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Saturday, March 16, 2019

Encore Gloria Lynne

Be Careful
Encore Gloria Lynne
Palace 805
Buckingham Records - New York City

Presented as only the budget label Palace can, a rough set featuring three Lynne tracks, two of which can be found from online vendors who use this cover art to help sell their product. Even those two Lynn tracks have been retitled from this release to the online listing. The third "Lynn" track (Lost My Mind) is probably mislabeled. Regardless of the proper title, the song is not found as a part of the online collection probably due to bad engineering. Lynn's backup group, and or the band that possibly created the set filler is credited as the "Jesse Melvin Band". There appears to be one stray track, a fine sounding tune with vocals (sample above), that Palace added to this set. The remaining tracks are nicely presented swing jazz instrumentals.

They Wouldn't Believe Me
It Could Happen To You
Lost My Mind
Crazy Heart
Be Careful
Magic Spell
Lover's Leap
Can't You Behave
Wish Your Love
Take Your Love
Send Me Baby

Discovery 3 - Afro Blues Quintet Plus One

Shop Around
Discovery 3
Afro Blues Quintet Plus One
Produced by Jack Millman Music Industries
Cover Design and Photo by George S. Whiteman
Mira Productions LPS 3013
1967

Spartacus
La La La La La
I Know A Place
Shop Around
Where Did Our Love Go
Discovery Three
Fly Me To The Moon
Star Eyes
Viva Cepeda
Green Dolphin Street

Friday, March 15, 2019

Vibes On Velvet - Terry Gibbs

Lullaby Of Swing
Vibes On Velvet
Terry Gibbs
EmArcy - High Fidelity Jazz
EmArcy 36064
Mercury Records
1956

From the back cover: To many who have followed his fast-moving career through the past few years, Terry Gibbs has represented the embodiment of the vim, vigor, verve and vitality that have always been a basic ingredient of jazz. But those who have studied Terry and his work more closely are aware that there is another side to this bright story, a musical personality that speaks in gentle tones in a vocabulary drawn from the prettiest and subtlest of songs.

This is the Terry Gibbs you will meet in Vibes On Velvet, which marks a departure in the young poll-winning vibraphonist's recording career.

The velvet in this instance is one of the loveliest textures the weaver of pretty jazz can design – a cushion of five saxophones in richly harmonized backgrounds. The saxophonists are all musicians with many individual accomplishments to their credit. Hal McKusick plays lead tenor, alto, and occasionally, as in the unusual treatment of Aidos, soprano sax. Sam Marowitz, remembered best as a cornerstone of the original Woody Herman Herd, is the other alto man. Frankie Socolow, who was in the Chubby Jackson combo with which Terry Gibbs visited Scandinavia in 1947, is one of the tenor sax men; the other is Raymond Black, husband of Gibbs's pianist, Miss Terry Pollard. Completing the reed section is Al Epstein, a fine and underrated ex-Benny Goodman baritone saxophonist.

Completing the personnel are the regular members of the Gibbs Quartet – Terry Pollard, piano; Gerald Segal, drums; Herman Wright, bass – with a guitarist added in the person of Turk Van Lake.

Another important participant in the proceedings, though not actively involved as an instrumentalist, was Manny Albam, whose skillful and sympathetic arrangements effected a happy wedding between the vibes and the velvet. Manny was born in 1922 in the Dominican Republic (however, since his mother was just visiting there and returned to the U.S. when her son was six weeks old, this hardly entitles Manny to consider himself the Rubirosa of Jazz). Aside from a 1945-46 Army stint, he spent most of the 1940s playing baritone sax in various bands and writing arrangements for many of them (including Georgie Auld, Charlie Barnet and Charlie Ventura). Manny gave up playing five years ago to concentrate on arranging, and is now one of the busiest free-lance writers in New York.

