All New Music Tag Reboot! I've gotten to where I look for it and then listen as I surf The Den. Excellent stuff, thanks for the difference folks. I don't always listen to everything but I do step outside my "norm" often due to that thread.
That is why we do it. Hopefully we also provide education on the artists involved to enhance the experience. Many of the artists that I bring out were either popular in the distant past or in the case of many Jazz artists, never really in the mainstream but provide the foundation for musicians that came along later. Glad you enjoy!
Sonny Stitt - Kaleidoscope Sonny Stitt Sonny Stitt was born in Boston but grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He came from an extremely musical family. His father taught music at the college level, his brother was a concert pianist, and his sister was a singer, and his own training began on piano at age seven. Shortly thereafter he switched to clarinet. He left home for life on the road early, touring with Tiny Bradshaw before joining the legendary Billy Eckstine orchestra in 1945. A year later he was participating in some of the early, classic bebop recording sessions with Kenny Clarke, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and other giants. Stitt worked exclusively on the alto saxophone on these early recordings; yet there was more to Stitt than his command of one horn. He began performing on the tenor in 1949 (in an effort, according to some, to distance himself musically from Charlie Parker), and he immediately became a leading influence on the larger saxophone. Stitt brought the same effortless facility to bear on the tenor plus a more relaxed attack that suggested his affinity with Lester Young. Stitt was a complete saxophone virtuoso, who recorded several impressive solos on baritone in the Fifties. Stitt often worked with pickup bands as he toured, continuing his odyssey until his death. In his final decades he introduced the electric Varitone saxophone, worked extensively in the funky organ-group setting, and participated in such further all-star gatherings as the Giants of Jazz, which included Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. He was a true road warrior and blowing demon to the end, never failing to provide a lesson to any younger player who dared to test him on the bandstand. Bob Blumenthal - Excerpted from Sonny Stitt Verve Jazz Masters 50
For those who have not heard him, or may have heard him recently in television commercials, you owe it to yourself to give this late artist a listen. Nick Drake – Way To Blue Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Best known for the sombre pieces composed on his primary instrument, the guitar, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has gradually achieved wider notice and recognition; he now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years. Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums—Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. None of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. Despite this, he was able to gather a loyal group of fans who would champion his music. One such person was his manager, Joe Boyd, who had a clause put into his own contract with Island Records that ensured Drake's records would never go out of print. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Upon completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. There is no known footage of the adult Drake; he was only ever captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old. Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s but the 1979 release of the retrospective album Fruit Tree caused his back catalogue to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith, David Sylvian and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake. By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of 'doomed romantic' musician in the UK music press, and was frequently cited by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller and The Black Crowes. His first biography appeared in 1997, was followed in 1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Among Us. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous 30 years. (exerpted from Wikipedia article) for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Drake
Steely Dan - Citizen Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies." The band's music is characterized by complex jazz-influenced structures and harmonies played by Becker and Fagen along with a revolving cast of rock and pop studio musicians. Steely Dan's "cerebral, wry and eccentric" lyrics, often filled with sharp sarcasm, touch upon such themes as drugs, love affairs,and crime. The pair is well-known for their near-obsessive perfectionism in the recording studio, with one notable example being that Becker and Fagen used at least 42 different studio musicians, 11 engineers, and took over a year to record the tracks that resulted in 1980's Gaucho — an album that contains only seven songs. Steely Dan toured from 1972 to 1974, but in 1975 became a purely studio-based act. The late 1970s saw the group release a series of moderately successful singles and albums. They disbanded in 1981, and throughout most of the next decade, Fagen and Becker remained largely inactive in the music world. During this time, the group steadily built and maintained "a cult following." In 1993, the group resumed playing live concerts; the early 21st century saw Steely Dan release two albums of new material, the first of which earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. They have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steely_Dan
