Florida boogie rockers who brought the sound of the South into the '80s.
Named after a legendary Southern prostitute who allegedly beheaded and mutilated her clients, Jacksonville's Molly Hatchet meld loud hard rock boogie with guitar jam-oriented Southern rock. Formed in 1975, the group's original lineup featured three guitarists - Dave Hlubek, Steve Holland, and Duane Roland - plus vocalist Danny Joe Brown, bassist Banner Thomas, and drummer Bruce Crump. They recorded a self-titled debut album in 1978, which quickly went platinum; the follow-up, Flirtin' with Disaster, was even more successful, selling over two million copies…
The series now takes a trip to the US of A, sixties style for its latest theme. Reflecting the way todays 60’s centric DJs / Mod Clubs weave a patchwork of musical styles from the 60’s in their 360 degree playlists of the period, so the latest Looking set travels from uptempo R&B and Early Soul to Garage Punk, Northern, Frat Rock, Proto-Psych and wild instro’s. PayIng homage to American Mod music from the Sixties.
This issue of Buddy DeFranco's recordings as a leader of both a quintet and an orchestra between 1949 and 1952 is a welcome one. The material on these 24 cuts is standard fare from the swing era, which was way over by 1949, but it proves that DeFranco knew how to lead a big band and swing hard as a soloist in a quintet setting - especially with the company he kept. Some of his crew on these sides include Serge Chaloff, Teddy Charles, Teddy Kotick, Lee Konitz, Max Roach, Jimmy Raney, and Al Cohn, just to name a few. Arrangements for these tunes were done by DeFranco, George Russell, and Manny Albam, which gives the listener a taste of the varied sonic interests of the great clarinetist. The sound on these sides is a tiny bit thin, but that's a minor complaint. The material swings no matter the arrangement or the size of the band. This is an intimate look at an often overlooked jazz great.
The history of jazz is written as a recounting of the lives of its most famous (and presumably, most influential) artists. Reality is not so simple, however. Certainly the most important of the music's innovators are those whose names are known by all — Armstrong, Parker, Young, Coltrane. Unfortunately, the jazz critic's tendency to inflate the major figures' status often comes at the expense of other musicians' reputations – men and women who have made significant, even essential, contributions of their own, who are, for whatever reason, overlooked in the mad rush to canonize a select few. Lennie Tristano is one of those who have not yet received their critical due. In the mid-'40s, the Chicago-born pianist arrived on the scene with a concept that genuinely expanded the prevailing bop aesthetic.