Terry Gibbs own biographical background is by now familiar to most of his fans, but to recapitulate briefly: born in Brooklyn in 1924, of a musical family, he gained much early experience playing under the baton of his father. At the age of twelve he won a Major Bowes contest, and for a while he toured in one of Bowes' amateur units. After three years of Army service, he won his 52nd Street wings with Bill de Arnago's combo, later working for Tommy Dorsey, Buddy Rich and Woody Herman, and touring Scandinavia with Chubby Jackson's combo in 1947. He as worked for Benny Goodman since then, but for the most part has fronted small groups of his own since 1949. He won his first Metronome and Down Beat polls as the country's No. 1 vibes man in 1950, and has since acquired a whole shelf-ful of plaques. He lists Milt Jackson, Teddy Charles and Lionel Hampton as his favorite vibes men. Originally trained on drums and tympani, he is also a talented pianist and composer.

The electric, fast-moving nature of Terry's normal vibes style is a reflection of his general manner as a person, which makes the Vibes On Velvet sides a doubly pleasant surprise. As for the material he has chosen, you will find some of the less overworked of the best standard songs – Boulevard of Broken Dreams and The Moon Was Yellow, for example, are all too seldom recorded nowadays – as well as three Terry Gibbs originals, the moody Leaving Town, the charming Lullaby Of Swing and the attractive minor-key Two Sparkling Eyes. This last was adopted by Terry form an old Russian air that Terry recalls having played with his father many years ago at wedding ceremonies, and it was Mrs. Gubenko, Terry's mother, who suggested that he rewrite and record it for this album.

It's not surprising that Terry Gibbs himself, usually very critical of his own work, feels enthusiastically satisfied with the way Vibes On Velvet turned out and believes it may prove to be his most important set to date. For continuity of style, for homogeneity of mood and for teamwork between soloist and arranger, few jazz LPs in recent years can match it. We're such you'll enjoy the "new" Terry Gibbs and the smooth, romantic touch of Vibes On Velvet.

From Billboard - June 16, 1956: In this album of familiar ballads, the vibist has an unusually strong commercial entry. He makes his instrument speak in gentler tones than is customary for him, and so even tho he sounds a bit suppressed jazz-wise, he has some beautiful styled tunes here that will have pop as well a jazz sales potential. Included are "Mood Indigo," "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "It Might As Well Be Spring." The "velvet" background is provided by five saxes, guitar and the regular rhythm members of the Gibbs Quartet. If one could wish for more vitality in the ensemble and more variety in the writing, this still does not obscure the appeal this LP will have for the crowd in the bleachers.

Autumn Nocturne
Lonesome Streets
Adios
Leaving Town
For You, For Me, For Everyone
The Moon Was Yellow
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Mood Indigo
It Might As Well Be Spring
Lullaby Of Swing
Two Sparkling Eyes

Theme From Goldfinger

Goldfinger
Theme From Goldfinger And Others
Crown 440
1964

Goldfinger Theme
Music Galore
Fort Knox Swings
Golden Glow
Flying Around
Time Bomb
The Chase
Gassed
The Getaway
Trapped

Tchaikovsky Swan Lake - The Ballet Theatre Orchestra

Pas De Deux
Tchaikovsky Swan Lake
The Ballet Theatre Orchestra
Conducted by Joseph Levine
Capitol FDS Full Dimensional Sound
PAO 8416
1958

Introduction - Act II (No. 9)
Danse Des Cygnes - Act II (No. 12)
Pas De Deux - Act II (No. 13)
Les Cygnettes - Act II (No. 14)
Variation - Act I (No. 14-a)
The Swan Queen - Act II (No. 16)
Valse - Act I (No. 4)
Danse Espagnole - Act III (No. 22)
Danse Hongroise. Czardas - Act III (No. 24)
Mazurka - Act III (No. 25)
Danse Des Petits Cygnes - Act IV (No. 30)
Finale Ultimo (No. 32)

Favorite Classics For Piano - Leonard Pennario

Clair De Lune
Favorite Classics For Piano
Leonard Pennario, Piano
Capitol FDS Full Dimensional Sound
P8321
1966

From the back cover: Leonard Pennario's career at the piano, which began in early childhood, has progressed to such maturity and technical skill that today he is distinguished as one of the world's most brilliant young pianists. Besides his concert tours in Europe, Mr. Pennario has appeared with leading symphony orchestras in New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Frederic Chopin - Polonaise in Flat
Debussy - Clair De Lune
Johann Strauss - On The Beautiful Blue Danube
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Prelude in C Minor - Prelude in G Minor
Franz Liszt - Libestraume - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Thursday, March 14, 2019

