The Bebop Shop : A Swingin' Affair: Blue Notes & Hard Bop Classics : The Big Sound: Boss Tenors
Son of legendary Boogie Woogie/Stride pianist Albert Ammons we feature son Gene on "Groove Blues", "Boss Tenor", "Blue Gene" and three tracks from "The Happy Blues" (currently only available as an expensive import).
"Groove Blues", driven by Billie Holidays’ pianist Mal Waldron who wrote three of the four featured tracks also features one of the rare occasions when legendary Tenor sax giant John Coltrane is featured on alto sax. As described in Joe Goldberg’s liner notes " These solos are, I think, some of his very best on any horn!" Gene Ammons breaks out of his unfair label as a rhythm and blues player rather than a jazz player with a classic line up of solid jazz musicians including Coltrane, Waldron, Art Taylor, Pepper Adams and Paul Quinchette. 1960’s "Boss Tenor" finds Ammons with perhaps one of his finest rhythm sections including Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins, Art Taylor and Ray Barreto who between them had played with the likes of JJ Johnson, Miles Davis, Art Blakey and Thelonius Monk. "Blue Gene" from 1958 again finds pianist Mal Waldron writing all four of the featured tracks accompanied by Idrees Suliman on trumpet and again the rhythm section from "Boss Tenor". Finally "Happy Blues" features a superb line up including Art Farmer, Jackie Mclean, Duke Jordan, Addison Farmer and Art Taylor. "It’s a happy session, a blowing session, featuring a blues, a standard and an old but not so standard!"
All three albums plus have been digitally re-mastered for probably the finest ever sound quality! (AVID Entertainment) Price: £8.99
Stitt’s legendary quickness of thought and execution were, as always, outstanding, but Ammons’ passion and adroit, canny way of developing his solos made him an ideal partner for these two tenor jousts. The timeless groove puts the music beyond analysis - just enjoy ! (Discovery Records) Price: £17.99
Hurry, last copy!. Price: £16.99
This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal. (Blue Note Records) Price: £25.99
We have to thank The Duke for the title of our first selection in this tribute to the great tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. The Kid and The Brute are the nicknames given to two fine jazz men by their then leader, the one and only Duke Ellington, The Kid being Illinois Jacquet and The Brute being tenor legend Ben Webster. The Brute appears on two tracks after he had wandered into the studio during recording and he and The Kid had decided to lay some solid music down on tape. A fine line up greets our second selection "The Swing’s The Thing" from 1957. Check these guys out, Roy Eldridge on trumpet, Jimmy Jones on piano, Ray Brown on bass, Herb Ellis on guitar and Jo Jones on drums. The result is jazz of a high order! We get the big band experience for our next selection from 1959, "Illinois Jacquet Flies Again" a "high flying tribute to some of the great moments in jazz and the career of Illinois Jacquet"…… and the "recreation of many of the exciting jazz masterpieces that will forever be associated with his distinctive tenor styling". On this album you will hear Illinois Jacquet not only do what he does best to "blow jazz with a clear cut force……………..and soar with a house rockin’ driving pitch" but also play with a " grounded light and melodic slow tempo mood". 1951’s "Illinois Jacquet Collates" finds The Kid joined by Carl Perkins on piano, Oscar Moore on guitar, Red Callender on bass and J.C. Heard on drums. "He swings like mad and that is one of the most important basics in jazz". "Groovin’ With Jacquet" contains many of the same musicians heard on the "Illinois Jacquet Collates" set. According to the original liner notes, the definition of Groovin reads as follows…………"it is a comfortable swinging pace with the beat always in sturdy prominence". Ably accompanied by Art Blakey, Hank Jones, John Collins and Gene Ramey, "Groovin" , as they say does exactly what it says on the label!
