The Bebop Shop : New Releases
Krall has always reached back into the riches of the past to animate and inhabit songs in the present moment but here on "Turn Up The Quiet", she shakes any remaining dust from some of the finest leaves in that greatest of songbooks. Themes of love and hope are to be found in her choices but this is no mere escapism. Turn Up The Quiet is the work and play of a woman in the best days and nights of her life. (Universal Music) Price: £13.99
December Avenue was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in June 2016 and produced by Manfred Eicher.(ECM Records) Price: £14.99
For his third ECM release as a leader, Chris Potter presents a new acoustic quartet that naturally blends melodic rhapsody with rhythmic muscle. The group includes superlative musicians well known to followers of ECM’s many recordings from New York over the past decade: keyboardist David Virelles, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore, who each shine in addition to the leader on multiple horns. The Dreamer Is the Dream features Potter on tenor saxophone – the instrument that has made him one of the most admired players of his generation – in the striking opener “Heart in Hand” and such album highlights as “Yasodhara,” as well as on soprano sax (“Memory and Desire”) and bass clarinet (the title track). Potter is an artist who “employs his considerable technique in service of music rather than spectacle,” says The New Yorker, and his composing develops in texture and atmosphere with every album. Along with his previous ECM releases, Imaginary Cities and The Sirens, he has appeared on some of the label’s most acclaimed discs, including Paul Motian’s classic Lost in a Dream and Dave Holland’s Grammy Award-winning What Goes Around. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99
The quartet is completed by bassist Jeremy Brown and drummer Stu Butterfield. This is the group's first recording, joined on some tracks by guitarist Colin Oxley, and includes new original pieces by Chris and Allison. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
• This previously unreleased recording presents what is, in essence, a microcosm of those times. Taped at North Wembley's legendary jazz mecca, The Hopbine, and centred upon that most traditional of formats – the jam session – the featured cast list makes this set anything but a dull tread over old pub-jazz ground. Take the front-line; alto saxophonist Ray Warleigh and trombonist Chris Pyne, then both in their mid-twenties, were among the most exciting new voices on the UK jazz scene, then both broadening their outlooks in the bands of blues-guru Alexis Korner and avant-garde pioneer John Stevens. (DIscovery Records) Price: £11.99
"It becomes a little magical," said Corea. Stereo: "Crystal Silence is an album of extraordinary musicianship and rare beauty. Rarely have two musicians been so perfectly matched and rarely do we hear an album of such consistent excellence and originality." This LP re-issue on 180g vinyl comes with a free download code. (Proper Music) Price: £20.99
Circle was a band on fire with creativity. Chick Corea and Dave Holland had just left Miles Davis's band, keen to explore all parameters of new music in an improvised context. Anthony Braxton, equally inspired by Stockhausen and Coltrane, brought in new directions from the AACM. Barry Altschul's resumé included extensive work with Paul Bley. Together they were, for a while, matchless. Corea called the Paris Concert (recorded 1971) the realization of a dream. Melody Maker: "Paris Concert is evidence that here was one of the most excitingly talented bands of recent years, for these 94 minutes of music simply burst with vigorous invention." (Proper Music) Price: £30.99
"Bobby Jaspar All Stars "; "Tenor & Flute "; "Interplay for 2 Trumpets and 2 Tenors" plus the .E.P. "Bobby Jaspar & Sacha Distel" and two tracks from Chet Baker "I Got Chet".
Don't be fooled into thinking tenor saxophonist and flautist Bobby Jaspar was in the second league of jazz because he was born in Liege, Belgium! Don't forget this is the country that gave us Jacques Brel, Poirot and Tin Tin! And if you still don't believe us just take a look at some of the musicians playing alongside Bobby on our four fine selections: John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Elvin Jones, Mal Waldron, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, Art Taylor, George Wallington and Sacha Distel (don't panic, he's playing superb jazz guitar, not singing!). (AVID Entertainment) Price: £8.99
Complete 1957-62 Vocal Sides (CD: Essential Jazz Classics, 2 CDs)
Whether on classical guitar or 12-string guitar Towner's touch is immediately identifiable. Solo music is an important thread through his rich discography and this new album - recorded at Lugano's Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in February 2016 and produced by Manfred Eicher - follows in the great tradition of Diary, Solo Concert, Ana, Anthem, and Time Line.