The Songs And Singings Of Okie Duke

Ain't Nothin' To It
The Songs And Singings Of Okie Duke
All words and music written and composed by Okie Duke
Produced by Dick Schory & Ron Steele
Arranged and Conductor: Bobby Christian
Photography & Cover Design: Gunar A. Barkans
Recording & Mixing Engineer: Brian Christian
Ovation Records OV/14-01
1969

Musicians:

Guitars - Phil Upchurch (Courtesy of Cadet Records) & Ron Steele
Bass - Louis Satterfield & Bob Surga
Drums - Norm Christian
Percussion - Frank Rullo
Woodwinds - Lenny Druss
Piano and Organ - Floyd Morris
Vibes, Tympani, Piano and Organ - Bobby Christian
French Horn - Ethel Merker and Ken Strahl
Trombones - John Avant and Morris Ellis
Trumpet - Murray "High Note" Watson
Strings - David Chausown, Sol Bobrov, Everett Mirskey, Elliot Golub, Harold Kupper and Karl Fruh

From the back cover: The problem with writing about any really talented performer today is that all the good adjectives have been used up. So when a person deserving them does come along, a barrelful of "terrific" and "greats" and "sensational" together doesn't have as much effect as the bite of a healthy goldfish.

Such is the case of Okie Duke. Okie is a true musician, a real singer, not just another flashy personalty that happens to sing. He's been a student of music since he was first old enough to say the word back in his hometown of Phillipsburg, N.J.

And that study hasn't been concentrated on just one style or school. He's hip to country music. And rock. And blues, soul, jazz, classical, pop and underground. Majoring in music and sociology at Moravian College he played Bach organ during the day and rock organ at night. And was really into both.

It's the same today. Primarily a singer-composer, Okie can still hold his own on the organ, piano, vibes or guitar. As a hobby he plays valve trombone. He writes songs, too.

All the tunes on this album are his... words and music. Listening to them, you first discover how good a singer Okie Duke is. Then getting around the words, you also learn how sensitive and aware is this young man.

He's taken feelings most of us have experienced from time to time, happy and sad, and set them to music. In each of his songs you'll discover a little more of Okie Duke. And of yourself.

While listening to this album, maybe a few meaningful words describing Okie Duke will come to you. But right now, perhaps the best way to say it is... "Okie Duke is a gas." – Moss Bassler


Sunshine And Rain Drops
Red Is Redder
There's No One In This World For Me
Pleasant Complications
I'm The Clown Who's Crying' Lonely Tears
Lonely In A Crowd
Ain't Nothin' To It
I Believe In Miracles
Ask Me And I'll Tell You
I'm Like Humpty Dumpty
Can't You Make Up You Mind?
Pretty Thoughts And Snowflakes

Percy Faith Plays Continental Music

Percy Faith Plays Continental Music
Photograph by Dirone
Columbia CL 525 (reissue)
1953

Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample presented here to share the cover art and Billboard review.

From Billboard - October 17, 1953: The increasing accent on careful programming in pop albums which was noted in a Billboard story several weeks ago is apparent in four very listenable instrumental pop albums released this week. Two by Percy Faith on Columbia feature music (?) type – Percy Faith Plays Continental Music, a collection of pop tunes originating from across the seas, and Percy Faith Plays Romantic Music, a mixture of American waltzes and other tunes written in a romantic vein. Many of these are from past Broadway shows.

The Continental set is particularly appealing, since it packages recent entries on The Billboard best selling charts as well as standard and less well-known songs. Both albums effectively showcase the arranging talent of Faith which always keeps the melody dominant but adds a rich and resonant background.


