Artists: VA
     Album: Viva, Carlos! - A Supernatural Marathon Celebration
     Year: 2006
     Label: Tone Center
     Genre: Latin Blues rock
     Quality: MP3, 320 kbps
     Size: 116,6 Mb
     Total time: 50:25

     Музыку Карлоса Сантаны исполняют такие звёзды как Винни Мур, Майк Стерн, Эрик Гэйлс, Эрик Джонсон, Фрэнк Гамбале, Роббен Форд, Элберт Ли, Коко Монтойя, Пэт Марино, Джефф Ричмэн.Всё получилось очень качественно, как музыка, так и сама запись. От этой интерпретации любители Сантаны получат истинное удовольствие.

     Viva Carlos asks the musical question: What would ten classic Santana tracks sound like in the hands of ten different guitarists? The answer, in case you’re wondering, is like ten classic Santana tracks in the hands of ten different guitarists. Which isn’t to say I’m not jazzed about the idea or the results. Dave Weckl on drums, ten amazing axemen, you had me at Viva. But it’s a little like bringing ten of the world’s best drummers together for a tribute to Ringo Starr. Carlos Santana was never a flashy guitarist, and some of the fiery fretwork on Viva Carlos seems less a tribute than a trump. Each of the ten guitarists on Viva Carlos has a distinctive style: Eric Gales, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson. With the same backing band in place from track to track, it’s the lead guitarist who sets the tone. Again that’s the idea, but I’m not sure that was the idea that Santana originally intended for these. If Carlos had wanted to solo all over these songs, he would have. He didn’t. His solos were often restrained, contained to the middle, lyrical and not lightning fast. So to say that this music is true to the spirit of Santana, I don’t know. (Tom Watson does. You should read his review at Modern Guitars.) The cynic in me sees the pairing of great guitarists and great brands (okay, maybe not so much McLaughlin) as low-hanging fruit. Tasty fruit, maybe even delicious to guitar gourmands, but not some years-in-the-making opus. Still, there are worse ways to spend an hour than listening to very talented people play the music of Santana in their own idiom.

     Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
     Album: Variations
     Label: MCA / Universal
     Year: 1978
     Genre: Sympho-Rock
     Format, bitrate: MP@320 kbit/s
     Time: 0.34:23
     Size: 79 MB

     В этот субботний вечер хочу предложить уважаемым коллегам по Клубу послушать музыку, которая, казалось бы, никакого отношения ни к джазу, ни к блюзу не имеет.
     Действительно, её написал известный автор мюзиклов и рок-опер Эндрю Ллойд Веббер. Взяв за основу классический каприс No 24 ля минор Николо Паганини, он создал на его основе ряд вариаций, которые подарил (вернее проспорил) своему младшему брату, классическому виолончелисту Джулиану.
     А в записи принимали участие такие монстры рок-музыки, как Гари Мур (гитара) и Род Аржент (клавишные). Какое-то отношение к джазу имели лишь Барбара Томпсон (флейта, саксофон) и лидер джаз-рок группы Colosseum II барабанщик Джон Хайзмен (который потом неоднократно признавался, что до этой записи он ни разу не слышал ни о Веббере, ни о его рок-опере "Jesus Christ Superstar").
     Так или иначе, альбом несколько месяцев продержался на втором месте в мировых чартах 1978-79 годов (недосягаемой на первой строчке чартов оказалась... группа "ABBA").
     К чему столь долгий рассказ? Мне кажется, что вариации на тему признанного импровизатора Паганини в исполнении мастеров рок- и классической музыки, являются прекрасной импровизацией, которая не будет чуждой слуху поклонников джаза и блюза.
     Послушайте, друзья...

   Artist: Janis Joplin
   Album: The Essential Janis Joplin
   Year: 2003
   Label: Columbia/Sony
   Genre: Blues
   Format, bitrate: mp3, 320kb/s
   Size: cd1:74,2+71,5; cd2:87,7+66,4MB