It features finely-honed new compositions as well as a pair of tunes ("Shard" and "Rewind") from the songbook of Oregon, a dedication to the late Paul Bley ("Blue As In Bley") and a single standard - Victor Young's "My Foolish Heart" which Towner first came to love in Bill Evans's interpretation. (Proper Music) Price: £14.99
With this group, gentle but insistent rhythms can trigger seismic musical events. Although Vallon (recently nominated for the Swiss Music Prize) is the author of nine of the pieces here, the band members share equal responsibilities for the music's unfolding.
The gravitational pull of Patrice Moret's bass and the intense detail supplied by Julian Sartorius's drums and cymbals are crucial to the success of Vallon's artistic concept and the range of emotions the music can convey. (Proper Music) Price: £14.99
Claassen has recorded her own albums together with many international jazz stars, such as Mike Stern, Kenny Werner and Toots Thielemans. She was invited as a soloist for recordings by the WDR Big Band, Bob Brookmeyers New Art Orchestra, the Millennium Jazz Orchestra and the Danish Radio Big Band.
She has also worked with well-known conductors and arrangers such as Jim Mc Neely, Vince Mendoza and Michael Abene. Fay was awarded with The Golden Record for her double album 'Two Portraits of Chet Baker'. (Proper Music) Price: £14.99
This is a selection of songs from films born of a passion. I know every one of the films that these songs come from,' says Tolstoy. 'And just about all of them are among my favourite films. Both 'Bagdad Café' and 'Dancer In The Dark' are at the top of my list - in each case I have a special connection to the music.' That closeness can be heard. She gives each song a personal resonance and its own character. When Viktoria Tolstoy invites you to meet her at the movies, the emotions will run high.... and it will be a pleasure and a privilege to accept. (Harmonia Mundi) Price: £14.99
In addition to Cæcilie Norby (vocals) and Lars Danielsson (bass, percussion), Egidijus Buozis has succeeded in gathering several other outstanding musicians around him: bassist Mattias Grönroos and drummer Tommy Holmgren from Sweden, Vytautas Sondeckis (cello) from Lithuania, German violinist Stefan Pintev, and by no means least, Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen.
With this jazz album, pianist Egidijus Buozis, presents himself to a wider audience beyond his native Lithuania for the first time. The very atmospheric soundscapes gathered together here make repeated direct and indirect references to the rich culture and distinctive beauty of the Baltic region, for example Buozis' arrangement of the Danish folk song 'Jeg gik mig ud en sommerdag' ('I went out one summer's day'), or the composition 'Sutartine', named after a unique style of Lithuanian folksong which was recognised by UNESCO as 'intangible cultural heritage' in 2010. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
The group's song "Put On Train" was prominently sampled in the Beastie Boys song "What Comes Around" on the album Paul's Boutique. Deluxe package features rare photos and memorabilia - including the classic image on the cover of the trio performing at the club taken by photographer Egill Gustafson - plus essays by journalist Ted Panken, producer Zev Feldman, Seattle Jazz DJ Jim Wilke and others. The Three Sounds were one of the most popular artists on the iconic Blue Note label during the late 50s and early 60s, and you can hear why on these infectiously swinging recordings from The Penthouse. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
Limited edition 180 g vinyl stereo LP re-issue with original cover and liner notes. Price: £19.99
Limited edition high definition 180 g vinyl LP. Price: £18.99
The esteemed Swedish arranger-conductor Hans Ek has arranged an outstanding selection of Esbjörn s compositions from the band's rich 13 album catalogue for a widescreen orchestral canvas. Performed exquisitely by the 90-piece Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Ek s orchestrations integrate organically with solo contributions from a handful of Scandi-jazz superstars of today and tomorrow. Featured are the saxophonist Marius Neset, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, pianist Iiro Rantala and the unique pedal steel guitarist Johan Lindström, a member of Tonbruket, a band led by the innovative ex-e.s.t. bassist Dan Berglund who s clearly the lynchpin of this project alongside his ex-bandmate/drummer Magnus Öström. By both imaginatively expanding upon and saluting the broad-based contemporary sonic universe created by e.s.t. in the first decade of the new millennium, Hans Ek has created on E.S.T. SYMPHONY an enduring and entirely fitting monument to a muchmissed and highly inspirational contemporary jazz trio. (ACT) Price: £14.99
These discs fit into the chronology of Keith Jarrett's many live solo recordings after 1995's 'La Scala'. 'A Multitude of Angels' marks the end of the first period of the solo concerts, documented on ECM recordings from the 'Bremen-Lausanne' set to 'Sun Bear Concerts', an era in which Jarrett's spontaneously developmental, free-flowing music could lead the receptive improviser to many different places. (Proper Music) Price: £38.99
Bill Evans is one of the most dynamic saxophonists of his generation, and he brings all of his trademark energy and muscularity to a demanding piece of music. Not least of those demands is the requirement to contrast the seductive lyrical charms of 'Beauty', with the flashing fury of 'The Beast'.