Mademoiselle de Paris
Symphony
Vola, Colomba
In Love
Suddenly
Petite Bolero
La Ronde
Many Times
If You Said Goodbye
April In Portugal
Under The Bridges Of Paris
Sympatico

Dance To The Hits Of The Beatles - Jack Nitzsche

Ringo
Dance To The Hit Of The Beatles
Jack Nitzsche And His Orchestra
Produced by Jimmy Bowden
Reprise Records R-6115
1964

I Want To Hold Your Hand
She Loves You
Chains
My Bonnie
I Saw Her Standing There
Ringo
Please, Please Me
From Me To You
All My Loving
Twist And Shout
It Won't Be Long
Beatle-Mania

The Merle Travis Guitar

The Sheik Of Araby
The Merle Travis Guitar
Merle Travis The Composer Of "Sixteen Tons"
Capitol SM-650

From the back cover: The Merle Travis Guitar. For the first time in an album of solos. Country artists call his playing the "Travis style." To jazz musicians it's "country guitar." Whatever the name, the guitar playing of Merle Travis is something special, and just plain good.

To begin with, there's the tone Merle gets. It is rich and expressive, reflecting a great reverence for the instrument, as does the music of all great folk instrumentalists. When Merle Travis was a youngster, playing tent and medicine shows back in Boone County, Kentucky, he was deeply influenced by the so-called "natural" or "unschooled" musicians. They inherited their style of playing from the frontier and backwoods people who made music back in the days when musical instruments were rare and prized possessions.

In those early days, the few simple songs like the people knew were played over and over. In making the the tunes "sound better," folk musicians developed full and often very distinctive tones on their instruments. As Merle demonstrates in this recording, tone by itself can impart strength and poignancy to the humblest of harmonies, the simplest of melodies

The importance of Merle Travis as a guitarist has been obscured by his fame as a vocalist, and as composer of such country and western favorites as Smoke, Smoke, Smoke; No Vacancy; Cincinnati Lou and So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed. Actually, his techniques alone make him outstanding among guitarists on the American scene. When Merle plays, every phrase is fluent, every note is clean. Even though the music in this album sometimes sound as through several guitars were playing at the same time, no recording tricks of any sort were used.

Although the "Travis style" cannot be called jazz, the jazz influence is apparent in Merle's musical ideas. For one thing, his music has a feeling borrowed from what used to be called "blues playing," a quality which made his vocal and instrumental rendition of Re-enlistment Blues in the film "From Here To Eternity" so memorable. Merle's ideas create music that is crisp, often intricate, but never dissonant. Sometimes the music wails, but it never whimpers.


From Billboard - May 24, 1956 (original release Capitol T-650): The basic element of Travis' guitar is the distinctive touch of sophistication in most of the material displayed here. Melodies are easily distinguishable, but the full, rich chords are there, too, which gives the playing a satisfying, full-bodies sound The selection comes mostly from the past, i.e., "Memphis Blues," "The Sheik Of Araby," "Bugle Call Rag," etc., but several Travis originals (not including "16 Tons") are etched as well. Should be commercially successful venture.

Blue Smoke
Black Diamond Blues
On A Bicycle Made For Two
Saturday Night Shuffle
Bugle Call Rag
Tuck Me To Sleep In My Old 'Ducky Home
Walkin' The Strings
The Memphis Blues
The Sheik Of Araby
Blue Bell
The Waltz You Saved For Me
Rockabye Rag

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

The Be Bop Era

Overtime
The Be Bop Era
RCA Victor Vintage Series
Reissue Produced by Brad McCuen
LPV-519
1965

From the back cover: The cataclysmic world changes of the nineteen forties – changes that one writer has referred to as the birth pains of the twentieth century – reached many levels of society. It is not, therefore, surprising that the decade saw the emergence of one of the most important periods in the brief history of jazz – the bop era.

Definitions and descriptions of the crucial changes taking place vary as widely as the temperaments of the writers making the definitions. Hugues Panassie, one of the earliest serious jazz commentators, has never fully accepted bop as a manifestation of the Real Jazz. In his Guide to Jazz (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956) Panassie writes that bop is "a type of music which has wrongly been described as Jazz." He provides three reasons for this distinction: (1) The players of bop "have abandoned the classic instrumental jazz tradition"; (2)"...the bop rhythm section breaks the continuity of the swing"; (3) "...boppers systematically use chords and intervals adopted from modern European music and destroy the harmonic atmosphere of jazz."