   Columbia has managed to squeeze an impressive, perhaps excessive, number of compilations out of Janis Joplin's relatively slim body of recordings. With this two-CD set, The Essential Janis Joplin, the label's at it again, though it's a good one to get if you don't want to collect all the Joplin releases, and certainly don't want to get the expensive Joplin boxes, but want more than what fits onto a single disc. Including both solo recordings and highlights of her stint with Big Brother & the Holding Company, it has all the songs fans and critics would consider milestones in her career: "Ball and Chain" (a version recorded live in 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival, not the more familiar one from Cheap Thrills), "Piece of My Heart," "Down on Me," "Summertime," "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)," "Tell Mama" (the live 1970 performance from the expanded edition of Pearl), "Get It While You Can," "Mercedes Benz," and "Me and Bobby McGee." And there are also good tracks that aren't as overly familiar, like "Coo Coo," "Misery'n," "Maybe," "Work Me, Lord," and "A Woman Left Lonely." The substitution of the less familiar renditions of "Ball and Chain" and "Tell Mama" might rankle some consumers expecting to hear the more common ones, but that's frankly unlikely. So what does the set offer to those Joplin fans who already have a lot of her material? Well, not much, but in the time-honored manner of attaching bonus tracks to oft-recycled material, this does have a couple of previously unissued live cuts ("Kozmic Blues" and the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody") from her 1969 set at Woodstock. Those songs are actually reasonably good, but aren't worth buying the whole set for. They would have been a better deal if served out as part of a legit collection of her Woodstock performances, or as a collection of previously unreleased live Joplin performances, if enough high-caliber stuff of the sort was available.
Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

     Artist: Pat Metheny
     Album: Rejoicing
     Label: ECM
     Year: 1984
     Genre: Jazz, Guitar
     Format, bitrate: mp3@320Kbps
     Time: 43:56
     Size: 98 Mb
     AMG Rating:

     Pat Metheny из тех артистов, который своим творчеством снискал уже давно титул «неприкасаемого». Виртуоз. Экспериментатор. Новатор. «Человек-гитара». Очень самобытный музыкант. Создатель своего собственного, узнаваемого звучания. Записал несметное количество материала под своим именем и в таком же количестве чужого поучаствовал. По большому счету, хоть его пластинки и стоят в магазине в разделе «джаз», далеко не вся его музыка таковой является. Он, наверное, не столько «джазовый гитарист», сколько просто Гитарист (употребление большой буквы не случайно). Представляемый альбом, напротив, очень джазовый. В лучшем смысле этого слова. И по звучанию, и по участвовавшим в записи музыкантам, и по материалу, и по составу инструментов. На мой личный вкус, это один из самых удачных в карьере музыканта альбомов, что были изданы на ЕСМ. Очень все красиво, лирично, по хорошему, по весмонгомеревски. Быть может только в «The Calling», музыкант дает волю своим, столь узнаваемым и куда менее мною лично любимым «изобразительным» формам.

     Artist: Jelly Roll Morton
     Album: Birh of the Hot
     Label: Bluebird
     Years: 1926-1927; Remastering: 1995
     Format: MP3; Bitrate: 320 kbps
     Size: 96 + 66 MB

     Имя Джелли Ролл Мортон (Jelly Roll Morton) прекрасно известно джазовым музыкантам, довольно часто исполняющим его композиции, и весьма популярно среди любителей классического "горячего" джаза. Непременно во всех музыкальных изданиях оно носит эпитеты "великий" и "неподражаемый". Музыкант, который безо всякого на то основания именовал себя на своих визитках "изобретателем джаза" и заодно претендовавший на звание основателя большинства ранних стилей этого жанра, всё же сделал так много для его развития, что можно простить и даже понять его болезненное честолюбие. Он первым проиллюстрировал своим творчеством тот факт, что в джазе роль аранжировщика и исполнителя часто важнее, чем значение самого музыкального материала, данного композитором.

     Artists - VA
     Album - Oklahoma! (1955 Film Soundtrack)
     Genre - musical
     Label - Angel Records
     Year - 1955, release - 2001
     Quality - MP3@320 kbps
     Size - 126 mb
     Total time - 76:42

     Oklahoma! is the original soundtrack album of the 1955 Academy Award-winning film Oklahoma!, an adaptation of the musical play of the same name. The soundtrack charted #1 on the Billboard Pop Album Chart in 1956 and has been in continual print. It was certified "gold" by the RIAA on July 8, 1958 and "multi-platinum" on April 1, 1992.

     Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, who controlled the rights to their record-breaking, landmark musical Oklahoma!, took their time putting together a film version, with the movie not arriving until 12 and a half years after the show's Broadway opening. The songwriters' unusual power over the production assured that it would be more faithful than most Hollywood treatments. Only two songs, "Lonely Room" and "It's a Scandal! It's a Outrage!," were excised from the stage show for the two-and-a-half-hour film, for which conductor Jay Blackton and arranger Robert Russell Bennett were retained. The casting responded more to musical values than to box office clout, with Gordon MacRae, best known for several cinematic pairings with Doris Day, taking the male lead role of Curly and 20-year-old Shirley Jones, a Rodgers and Hammerstein discovery, making her film debut as Laurey, the female lead. The two, along with Gloria Grahame in the showcase role of lusty Ado Annie, brought a vocal assurance to their singing that allowed them to be intimate and conversational, giving detail to an otherwise lavish (and possibly oversized) production. These qualities come off especially well on the soundtrack album, as do Bennett's expanded orchestrations, which really shine in the stereo separation denied them on the original Broadway cast album. The result is an outstanding rendering of the score that gives it a bigger, broader interpretation and has continued to sound impressive over the decades, which may be one reason why the album, which topped the charts upon release and sold more than two million copies, has remained in print continually since it first appeared. The 2001 reissue added more than 30 minutes of music, most of it instrumental underscoring for dance sequences that borrowed from the melodies of the songs, particularly the 14-minute "Out of My Dreams Ballet." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

     Artist: Gabor Szabo
     Album: High Contrast
     Quality: mp3@320 Kbps
     Size: 95 MB (scans)
     Year: 1971
     Label: Blue Thumb (2003)
     Total time: 40:11
     AMG Rating:

     An unusually successful pairing of Gabor Szabo with R&B legend Bobby Womack. Szabo digs deep into a soulful groove, inspired by Womack's silky-smooth originals. High Contrast features "Breezin," the Womack tune written especially for Szabo, which George Benson parlayed into a huge hit in 1976, and several tunes Womack popularized in the film Across 110th Street. - by Douglas Payne, AMG

     Artist: Janis Joplin
     Album: Super Hits
     Label: Sony
     Recording years: 1968-1970
     Originally released: 1968,1969,1971
     Released: 2000
     Size: 80 Mb
     Quality: mp3, 320 kb/s

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin', don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free, no no
And, feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues
You know, feelin' good was good enough fro me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee

     Janis Joplin (19 января 1943, Порт-Артур, штат Техас — 4 октября 1970, Лос-Анджелес)

     "Быть думающим человеком, - значит задавать себе много вопросов, на которые нет ответов. Можно наполнить свою жизнь мыслями и все же возвращаться домой в одиночестве. Единственное, что действительно достойно внимания - это чувства. Это то, чем стала для меня музыка."

     "Моя музыка не для того, чтобы пробуждать в вас желание бунтовать! Моя музыка для того, чтобы пробуждать в вас лишь одно желание — заниматься сексом!"

     Artist: Johnny "Hammond" Smith
     Album: Black Coffee
     Label: Milestone
     Year: 1962/1963, release: 1997
     Genre: Hard Bop / Soul Jazz
     Format, bitrate: MP3/320
     Time: 77:58
     Size: 168 Mb

     Two of organist Johnny "Hammond" Smith's earliest gems (Black Coffee and Mr. Wonderful) are reissued in full on a single CD, Black Coffee. Although influenced by Jimmy Smith, this particular organist was also a strong grooving player, able to play both blues and more complicated chord changes. He is showcased with a quartet that includes tenor saxophonist Seldon Powell and guitarist Eddie McFadden, and in a quintet with McFadden, tenor man Houston Person and trumpeter Sonny Williams; in both cases Leo Stevens is on drums. The material (with eight colorful originals including "I Remember Clifford," "Body and Soul," and "He's a Real Gone Guy" among the 15 numbers) has a fair amount of variety, and Johnny "Hammond" Smith is heard at his best throughout this reissue.

     Artist: Djivan Gasparyan & Michael Brook
     Album: Black Rock
     Quality: mp3@320 Kbps
     Size: 99 MB (scans)
     Label: Real World
     Total time: 44:10
     Genre: world fusion, ambient ethno

     With Black Rock, Canadian composer Michael Brook applies the same approach he used in his two Real World collaborations with Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn (Mustt Mustt and Night Song) to a new relationship with Armenian duduk specialist Djivan Gasparyan. This partnership proves to be more consistently fruitful than the first, producing a record of dazzling eclecticism and uncommon soulfulness. Gasparyan's duduk, an ancient instrument similar to the oboe, has an extraordinary range of expression: It exudes a heart-rending plangency on the mournful "Fallen Star," seductive sensuality on "Forbidden Love," and languid serenity on "Together Forever." Gasparyan also sings on the record, lending the gentle warmth of his voice to the textured instrumental work. Brook's arrangements -- consisting primarily of keyboards, light drums, and evocative ambient electric guitars -- bring a contemporary edge to the ancient mystery and emotiveness that characterize Gasparyan's work. Black Rock is open to the same criticisms of cultural exploitation that plagued the Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn albums, but one hopes that this fascinating cultural hybrid will be accepted on its own terms as a rich and expressive new creation. ~ Evan Cater, AMG