Esquivel - Esquivel Orquestas de Oro Juan García Esquivel (January 20, 1918 – January 3, 2002) often simply known as Esquivel!, was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin flavors. Esquivel is sometimes called "The King of Space Age Pop" and "The Busby Berkley of Cocktail Music." Esquivel is considered one of the foremost exponents of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop that became known (in retrospect) as "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_García_Esquivel
Don Byas - Stormy Weather (The Best Of) by Don Byas When he left for Europe in the fall of 1946 with the Don Redman band, Don Byas' reputation was at its peak. Admired by the modernists at Minton's no less than by the swing-styled players of his own generation on 52nd Street, he was celebrated as a tireless, original and influential saxophonist. His solo on Basie's "Harvard Blues" had created a stir in 1941 and he followed it with a remarkable series of recordings for small labels. In his romantic approach to "Laura," he had something of a hit. He stayed in Europe, becoming the first in a continuously expanding family of expatriate jazzmen, and although the great Don Byas was much in demand by the jazz-appreciative Europeans, he was largely forgotten back home. Few of his records were available here and without personal appearances it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a following. He returned to the U.S. once, in the summer of 1970, received little of the money or adulation he might have expected, and returned to Holland where he died in August 1972 of lung cancer. He was 59. Don Byas was a seminal figure in the development of the tenor saxophone and a transitional one twixt the schools of swing and bop. Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1912, he played alto as a teenager, subbing in territorial bands like Bennie Moten's and Walter Page's Blue Devils. As a student at Langston College, he led his own band, Don Byas and the Collegiate Ramblers. Between 1933, when he switched to tenor, and 1941, he worked with a variety of bands, first in California and then New York--among them: Buck Clayton, Lionel Hampton, Eddie Barefield, Eddie Mallory, Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk and Redman. In January '41, he became Lester Young's successor in the Count Basie band and quickly established his abilities, cementing his reputation. Byas' style evolved in the lush, rococo, full-bodied tenor tradition of Coleman Hawkins, but his sound was unmistakably his own, immediately recognizable. A master of technique, he accomplished both the tenderest warmth and the most strident sting. His sense of drama coupled with a brilliant use of dynamics and timbre, a deeply-felt romanticism--which on occasion dripped into sentimentality, his worst pitfall--and an unsurpassable sense of swing made his improvisations unique. Byas was a masterful swing player with his own style, an advanced sense of harmony, and a confidence and adventurousness that found him hanging around the beboppers and asking to play. He held his own and did so while insistently remaining himself: he never picked up the rhythmic phrases, the lightning triplets, that are indigenous to bop. Yet Charlie Parker said of him that Byas was playing everything there was to play. --GARY GIDDINS, from the liner notes, A Tribute To Cannonball, Columbia.
If You're Ready: The Best Of Enchantment Formed in the late 60s at Detroit's Pershing High School, Enchantment became one of the most enjoyable but underrated groups of the late 70s and early 80s. Consisting of lead singer Emanuel "EJ" Johnson, Bobby Green, Mickey Clanton, Joe Thomas and Dave Banks, Enchantment was for many years a local favorite, playing gigs in the Detroit area while hoping to ultimately score a record contract. Enchantment had its first big break in 1976, as the group signed with the Roadshow label and recorded a debut album with young producer (and future Motown executive) Michael Stokes. Enchantment was a decent introduction to the group, but most importantly was the first showcase for Enchantment's strong harmonies and the wonderful falsetto lead vocals and songwriting skills of EJ Johnson. Johnson was more influenced by Eddie Kendricks than Philip Bailey, but in an era of falsetto lead vocalists (from Russell Thompkins of the Stylistics to Eugene Record of the Chi-Lites), his ability to both master emotional ballads and attack blistering upbeat tunes moved him to the head of the class. Enchantment's debut album boasted two top ten R&B hits, "Sunshine" and the beautiful ballad, "Gloria," both written by Johnson. Excerpted from soul tracks - Chris Rizik http://www.soultracks.com/enchantment.htm#
The last album of my ELP marathon.. a friend of mine gave me the complete works on vinyl ^_^ I spent 12 hours listening
Excellent. I met Carl Palmer last spring when he played at my work. He gifted me an autographed drum head.
That sounds really neat.... I confess... when my friend gifted me with the records I was like "Who?" Other than that, i've been really enjoying myself.
Yeah I had no idea who he was, but it was the kick off their tour (Asia) and this older guy in jeans and a Tshirt walked by my office and was looking in at the drum head autographed by Ringo Starr. I saw him out there and told him to come in. I was talking to him for a minute and he asked me if I would like one signed by him. I said absolutely and he ran off down the hall to backstage. He came back, gave it to me and just asked that I hang it above Ringo's. I'm not a huge fan of Asia, but he is darn good drummer and a nice guy. He was one of the few that I enjoyed meeting.
Marillion - Misplaced Childhood (Vinyl) This album makes me cry... every time... This is prolly the cleanest album I own
