The Party's On Me - Cy Coleman

 

Love Will Keep Us Together

The Party's On Me

Cy Coleman

Arranged by Cy Coleman and Mike Berniker

Produced by Mike Berniker, Cy Coleman and Mike Lipskin

Associate Producer: Eric Colondne

Strings and horns conducted by Cy Coleman

Recording Engineer: Mike Moran

Recorded in RCA's Studio "C", New York City

Cover Photo by David B. Hecht

Liner Photo by Newsday

Art Directors: Dick Smith, Acy Lehaman

RCA Recors AP1-1252

1976

Personnel: 

Keyboards - Cy Coleman

Acoustic Guitar - Dick Frank

Electric Guitar, Banjo - Cliff Morris

Bass - John Miller

Drums - Roy Markowitz

Percussion - David Friedman

Horns - Burt Collins, Wayne Andre, Phil Bodner, George Marge

Concertmaster - David Nadien

Vocalists - Patti Austin, Laurie Beechman, Frank Floyd (courtesy of Wing & Prayer Records and Atlantic Recording Corporation), William Ruthenberg, Maeretha Stewart

Chole

Love Will Keep Us Together

Touch Me In The Morning

The Party's On Me

Bring Back Those Good Old Days

Speak Low

Never Can Say Goodbye / Doctor's Orders

There's Gotta Be Something

Better Than This

Time In A Bottle

Sunless Cycle (Mussorgsky) - Five Songs (Prokofiev) - Six Songs (Gretchaninoff) - Kurenko & Pastukhoff

 

Sunless Cycle / Five Songs / Six Songs

Moussorgsky: Sunless Cycle

Prokofiev: Five Songs

Gretchaninoff: Six Songs

Maria Kurenko - Soprano

Vsevolod Pastukhoff - Piano

Capitol Records P8310

From the back cover: The soprano voice of Maria Kurenko is widely known both in the United States and Europe. She has appeared with major symphony orchestras, in recital, as a featured artist on her own radio show, as a recording artist. It was she who sang the Sunless Cycle in its premier concert stage performance.

Madame Kurenko's brilliant musicianship and the matchless character of her voice admirably qualify her to interpret the variety of moods and color expressed in this selection of art songs.

SUNLESS CYCLE

From one of the most sorrowful periods of a life domi- nated by sorrow come the six songs of the Sunless Cycle. Modeste Moussorgsky, born in St. Petersburg in 1839, was writing this work at the time that his opera Boris Godounov, though greeted with grand acclaim by audiences, was banished from the stage because of political intrigue. The composer was then living in unrelieved poverty and seclusion with his friend Golenitscheff- Kutuzoff, the poet whose words became the text of the Sunless Cycle.

The work is a vivid reflection of Moussorgsky's disappointment and absolute frustration. In it, as in Boris Godounov, the composer achieves a technical triumph – the perfect fusion of melodic lines and harmony with poetic lines, accomplishing a beautiful, masterfully-designed work. Its enduring appeal is two-fold: it expresses the universal emotions of bewilderment and sorrow, and it affords moving and powerful music. IN FOUR WALLS: Alone in my little room I live in my dreams, memories, moments of rapture, doubts, uncertainty, sorrow, and suffering... such are my lonely nights.

AFTER YEARS: Last night in the crowd you did not see me, but I caught your gaze, and oh, what a flash of remembrance came to me at that instant! All madness of passion long vanished, all sorrow of parting and tears.

RETROSPECT: The vain and noisy day is over and the night brings to me memories of all that kept the flame of my soul alive. Now they are only phantoms of the past. Only the memory of one dearest to me remains alive and brings warm tears to my eyes.

BITTERNESS OF LOVE: You are not capable of reciprocating love, so you are doomed to sadness and boredom.

ELEGY: Through the dimness of a foggy night a single, silent star moves through the clouds; so lives again in my mind the past, with no regrets, no hopes. I gaze at the star above, hoping to have the answer to my questioning, but there is none.

BY THE WATER: The beauty and calmness of the flowing water and the waves tempt me. They call me. Shall I flee this temptation or shall I obey the call?

FIVE SONGS

The familiar freshness and daring of Serge Prokofiev's work are eloquently revealed in this song cycle. Prokofiev studied composition in his native St. Petersburg, where he was born in 1891. From something of a boy wonder there, full of promise and admired by avant- garde musicians, he matured into a talented, inventive composer.

In the total character of his work there is a quality reminiscent of Moussorgsky, who, a few years earlier, had also broken from the restrictions of traditional classical form. But however reminiscent in character to Moussorgsky, Prokofiev's work is completely original in its conception-technically brilliant and astonishingly descriptive.

In his many song cycles there is a paradoxical com- bination of lyrical melody and daring harmonies. The Five Songs of this cycle are among the most famous and best known of those that he has composed. The poetry is by Anna Akhmatova, prominent Russian poetess. SUNLIGHT IN MY ROOM: Sunlight streaming in my chamber. I awaken, darling, to thy birthday morn. I slept undreamingly, thinking of you.

TENDERNESS OF LOVE: A young girl tells her beloved that she is not interested in a superficial attraction which he may feel for her. She only wants the real tenderness of true love.

THOUGHTS OF THE SUNLIGHT: Memories of the sunlight are dim and distant. Sad are my thoughts of our love. Maybe it is better that I did not become your wife. Winter is come, cold as my heart.