Panassie's objections have certainly built-in contradictions. The "classic instrumental tradition" was simply a reduction of the marching bands of the late nineteenth century. Bop instrumentation was a similar reduction of the big swing bands. The "continuity of the swing" was actually strengthened in bop by the increased mobility provided the rhythm section by – among other things – the switch of the principal timekeeping function from the bass drum of the top cymbal. Finally, the "harmonic atmosphere" of jazz had always been dependent, to one degree or another, upon European harmonies.

Having set his own limitations of the art, Panassie over-looks the fact that excellence of creativity and execution – elements that he stresses in his definition of jazz – inevitably lead improvisatory artists out of traditional patterns and into exploratory activities. Even the briefest comparison of King Oliver and the young Louis Armstrong confirms this fact.


There were, of course, more than just musical implications involved in bop. In a very real sense, it represented the departure of jazz players from the mainstream of American popular music. It had been difficult, even in the thirties, for jazz players of outstanding artistic quality to reach a wide audience in the way that the popularizers did. But the fact remains that Coleman Hawkins had his Body and Soul and Benny Goodman rode to national fame on the impetus provided by Fletcher Henderson's arrangements. Few bop players ever considered the possibility of a similar popular success.

Bop was, for the first time in jazz, principally, a harmonic/rhythmic music. Melody was developed, for the most part, from complex harmonic cadences. These cadences were further intensified by the use of chromatic passing chords and altered harmonic intervals. The melodies derived were, understandably, difficult for the unsophisticated ear to understand. This is not to say that stunning melodies were not present in bop; the list of excellent lines is long – Confirmation, Relaxin' at Camarillo, Yardbird Suite, just to mention Charlie Parker's tunes, come immediately to mind. But these are not the Viennese song melodies or the structured marching-band compositions that dominated the first two decades of jazz.

Ross Russell, one of the most important producers of early bop records and a perceptive musical observer, described the music succinctly in a series of articles, published in The Record Changer in 1948-49. "Bebop," he wrote, "is music of revolt: revolt against big bands, arrangers, vertical harmonies, soggy rhythms, non-playing orchestra leaders, Tin-Pan Alley – against commercialized music in general. It reasserts the individuality of the jazz musician as a creative artist, playing spontaneous and melodic music within the framework of jazz, but with new tools, sounds, and concepts."

Coleman Hawkins, ever the young Turk of jazz, regardless how iconoclastic the new developments, was one of the first of the now "older' musicians to probe the new music. In Allen's Alley he makes the unusual gesture of featuring another tenor player – Lester Young-oriented Allen Eager. The melody is familiar; it has been known by other names. The rhythmic flow is typically transitional; players were not yet clear how to bring all the parts together, and both the solos and the accompaniment bounce back and forth between a swing and a bop feeling.

Illinois Jacquet led one of the vital little jump bands that provided important growing conditions for the young musicians of the forties. Jacquet's group was built around the leader's occasionally hysterical tenor solos (although he could also play superbly when not motivated to break up the audience). Mutton Leg is especially interesting because of the presence of a young J. J. Johnson, already a major influence on his instrument.

Like Jacquet (and Don Byas), Lucky Thompson's roots were in the thirties, but he made the switch to the new music with little trouble. In Boppin' the Blues he plays with the dark, somber warmth of the Hawkin's tenor school, but his licks and the overall character of his phrases are obviously influenced by Charlie Parker. Thompson's consistency and artistic maturity, so obvious today, were equally evident on this early recording.


The Kenny Clarke group was one of the best small bands recorded during the period. The arrangements are patterned along typical big band lines. Background riffs, however, are all bop licks (as, for example, the unison trumpet figures behind the tenor solo on 52nd Street Theme). It is also unusual that two of the lines are Thelonius Monk compositions and – more significant – that both are played with an exceptional understanding of the special demands of Monk's music. The solos are endlessly fascinating. Sonny Sit's version of the Parker style is already well worked out (although he has a bit of trouble here and there with double-time figures). Bud Powell is in rare form; notice his superb short chorus on Epistrophy. Finally, the surprising two-trumpet team of Fats Navarro and Kenny Dorham, demonstrating that profound effect of the Dizzy Gillespie trumpet style upon his contemporaries. (Their chase choruses on Royal Roost are excellent). Notice, too, the germinal basis of Clifford Brown's trumpet style in Navarro's precisely articulated lines (especially his chorus on Pop-Bop Sh-Bam).

