Red Hot And Cool

Recorded during three different stays at New York's Basin Street, Jazz: Red, Hot and Cool is making its first appearance in the U.S. on CD. It documents - with the addition of two additional performances that were previously unissued - the original Brubeck quartet in its final years. In 1956 Joe Morello would replace Joe Dodge, and in 1958 Eugene Wright would take over the bass chair from Bob Bates. What strikes the listener about this band, is a having been seasoned for five years when the first of these performances were recorded, the Brubeck quartet was far more immersed in the blues than anyone - at least the critics of the time - had given them credit for…

Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool is one of the compilation albums from the Red Hot project. This fifth entry in the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series was heralded as the "Album of the Year" by TIME upon its release in 1994 by GRP Records. The double disc — the second compact disc was included as a "Bonus" — features collaborations between renowned jazz performers and contemporary hip hop artists. The title refers to a 1961 jazz standard by Oliver Nelson, which is also covered on this album…

16 original albums on 10 CDs!
This Box Set combines the best recordings from the crucial first decade of Brubeck's career. The great live recordings at college and festival appearances, the series with odd rhythmic meters that started with "Time Out," his first solo album, the recordings with musical impressions from his worldwide concert tours, and the totally underrated "The Real Ambassadors ", featuring Louis Armstrong, Carmen McRae and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross with a fantastic libretto by Brubeck's wife Iola.

Thirteen years into their tenure, the Dave Brubeck Quartet was still able to mine the creative vein for new means of expression. Despite the hits and popularity on college campuses, or perhaps because of it, Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright, and Joe Morello composed a restless band with a distinctive sound. These eight tracks, all based on a tour of Japan the year before, were, in a sense, Brubeck fulfilling a dictum from his teacher, the French composer Darius Milhaud, who exhorted him to "travel the world and keep your ears open." The sketches Brubeck and Desmond created all invoke the East, particularly the folk melodies of Japan directly, while still managing to use the Debussian impressionistic approach to jazz that kept them riding the charts and creating a body of music that, while playing into the exotica craze of the moment, was still jazz composed and played with integrity…

This is the third and final guest appearance by clarinetist Bill Smith in the place of Paul Desmond with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Like the earlier record dates, this 1961 session focuses exclusively on Smith's compositions, resulting in a very different sound for the band than its normal mix of the leader's songs and standards. Smith was a member of Brubeck's adventurous octet of the late '40s and, like the pianist, also studied with French composer Darius Milhaud. So the clarinetist is willing to take chances, utilizing a mute on his instrument in "Pan's Pipes," and having drummer Joe Morello use his timpani sticks on the piano strings in the swinging "The Unihorn." Smith proves himself very much in Desmond's league with his witty solos and equally amusing, pun-filled liner notes…

This excellent CD reissues the LP Brubeck Time plus half of Red Hot and Cool. One of the few early studio (as opposed to club) recordings by the early Dave Brubeck Quartet (this version has bassist Bob Bates and drummer Joe Dodge in addition to pianist Brubeck and altoist Paul Desmond), the fine unit performs nine standards plus three new compositions: "Stompin' for Mili," "Audrey" (dedicated to Audrey Hepburn) and Brubeck's classic, "The Duke."

Red Hot + Bach charts a new pathway into the musical universe of Johann Sebastian Bach. Through the collaboration of performers, producers, DJs and artists from around the world and across the spectrum of contemporary music, different facets of Bach's centuries-old masterpieces are transformed with fresh energy and modern virtuosity that know no limits. Red Hot + Bach is available everywhere June 17, 2014, from Sony Music Masterworks.

There is a cool and relaxed feeling to this session of "Midnight on Cloud 69" and ethereal quality which sets the tempo and mood of quietude. It is, contrary to the hot and heavy-breathed experience of daily living, and hiatus in which man may forget his tribulations and give vent to his imagination to trail the tail of a cloud as it glides through the dark and empty heavens.