the level of revision that Bernstein did for this 1956 recording and the Carnegie Hall performances which preceded it.
You have to admire New York Voices' diversity – this is a jazz vocal group that has embraced everything from modal post-bop and Brazilian jazz to Stevie Wonder pearls. And how many artists have devoted an entire album to jazz interpretations of Paul Simon tunes? Not everything the Voices have recorded is great, but more often than not, their sense of adventure and open-mindedness have served them well. After paying tribute to pop-rocker Simon in 1997, the Voices make big band music the main focus of Sing, Sing, Sing. This time, they are backed by a big band and turn their attention to gems associated with swing icons like Benny Goodman ("Sing, Sing, Sing," "Don't Be That Way"), Duke Ellington ("In A Mellow Tone"), Woody Herman ("Early Autumn"), and Artie Shaw ("Stardust"). Although many of these classics came out of the Swing Era, Sing, Sing, Sing also has its share of post-World War II gems. Ralph Burns' lovely "Early Autumn" is a gem that Herman recorded in 1948, when he was exploring bop with his Second Herd and the Four Brothers. And "Orange Colored Sky," which was a major hit for Nat "King" Cole in 1950, is quite relevant to the CD's big band theme because Cole recorded it with the Stan Kenton Orchestra.
Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection Symphony, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. This symphony was one of Mahler's most popular and successful works during his lifetime. It was his first major work that established his lifelong view of the beauty of afterlife and resurrection. In this large work, the composer further developed the creativity of "sound of the distance" and creating a "world of its own", aspects already seen in his First Symphony. The work has a duration of eighty to ninety minutes and is conventionally labelled as being in the key of C minor; the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians labels the work's tonality as C minor–E♭ major. It was voted the fifth-greatest symphony of all time in a survey of conductors carried out by the BBC Music Magazine.
When the New York Dolls released their debut album in 1973, they managed to be named both "Best New Band" and "Worst Band" in Creem Magazine's annual reader's poll, and it usually takes something special to polarize an audience like that. And the Dolls were inarguably special – decades after its release, New York Dolls still sounds thoroughly unique, a gritty, big-city amalgam of Stones-style R&B, hard rock guitars, lyrics that merge pulp storytelling with girl group attitude, and a sloppy but brilliant attack that would inspire punk rock (without the punks ever getting its joyous slop quite right)…
On December 21, 2002 DMB fans were treated to one of the most exciting collaborations in the band's history - James Brown and members of his Soul Generals joined Dave Matthews Band, and members of Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe for Brown’s classic “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine.”…