The Ventura group popularized bop, but it was never less than a good musical ensemble. Conte Candoli was probably the first trumpeter to grasp the implications of the developing Miles Davis style and adapt it to his own purposes. Ventura, if not always, a fascinating soloist, possessed the good taste to maintain a unit that balanced entertainment with a healthy does of the new music.

The Metronome All Stars tracks are, of course, most notable because of the presence of Charlie Parker. The rhythm section would probably not be the one Parker would have chosen for himself, but, as in all his recordings, he seems to carry the rhythmic time so clearly in his mind that his playing transcends the immediate problems of accompanists who do not precisely understand his accents. These tracks, incidentally, are four-minute versions – alternate takes from the orginal 79 rip ten-inch issues – that give Parker more time to stretch out.

One of the measures of success in the forties was still the big band. By the latter part of the decade the bop wave had firmly infiltrated even so staunch a member of the swing ranks as the Count Basie band. (Not really very surprising, since many of the musical developments of bop traced directly to individual and ensemble aspects of the Basie ensemble of the thirties). Rat Race is a two-tenor battle between Gene Ammons and George Auld, playing with the Basie Sextext, that indicates the continued strength of the Young-modified-by-Parker tenor style.

The important big bands of the period, however, was that of Dizzy Gillespie. It was an incredibly fiery organization. If it did not always play perfectly in tune or excited its phrases with the accuracy of, say, Benny Goodman's or Woody Herman's powerhouse groups, the Gillespie band had the advantage of a collective drive and swing that was unmatched by any band of the period. Fronted by a leader who was not only a musical revolutionary, but an outgoing, warmly extroverted personality as well, the group's performances were a rare combination of musical excitement and stinging good humor. The tracks included here have been reissued before, but they are included again because of the excellent cross section they provide of the Gillespie band's music. From the humorous vocal exchanges of Gillespie and Joe Carroll to the classic Gillespie trumpet choruses and the shouting ensemble phrases, this is bop in its most musical and most popularly entertaining phase. Rarely has jazz been gifted with an organization that so accurately represented the artistry and the entertainment of the music. – Don Heckman - Jazz Editor, The American Record Guide


From Billboard - August 7, 1965: Historic performances in the evolution of jazz by the pace-setters of the bop era. Dizzy, Bird, Miles, Navarro, Ventura and other 52nd Street stalwarts play "Oop-Bop Sh-Bam," "Cool Breeze," "Royal Roost," Oop-Pop-a-Da" 12 more jazz mileposts.

Allen's Alley 2/27/46
Coleman Hawkins' 52nd Street All Stars
Hawkins - leader and tenor sax
Allen Eager - tenor sax
Pete Brown - Alto sax
James (Jimmy) Henry Jones - piano
Al McKibbon - bass
Mary Osborne - guitar
Shelly Manne - drums

Mutton Leg 12/19/47
Illinois Jacquet And His Orchestra
Jacquet - leader and tenor sax
Leo Parker - bariton sax
Sir Charles Thompson - piano
John Collins - guitar
Joe Newman and Russell Jacquet - trumpets
J. J. Johnson - tombone
Al Lucas - bass
Shadow Wilson - drums

Epistrophy 9/5/46
Kenny Clarke And His 52nd Street Boys
Clarke - leader and drums
Fats Navarro and Kenny Dorham - trumpets
Ray Abramson, Eddy DeVertevill and Sonny Stitt - reeds
Bud Powell - piano
Al Hall - bass
John Collins - guitar

52 Stere Theme 9/5/46
Same personnel

Oop-Bop Sh-Bam 9/5/46
Same personnel

Ha 9/30/49
Charlie Ventura and His Orchestra
Ventura - leader and sax
Conte Condoli - trumpet
Benny Green - trombone
Boots Mussulli - sax
Dan (Dave) McKenna - piano
Red Mitchell - bass
Ed Shaughnessy - drums

Overtime 1/2/49
Metronome All Stars
Charlie Parker - alto sax
Charlie Ventura - tenor sax
Ernie Caceres - baritone sax
Buddy DeFranco - clarinet
Lennie Tristano - piano
Billy Bauer - guitar
Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Fats Navarro - trumpets
Kai Winding and J. J. Johnson - trombones
Eddie Safranski - bass
Shelly Manne - drums