GREETING: A girl entreats her beloved not to scorn her love for him and not to grieve her with his coldness. 

THE GREY-EYED KING: The wife's lament over the death of a king who was murdered by her jealous husband. She soulfully remembers that the grey eyes of the king are mirrored in her own child's eyes.

SIX SONGS

Born in Moscow, Russia in 1864, composer Alexander Gretchaninoff is famous both as a composer and as a conductor. His education includes study at the Moscow Conservatory, and with Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. For a time he served as pro- fessor of composition at the Moscow Institute.

On the American concert stage Gretchaninoff has been greeted with consistent critical acclaim, for here, in the role of composer-conductor, he frequently appears directing performances of his own works.

The scope of his works is vast, for he has written not only symphonies and chamber music, but operas, sacred choral music, and songs. He is best known as a composer of liturgical music, and as a creator of memorable songs.

Those included on this record are some of the loveliest of them-romantic songs, children's songs, Russian folk songs. The poets' names, except for the folk songs. where there is no known source, appear in parentheses following the titles.

NIGHT (Pushkin) Opus 20 – In the silence of the night I dream of you, I see you smile, I see your eyes and hear your voice whispering to me. My dearest one, I love you, I am thine.

RUSSIAN FOLK SONGS

RAIN Opus 66-Oh, rain, rain as fast as you can, I shall drive among the bushes; to pray God, to bow before Christ. God grant a rain as thick as driving- reins, to water all day long our barley and Johnny's rye.

THE RAINBOW Opus 66-Rainbow, rainbow, don't give rain! Give us sunshine! Oh, sun, look, shine! Rainbow, rainbow, take me to the meadow, not to this end but to the golden end. Sun! Look, shine! Rainbow, don't give rain!

LULLABY OF THE WIND (Gorodetzky) – Bye-o-bye, here I am flying above your head to bring you sleep. Far away I have a field of red flowers. Above your head there is a blue sky. They call me back but I will not leave you before you fall asleep. Bye-o-bye.

LITTLE FAIRY'S SONG (Balmont) – I will make a thread and will bring you to the beautiful palace of my dreams. TOM THUMB (Zukovsky) – There lived a little boy as big as a thumb, with hair like thistle down and spar- kling eyes. He bathed in dew and his carriage was drawn by a bee. 

– Notes and Translations by Maria Kurenko

Really Livin' - J. J. Johnson

 

Decision

Really Livin'

The J. J. Johnson Sextet

Columbia CL 1383

1959

J. J. Johnson - Trombon

Nat Adderley - Trumpet (Courtesy Riverside Records)

Bobby Jasper - Flute and Tenor Sax

Cedar Walton - Piano

James (Spanky) De Brest - Bass

Albert Heath - Drums

From the back cover: J. J. Johnson is undisputedly a giant of jazz. Few musicians have received the continuing acclaim and honors which J.J. has earned through his trombone sensitivity and virtuosity. To achieve greatness is a beautiful thing when done in the honest fashion of a true man, and this has been the Johnson route. To have the respect and admiration of your colleagues as well as of your more distant audience is the supreme compliment. Determined in his beliefs and direction in jazz, and continually gathering greater momentum, J. J. Johnson is Mr. Trombone of today.
The J. J. Johnson Sextet brings together for the first time on a J. J. album two men who have been featured on recent J. J. recordings, Nat Adderley and Bobby Jaspar. Nat has rightfully reached big name status on his instrument and will be setting new standards for jazz trumpet in the months and years ahead. "Cannonball's" brother really is moving, and he doesn't hesitate to prove a few more points with taste and skill on these selections. Soft-spoken Bobby Jaspar, Belgian jazz artist, completes the front line. If you were fortunate enough to hear him recently at New York's "Five Spot," you know he has quite a few continental things to say to us, not to repeat to us. Bobby is a perfect courier of the fine new jazz that is coming out of Europe.

The man with the intense and unyielding cymbal tap is Albert Heath, Percy's little brother. Familiar to J. J. audiences, Albert is metrically teamed with newcomer to the group, bassman "Spanky" De Brest on piano for J. J., rounding out this great young rhythm section. Red Cross, a Charlie Parker tune, features this trio, a tribute to them and to J. J.'s ability to spot the new stars. J. J.'s group is constantly reaching a wider and wider audience and without bending to the temptations of commercialism, a practice which he is willing to condone in others but which has no attraction for him. In aiming high, J. J. has experienced the reward of accumulating quite a list of new cities and clubs which he has recently visited, including his triumphant return to New York clubs after winning his and all musicians' battles against antique licensing systems. J.J. is widening his scope even further as a writer-arranger in the preparation of major jazz pieces such as those presented by him at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

The tunes in this album range from standards given the J. J. touch to a couple of stimulating J. J. originals. Me Too and Sidewinder fall into the latter category. J. J. gives a beautiful reading on a lightly swinging Stardust. The pace is up on Speak Low and Almost Like Being in Love, while Duke Ellington's I've Got It Bad and That Ain't Good lies just where it means the most. The unusual staccato figures of Decision belong to Sonny Rollins, and God Bless the Child will always belong to the great Lady who so recently left us. – Bob Morgan

Me Too

Decision 

I've Got It Bad And That Ain't Good

Red Cross

Almost Like Being In Love

Stardust

Sidewinder

God Bless The Child

Speak Low