     Artist: Soul Bossa Trio
     Album: Dancing in the Street
     Quality: mp3@320 Kbps
     Size: 103 MB (scans)
     Year: 1994
     Label: Bomba
     Total time: 45:14
     Genre: acid jazz

     Formed by Tokyo acid jazz maven Gonzalez Suzuki, Soul Bossa Trio recorded several albums of refreshing, exploratory jazz with a debt to fusion and Brazilian jazz but a sparkling sense of interplay often lacking in their club-centered contemporaries. Suzuki was originally a member of Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys, Japanese jazz-pop favorites during the '80s. He founded Soul Bossa Trio in 1993 with Shingo Takeyama and Toshi Matsumoto, and produced the group's first record, 1994's A Taste of Soul Bossa, for Victor. Dancing in the Street followed before the end of the year. - AMG

     Artist: Junior Mance
     Album: Happy Time
     Label: Jazzland/OJC
     Release Date: 1962, CD 1999
     Format: MP3@320 kbit/s
     Size: 99.1 MB
     Time: 43:33



     Pianist Junior Mance was in excellent company on this inspired 1962 session with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Mickey Roker. Its unfortunate this trio only recorded together on this one date as their unity propels the blues, gospel, and bebop ideas Mance consistently feeds them. The program is highlighted by three Mance originals "Out South," "Taggie's Tune," and the torrid joy of the opening theme "Happy Time," along with versions of "Jitterbug Waltz," "Tin Tin Deo," and Mance at his soulful bluesy best on Clark Terry's "The Simple Waltz." ~ Al Campbell, All Music Guide

 

     Artist: Toots Thielemans
     Album: The Very Best Of (Hard To Say Goodbye)
     Label: Universal
     Release date: 11/04/2001
     Genre: Jazz
     Format, bitrate: mp3, 320 kb/s
     Size: 95,1+90,9 MB

     Toots Thielemans' first instrument was the accordion, which he started when he was three. Although he started playing the harmonica when he was 17, Thielemans' original reputation was made as a guitarist who was influenced by Django Reinhardt. Very much open to bop, Thielemans played in American GI clubs in Europe, visited the U.S. for the first time in 1947, and shared the bandstand with Charlie Parker at the Paris Jazz Festival of 1949. He toured Europe as a guitarist with the Benny Goodman Sextet in 1950, and the following year moved to the U.S. During 1953-1959, Toots was a member of the George Shearing quintet (mostly as a guitarist) and has freelanced ever since. He first recorded his big hit "Bluesette" (which featured his expert whistling and guitar) in 1961, and ever since has been greatly in demand (particularly for his harmonica and his whistling) on pop records (including many dates with Quincy Jones) and as a jazz soloist. Toots' two-volume Brasil Project was popular in the 1990s and found him smoothly interacting on harmonica with top Brazilian musicians. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

   Artist: Dizzy Gillespie
   Album: An Electrifying Evening With The Dizzy Gillespie Quintet
   Year: 1961
   Label: Verve Master Edition
   Format, bitrate: MP3@320kbit/s
   Time: 54:41
   Size: 95.3MB + 21.8MB
   AMG Rating: 5 Stars

Dizzy Gillespie (along with altoist Leo Wright, pianist Lalo Schfrin, bassist Bob Cunningham, and drummer Chuck Lampkin) were in peak form for this live performance. Their versions of "Kush," "Salt Peanuts," and "The Mooche" are all excellent, but it is "A Night in Tunisia," with its absolutely stunning trumpet break (which lasts half a chorus), that is most memorable. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

   Artist: Dave Bailey
   Album: Two Feet In The Gutter
   Label: Epic
   Year: 1961, release: 2007
   Genre: Bop / Cool Jazz
   Format, bitrate: mp3/320
   Time: 36:00
   Size: 79,6 Mb

   Drummer Dave Bailey's third and final LP for Epic is a quintet session that is much like his earlier two sextet dates for the label, with an invited audience witnessing the studio recording. He has a completely new supporting cast, including two very underappreciated musicians: the tragically short-lived tenor saxophonist Frank Haynes and trumpeter Bill Hardman. Also on hand are the veteran bassist Ben Tucker and the somewhat-obscure pianist Billy Gardner.