Victory Ball 1/3/49
Same personnel

Rat Race 2/6/50
Count Basie and His Sextet
Basie - leader and piano
Harry Edison - trumpet
Dickie Wells - trombone
Georgie Auld - alto sax
Gene Ammons - tenor sax
Freddie Green - guitar
Al McKibbon - bass
Gus Johnson - drums

Ow! 8/22/47
Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra
Gillespie- leader and trumpet
David Burns, Elmon Wright, Matthew McKay and Ray Orr - trumpets
Howard Johnson and John Brown - alto saxes
James Moody and Joe Gayles - tenor saxes
Cecil Payne - baritone sax
Taswell Baird and William Sheperd - trombones
John Lewis - piano
John Collins - guitar
Ray Brown - bass
Milton Jackson - vibes
Joe Harris - drums

Cool Breeze 12/22/47
Same personnel as Ow! except: Lammar Wright and Ernest Bailey replace McKay and Orr - trumpets
George Nicholas replaces Taswell Baird - tenor sax
Theodore Kelly replaces Taswell Baird - trombone
Chano Pozo - bongos
Al McKibbon replaces Ray Brown - bass
Kenneth Spearman replaces Joe Harris - drums
Vibes and guitar - out

Jump Did-Le Ba 5/6/49
Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra
Gillespie - leader and trumpet
John Brown and Ernie Henry - alto saxes
Yusef Leteef and Joe Gayles - tenor saxes
Willie Cook, B. Harris and Elmon Wright - trumpets
A. Duryea, S. G. Hunt and J. C. Tarrant - trombones
J. Foreman Jr. - paino
Al McKibbon - bass
T. Steward - drums
V. D.V. Guerra - congo drums
Joe Carrol and Dizzy - vocal

Ballet Folklorico De Mexico

Los Dioses (The Gods)
Ballet Folklorico De Mexico
Directora General y Coreografa: Amalia Hernandez
Coordinador Musical: Ramon Noble
Supervisor General: Celestino Gorostiza
RCA Victory MKL-1530
1963

Los Dioses (The Gods)
Traditional Tunes Of Michoacan
The Revolution (Revolucion)
La Huasteca
The Tarascans
Fiesta In Veracruz (Fiesta En Veracurz)
Dance Of The Quetzals (Danza de Los Quetzales)
Wedding In Tehuantepec (Boda En Tehuantepec)
The Rattlers Of Tuxpan (Los Sonajeros de Tuxpan)
Sugar Harvest In Tamaulipas (Zafra En Tamaulipas)
The Deer Dance (Danza Del Venado)
Jalisco


Monday, March 11, 2019

The Man I Love - Peggy Lee & Frank Sinatra

The Folks Who Live On The Hill

The Man I Love
Peggy Lee
With Orchestra Conducted by Frank Sinatra
Arrangements by Nelson Riddle
E.M.I. Records Limited
Hayes • Middlesex • England
Made and Printed in Great Britain
Capitol Records T864  & T864 (U.S. release)
1957

The Man I Love
Please Be Kind
Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe
Just One Way To Say I Love You
That's All
Something Wonderful
He's My Guy
Then I'll Be Tired Of You
My Heart Stood Still
If I Should Lose You
There Is No Greater Love
The Folks Who Live On The Hill

Music For Flute & Tape - Samuel Baron

Remembrances
Music For Flute & Tape
Samuel Baron - Flute
Karl Korte: Remembrances for flute & synthesized processed sound
Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 1 for flute & recorded electronic sounds
Meyer Kupferman: Superflute for flute & tape
Coordinator - Teresa Sterne
Cover Art - Peter Schaumann
Cover Design - Paula Bisacca
Engineering & tape editing - Marc J. Aubort, Joanna Nickrenz (Elite Recordings, Inc.)
Mastering - Robert C. Ludwig (Sterling Sound, Inc.)
A Dolby-system recording
Nonesuch Records, a Division of Warner Communications, Inc.
H-71289
1974

From the back cover: Samuel Baron (b. 1925, Brooklyn, N.Y.) began his early musical training on the violin, but turned to the flute in his teens; he won scholarships at the Henry Street Settlement Music School, and fellowships in flute and conducting at the Juilliard Graduate School, where his teachers were George Barrere and Arthur Lora (flute), and Edgar Schenkman (conducting).