Smith's Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale with teeth, and the SNJO guide the listener through its seven-part structure with fearless authority. The rhythm section of Steve Hamilton (piano), Kevin Glasgow (electric bass) and Alyn Cosker (drums) are particularly commanding, and provide a rock-solid platform for Evans to solo freely and in uninhibited style. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
The Ronnie Scott's Club Quintet features James Pearson on piano, Alex Garnett on saxophone, Sam Burgess on bass, Freddie Gavita on trumpet and Chris Higginbottom on drums. The final track of the album also includes Brandon Allen on saxophone. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
In 2014 Jeroen van Vliet was awarded The Boy Edgar Prize; the most important recognition in The Neth-erlands for jazz and improvised music. The jury called him one of the few great poets of Dutch improvised music, faithful to the beauty of sound. (Proper Music) Price: £12.99
Though sharing seventeen years together in the legendary David S. Ware Quartet, Shipp recalls that he and Ware performed duo concerts perhaps six times at most in that period. Thankfully, on this latter-day occasion, their work together in this form was professionally recorded. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
To Hayes and his band, who'd been together as a unit for over three years, it was hardly a gig to raise eyebrows; a typical, jazz club blow in a suburban pub backroom, the very thing that the saxophonist had begun his career doing twenty-three years earlier. But now, Hayes was no longer a star ascendant, or operating like the jazz dynamo he'd been in his mid-1960s heyday. He was, quite literally, running out of time. Three months after the Top Alex appearance, he was dead, aged just 38, finally halted by the heart problems that had plagued his final years.
While the press obituaries rightly accorded Hayes his deserved position as one of Britain's greatest ever jazz talents, they also noted the cruel irony that he and his band hadn't entered a recording studio since 1969. Indeed, how the Tubby Hayes Quartet - a group which one obituarist compared to the identical line-up led by John Coltrane – sounded in its final years became something of a mystery.
The discovery of privately recorded tapes of the Top Alex performance, issued for the first time on this Acrobat release, provides not only a valedictory souvenir of the quartet in its final phase, but also a lesson in its leader’s still deepening musical maturity; close to the end, Hayes draws on everything he'd learned, experienced and pioneered to date, as well as revealing clues as to where his music might have headed next.
Packaged with rare photographs and memorabilia from the night itself, featuring reminiscences by band member Spike Wells, and others who witnessed the gig, and including an in-depth booklet note by Hayes' biographer, saxophonist Simon Spillett, this album is a final, melancholy reminder of a truly gigantic musical legend. (Discovery Records) Price: £11.99
For six evenings, from 28th March to 2nd April 1983, the John Horler Trio rhythm section supported the legendary trumpet player Chet Baker at The Canteen in London. For those who were fortunate enough to be there, these were magical shows. The rhythm section was tight and Chet was at the top of his game. The best of the six hours of music is presented here on 'Live in London' and has been restored and remastered to the highest quality. (Proper Music) Price: £17.99
Price: £8.99
The arrangements were the work of trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg. The immediate sense one gets from the album is of both singer and arranger trying out ways in which to escape from the established conventions of jazz vocal albums, and simultaneously aiming to incorporate some of the filmic qualities in Legrand's writing. Includes liner notes by Alyn Shipton. (Proper Music) Price: £19.99
When 'Masqualero' was released in the autumn of 1983, the album was received with unanimous critical acclaim, and won the Spellemannspris (Norwegian Grammy) for best jazz record of the year. (Proper Music)
180g Vinyl Pressing. Price: £19.99
Limited edition high-definition 180 g vinyl stereo LP. Price: £21.99
