Playhouse Sessions

Charlie Christian - After Hours (1941) {Fantasy Records OJCCD-1932-2 rel 2000}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 140 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 116 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 15 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1941, 2000 Esoteric / Fantasy / Original Jazz Classics | OJCCD-1932-2
Jazz / Bebop / Swing / Guitar

AFTER HOURS is an excellent live document of the early roots of bebop, capturing this exciting music in the process of being built by its pioneering architects. Recorded live in New York City at jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House in 1941, these tapes feature young modernists Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and Don Byas as they pushed the structural materials of swing toward something new and intense.

Bill Barron - Quintet & Sextet (1961-1962) {2012 2CD Savoy Jazz-Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD 707}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 885 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 331 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1961-62, 2012 Savoy / Fresh Sound Records | FSR-CD 707 | 24bit remaster
Jazz / Hard Bop / Saxophone

The three albums tenorman Bill Barron made as a leader for Savoy Records in early 60s embody every facet of this accomplished jazzman as a talented soloist, composer and arranger. And, despite the similarities in their harmonic ideas, Barron was not a slavish disciple of John Coltrane.

Various Artists - Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano (1935-1941) {3CD Set, Mosaic Select MS-030 rel 2008}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (image)+CUE+LOG -> 627 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 477 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 18 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1935-41, 2008 Mosaic Records / Sony BMG | MS-030
Jazz / Blues / Jazz Blues

While most Mosaic limited-edition boxed sets concentrate on recordings by an individual bandleader or a single record label, Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano features sessions by a number of different artists from several labels active in the 1930s and early '40s, when boogie-woogie was very popular. Fifteen different pianists are featured (if one counts Lionel Hampton playing two fingered-duo piano in a band setting), though it is the giants of the genre, Meade "Lux" Lewis, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, and Jimmy Yancey who are given the most exposure.

Definitive's mini-anthology of classic recordings featuring pioneer electrically amplified guitarist Charlie Christian is an excellent core sample taken from his brief and eventful career. Note that Definitive has also issued what purport to be compilations containing all of Christian's complete live and studio recordings, as well as another more modestly proportioned sampler entitled The Genius of the Electric Guitar. Charlie Christian was like a will-o'-the-wisp, a strikingly creative sideman who appeared at studio sessions and live jams during a span of months only adding up to a couple of years before succumbing to tuberculosis at the age of 25 in 1942. On Definitive's Celestial Express, the guitarist is heard with various groups led by Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman, with Edmond Hall's Celeste Quartet, and with the Kansas City Six (a band including Count Basie and Lester Young) at the second From Spirituals to Swing concert in Carnegie Hall.