Mr. Baron was a founder and conductor of the New York Brass Ensemble (1947 - 1953), as well as a founder in 1949 of the New York Woodwind Quintet, of which he was flutist until 1969. He has been a participating player in various chamber ensembles, including the New York Chamber Soloists and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and since 1965 has been flutist with the Bach Aria Group. His teaching activities have included faculty membership at the Yale School of Music, the Mannes College of Music, the Juilliard School, and, since 1966, the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

As soloist, Mr. Baron has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, and has given premieres of numerous works composed for him. Equally noted for his performance of Baroque, Classical, and new music for flute, he has recorded for CRI, Concert-Disc, Decca, Desto, Dover, Musical Heritage Society, Nonesuch, and Odyssey. This album marks Samuel Baron's first appearance as soloist on Nonesuch.


Karl Korte (b. 1928)
Remembrances (1971)
for flute & synthesized processed sound
Electronic tape realized at the Studio for Electronic Music, State University of New York at Binghamton

Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934)
Synchronisms No. 1 (1962)
for flute & recorded electronic sounds
Tape realized at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center

Meyer Kupfernen (b. 1926)
Superflute (1971)
for flute & tape

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Flute 'N The Blues - James Moody

Parker's Mood
Flute 'N The Blues
James Moody
Cadet CA-603

Fluting The Blues
Birdland Story
It Could Happen To You
I Cover The Waterfront
Body And Soul
Breaking The Blues
Parker's Mood
Easy Living
Boo's Tune
Richard's Blues

Music Of Lecuona - Morton Gould

Laura
Music Of Lecuona
Spring Time
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Columbia Masterworks
ML 4361
1950

From the back cover: Morton Gould, who made the orchestral arrangements for this four Lecuona pieces (Andaluica, Malaguena, La Compares and Jungle Drums) and who conducts them with such infectiousness, is among the most gifted of young American composers and conductors. He was born in 1914 in one of the suburbs of New York City. He made his bow as a composer at the age of six with a published composition appropriately entitled Just Six.

When he was eight years old, Morton Gould was awarded a scholarship at the New York Institute of Musical Art. When he was fifteen years old, he was giving piano recitals.

For a time, Mr. Gould played piano for vaudeville and movie houses and in dance bands. Then he became a member of the music staff of the Radio City Music Hall and then staff pianist and musical arranger for the National Broadcasting Company. Engaged by the Mutual Broadcasting System as an arranger, he soon became their conductor of a weekly radio program which fast developed into one of the most enormously successful of its kind. It later moved to the Columbia Broadcasting System where it attained an even greater popularity.

Meanwhile, Morton Gould continued to compose music, much of which (Spirituals for Orchestra, four American Symponettes, the American Concertette, A Lincoln Legend and other works) has been performed by leading American orchestra. He also has composed the scores for the successful musical comedy, Billion Dollar Baby, and for the much admired ballet, Fall River Legend.


From Billboard - September 24, 1949 (MX-318 2-10" Disc package review): Gould and Lecuona make a tasty combination here, as the young American composer-conductor-arranger set the fine melodies of the popular Cuban composer in light symphonic settings. There's every reason to believe this album can achieve a widespread sale, offering as it does four favorite melodies done in "classical," i.e., Radio City Music Hall fashion.

Music Of Lecuona

Audalucia
La Comparsa
Malaguena
Jungle Drums
Jessel: Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (Arranged by Morton Gould)
Polla: Dancing Tambourine (Arrange by Morton Gould)

Morton Gould conducting the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra Of Philadelphia

Spring Time

Body and Soul (From "Three's A Crowd)
Laura (From "Laura")
Holiday For Strings
Sophisticated Lady
Solitude
Over The Rainbow (From "The Wizard Of Oz")
The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (From "Oklahoma!")
Stormy Weather (From "Cotton Club Parade of 1933")

Morton Gould and His Orchestra