Trumpet Summit

Art Blakey - The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of Art Blakey's 1960 Jazz Messengers (1992) {6CD Mosaic MD6-141}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.50 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 928 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 65 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1960-61, 1992 Blue Note / Mosaic | MD6-141
Jazz / Hard Bop

Drummer Art Blakey led many great editions of the Jazz Messengers from the inaugural mid-'50s sessions until his death in the '90s. While arguments rage regarding which was his best, there is no doubt that the 1960-1961 unit figures in the debate. This wonderful six-disc set, notated with care and painstaking detail by Bob Blumenthal, covers studio and live sessions from March 6, 1960, to May 27, 1961, with the same personnel on all but two songs. Producer Michael Cuscuna used only first issue dates, and while he included some alternate takes, he did not litter the discs with second-rate vault material. They smoothly detail the band's evolution, cohesion, and maturation. This set, as with all Mosaic boxes, goes beyond essential. Get it post haste.

Pete Levin - Party In The Basement (1990) {Gramavision R2 79456}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 407 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 157 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1990 Gramavision | R2 79456
Jazz / Post Bop / Jazz Blues / Soul Jazz / Organ

Pete's first solo album for Gramavision was a tribute to Gil Evans, with whom Pete worked for 15 years. Much of the album is performed by an 8-piece all-star band - all alumni of the freewheeling Gil Evans Monday Night Orchestra.

Parker, Gillespie, Powell, Roach, Mingus - The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall (1953) {OJC Remasters Complete Series rel 2012, item 22of33}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 193 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 111 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 144 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit remaster
© 1953, 2012 Debut / Riverside / Concord | 0888072337220
Jazz / Bebop / Bop

Concord Music Group releases three new titles in its Original Jazz Classics Remasters series. Enhanced with 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, bonus tracks on each release (some previously unissued), and new liner notes to provide historical context to the originally released material, the series showcases pivotal recordings of the past several decades by artists whose influence on the jazz tradition continues to reverberate among jazz musicians and audiences well into the 21st Century.

Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges - Play The Blues - Back To Back (1959) {Verve Master Edition 521 404-2 rel 1997}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (image)+CUE+LOG -> 289 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 114 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 246 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1959, 1997 Verve / PolyGram | Verve Master Edition 521 404-2
Jazz / Jazz Blues / Piano / Saxophone

These distinctive small-group sessions, featuring Duke Ellington as pianist in a blues context, are part of a group of recordings issued under the confusing titles Back to Back and Side by Side, and further reissued under the not particularly distinctive name of Blues Summit. But there should be no confusion about the high quality of music that came out of these sessions – it is all "cooking with gas" as the expression goes. From the jazz world, it would be difficult to find more profound soloists on traditional blues numbers than the Duke or his longtime collaborator Johnny Hodges, who does some of the most soulful playing of his career here.

Guitarist, composer, and bandleader Pat Metheny is one of the most successful jazz musicians in the world. He is the only artist to win 20 Grammy Awards in 10 different categories. A consummate stylist and risk-taker, his musical signature melds a singular, euphoric sense of harmony with Afro-Latin and Brazilian sounds, rock, funk, global folk musics, and jazz. His 1976 debut, Bright Size Life, and the self-titled Pat Metheny Group two years later resonated with audiences and critics for its euphoric lyricism, dynamics, and rhythmic ideas.

Various Artists - Miles From India (2008) {2CD Set Times Square Records TSQ-CD-1808, Miles Davis alumni}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 714 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 292 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 15 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2008 Four Quarters Ent. / Times Square Records | TSQ-CD-1808
Jazz / Fusion / Post Bop / Jazz Funk / Modal Music

Mixing the music of jazz icon Miles Davis with sounds and instruments from India, as producers Bob Belden and Yusuf Gandhi did on Miles from India, was far from an outrageous proposition. Davis set the precedent himself — not only with his use of Indian players like the tabla virtuoso Badal Roy in sessions issued on albums like Big Fun and Get Up with It, but also with his sinuous modal compositions stretching back to 1959's epochal Kind of Blue and continuing through his electric period of the '70s.

Eternal Rhythm is a masterpiece on several levels. It was one of the earliest major examples of the idea that it was possible for any and all musical cultures to exist simultaneously, a philosophy that rejected any innate musical hierarchy and had no trouble placing the earthiest blues alongside the most delicate gamelan. It was also a summit meeting between representatives of the American and European jazz avant-garde, black and white, dismissing as meaningless both the cautious attitude of American jazz musicians toward Europeans edging onto their turf and the tentative stance of Europeans playing a music that was not "theirs." More importantly, Eternal Rhythm exists as an utterly spectacular, movingly beautiful musical performance, one of the rare occasions where the listener has a visceral sense of borders falling and vast expanses of territory being revealed for the first time…

Simply put, this set is a treasure that is also a bargain. Two masterful performances by Barshai and the outstanding Junge Deutsche Philharmonie (a youth orchestra playing like a world class orchestra), both performances among the best available versions of each work. Mahler's unfinished score for his Tenth symphony has been ably projected and realized in performing editions of (most commonly) Deryck Cooke, Joe Wheeler, Clinton Carpenter, Remo Mazzetti, and others. Performances of the Tenth are now commonplace, and there are numerous recordings, many compelling.

As a composer and bandleader, trumpeter David Weiss is dedicated to the proposition that there are still new stories to be told from within the bebop tradition. The several collaborative bands he's spearheaded over the last three decades—including the superband, The Cookers—are towering examples, but none more personal to his voice than this ongoing Sextet. With longtime collaborators saxophonist Myron Walden and drummer EJ Strickland, and newer musical partners such as tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover and pianist David Bryant, Weiss creates expansive harmonic and rhythmic frameworks for the group to explore and summit. Intriguing melodies and virtuosic solos highlight this set of five originals, along with compositions from Freddie Hubbard and Slide Hampton.