All five albums have been digitally re-mastered for probably the finest ever sound quality. (AVID Entertainment) Price: £8.99
Audiophile grade 180g vinyl. Price: £33.99
This CD contains all James Clay studio performances on tenor sax while the young kid from Dallas was living in Los Angeles in the mid Fifties. (Fresh Sound Records) Price: £17.99
Blue Note Records' Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tapes, 180g audiophile vinyl reissues in deluxe packaging. Mastering is by Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio) and vinyl is manufactured at Record Technology Incorporated (RTI). (Universal Music) Price: £36.99
It feels like AVID Jazz are moving into the modern era with our latest release by David "Fathead" Newman. Don't let the nickname fool you, it was given to him while messing about at school and stuck ever since! He was a great jazz musician with a beautiful bluesy tone. Newman began his musical career primarily as a sideman in rhythm and blues bands in the 1950s. His playing style comes from the Texas tenor school of big bluesy toned blowing similar to Don Wilkerson (AMSC 1285 Classic Tenors). It was when Wilkerson left the Lowell Fulson band in which Newman was playing baritone sax, that he took up the tenor. Newman also met his long-time friend and major collaborator Ray Charles (AMSC798, 1233 and 1276) in 1951 while the two men were playing with Fulson. David Newman's solos can be heard all over the work of Ray Charles during the 1950s and early 1960s, in fact he became crucial to the Ray Charles sound. Although maybe not as innovative a player as some others, our four selections show off the fabulous blues rich sound of the Newman tenor. He can be heard with many great names from the era including Ray Charles himself on piano, James Clay, Hank Crawford, Marcus Belgrave, Milton Turner, Wynton Kelly, Arthur Taylor, Paul Chambers and Charlie Persip. (AVID Entertainment) Price: £8.99
Totally in their niche, the two men have selected a set list of favourite standards with which they are both amply familiar. But a good tune in the hands of artists such as Carter and Person is always a unique and special occasion. Person, in the glow of his artistic maturity, sounds completely relaxed with his burnished tone superbly caught by engineer Rudy Van Gelder. Ron Carter, carrying the responsibilities of time-keeper, harmonist and unaccompanied soloist relishes his role and responds with an easy virtuosity that only a master musician can supply. This is music-making of the highest order. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
Houston Person's tenor tone is smooth, warm and easy-going, and the duo format brings out his romantic side. Ron Carter, meanwhile, is in complete charge of the music's harmony and rhythm, well aware of the manifold accompaniment possibilities each tune presents, and able to move seamlessly between an astounding number of those possibilities. So if you want to hear two masters at work, playing off and for each other, this is the place to be. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
Whether it be during smouldering blues-tinged numbers ("Please Send Me Someone to Love"), up-tempo takes on old favorites ("At Long Last Love," "Moon River"), or steamy, sultry, late-night ballads ("Put Your Head on My Shoulder"), Person never fails to deliver a performance where expressivity is the order of the day. The band is made up of a hand-picked group from Person's cadre of regular colleagues with guitar great Russell Malone adding his imaginative voicings and swinging rhythms to the mix.
The album's title is an homage to Houston's engineer of choice, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder. Person's very first recording as a leader, the 1967 'Underground Soul!', was done at Rudy's fabled Englewood Cliffs studio and they continued their friendship and working relationship until Van Gelder's passing in 2016. But this is a not a backward-looking memorial album. That is not Person's style. If you go by his busy performance schedule and his extensive discography, Houston Person is, like his fans, always looking forward to his next gig. (Proper Music) Price: £13.99
One of jazz’s most powerful tenor saxophonists and his well-oiled ensemble play with such unerring synchronicity that a listener might be excused for assuming that most of the arrangements had been laid out beforehand. Not so, according to Coleman’s testimonial in the liner notes: “We didn’t do much written stuff… it was going to sound like an arrangement, which it was, but it wasn’t written… we just went in and played.” A thoroughly enjoyable listen. (Trapeze Music) Price: £16.99
This new Acrobat anthology celebrates the early years of his recorded career at the dawn of the 1960s, a juncture in which Hard Bop, Soul Jazz and the Avant-Garde all jostled for primacy, and which found Ervin a player perfectly equipped for the times.
Featuring all three of his initial albums as a leader – The Book Cooks, Cookin' and That's it! - together with selected appearances with bands led by vibraphonist Teddy Charles, pianists Horace Parlan and Mal Waldron and fellow-tenor Bill Barron (the rare Hot Line album), this 4-CD retrospective is accompanied by an extensive booklet note by award-winning saxophonist and author Simon Spillett, carefully re-examining Ervin's work, and uncovering much hitherto unknown information about his early life, alongside period photographs. (Discovery Records) Price: £19.99
The album consists of a 1965 concert held in Berlin, the musicians were supposed to only play for 15 minutes. Tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin protested against the restrictive situation by performing the intense and stirring "Blues for You" for 27-and-a-half minutes, tearing down the house. A decade later (after Ervin's 1970 death) the performance was released for the first time and its passion was worth waiting for. Also on this historic album is pianist Horace Parlan's somber solo tribute to Ervin ("Lament for Booker") which was recorded in 1975.
Personnel: Booker Ervin (tenor saxophone), Kenny Drew (piano), Nils Henning Orsted Pedesen (bass), Alan Dawson (drums), Horace Parlan (piano). (Proper Music) Price: £11.99
