Artist: Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil
   Album: Tropicбlia 2
   Year: 1993
   Release: 1994
   Label: Elektra/Nonesuch
   Time: 42:06
   Format, bitrate: 320 Kbps
   Size: 91 MB

   Between harsh criticism (due to the retro opportunistic use of Tropicбlia), and sectarian defense, Tropicбlia 2 yielded a Caetano Veloso/Gilberto Gil tour through E.U.A. and Europe one year after this release. The reference to Tropicбlia was used as a safe-conduct for the duo's incursions in electronics, axй music (the contemporary and pragmatic sound of Bahia) and other commercial exploitation -- since under Tropicбlia everything goes (or used to go, some 30 years ago). The album opens with "Haiti," a dry percussive electronic pattern over which Caetano and Gil speak verses dealing with racism; "Cinema Novo" is a beautiful samba, whose lyrics "explain" and greet the Brazilian cinema movement which gained the world. "Nossa Gente" brings the percussive sounds of axй music together with funk brass attacks. "Rap Popconcreto" is a musical concrete poem which echoes as a synthesis of the old concept of Tropicбlia -- utilizing samplers in an improbable atmosphere, piling several old recordings from various artists singing the word "Quem?" ("Who?"). The Jimi Hendrix song "Wait Until Tomorrow" receives a Brazilian percussion treatment, and "Cada Macaco No Seu Galho" is a Novos Baianos hit which received an old baiгo groove treatment in the drum-machine programming, mixed with modern Bahian percussion. "Baiгo Atemporal" is a beautiful baiгo with a very modern and haunting melody and arrangement. The album, in philosophical terms, expresses fragile concepts. Poetically and musically, represents good entertainment, and, in its best moments, good Art.
   ~ Alvaro Neder, AMG

   Artist: The Falconaires & Bill Watrous & Frank Mantooth
   Album: A Touch of Jobim
   Label: USAF, Altissimo!
   Year: 2001
   Release: 2008
   Format, bitrate: mp3, 185-210 kbps
   Time: 57 minutes
   Size: 82.1 mb


   The Falconaires is one of the United States Air Force's main jazz ensembles. The 18-piece group features impressive musicianship, exciting ensembles and colorful arrangements. For this set of ten songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim, the band is joined on two numbers apiece by trombonist Bill Watrous (who is showcased on "Once I Loved" and "Chega De Saudade") and pianist Frank Mantooth. John Teamer sings "One Note Samba" and "So Danca Samba," and the group's soloists include trumpeter Mark Israel, trombonists Ryan Haines and Lucas Munce on alto and soprano. This release is obscure but worth searching for since the big band keeps the spirit of Jobim's bossa-nova classics yet is not shy to swing the pieces.
   ~ Scott Yanow, AMG

   Artist: Billy Higgins
   Album: Billy Higgins Quintet
   Label: Evidence
   Year: 1993
   Format, bitrate: MP3@320 & flac
   Size: 165MB / 447MB
   Time: 73:37


   ... Oscar Brashear on trumpet, Cedar Walton on piano, and David Williams on bass. Land, Brashear, and Walton all have their share of inspired solos, and the swinging Higgins brings out the best in his colleagues on well-known jazz standards like Tadd Dameron's "Hot House" and Thelonious Monk's "Jackie-ing," as well as original pieces by Brashear ("Seeker," "Churn"), Walton (&"The Vision"), and Land ("Step Right Up to the Bottom"). A very busy L.A. session player, Brashear has appeared on countless R&B and jazz-funk dates. But the passionate trumpeter is also quite capable of playing straight-ahead acoustic jazz, which is exactly what he does on this release. Brashear has a big, fat, highly appealing tone -- one that owes a lot to Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan and it is nice to hear him in an acoustic hard bop/post-bop setting. In fact, Brashear's solos on this album explode the silly myth that a jazz musician is destined to lose his ability to play straight-ahead bop and post-bop if he accepts too many commercial R&B gigs. Higgins made a very wise move when he hired Brashear to play on this fine album, which is without a dull moment.

   Artist: King Curtis & Champion Jack Dupree
   Album: Blues at Montreux
   Format: FLAC (cue+log) & mp3, 320 kbps
   Size: 251 & 90 MB (scans)
   Label: Atlantic
   Time: 38:19



   This live set from the 1971 Montreux Jazz Festival was co-led by tenor saxophonist King Curtis (who tragically would be killed three months later) and veteran blues pianist/vocalist Champion Jack Dupree. With guitarist Cornell Dupree (in excellent form), bassist Jerry Jemmott and drummer Oliver Jackson laying down the foundation, Curtis and Dupree find a great deal of common musical ground. Dupree has quite a few witty vocals (particularly the near-classic "Junker's Blues") while taking choruses of irregular length that keep his sidemen continually guessing. Curtis' distinctive tenor is also heard from, making one truly regret that this was his final recording.
   ~ Scott Yanow, AMG

    Artist: Buddy Guy
    Album: DJ Play My Blues
    Label: JSP records
    Year: 1982
    Release: 2004
    Format, bitrate: mp3, 256 kb/s
    Time: 1:04:14
    Size: 108 Mb (covers)
    AMG Rating:

   Buddy Guy's music has changed a great deal since this album was recorded in Chicago in 1981. It is possible that Guy has never sounded better than this, tearing into some deep indigo blues, letting his guitar wail loud on every cut, and playing with inspiration, especially on the title cut and "Dedication to the Late T-Bone Walker," a track that seems to spring from some place deep within himself. Nor was he the only one on fire at the sessions. Brother Phil Guy shares the guitar work and contributes vocals to both "Garbage Man Blues" and "Mellow Down." The recording makes no attempt to capture a wide audience. This is Buddy Guy playing and feeling the blues, pure and simple, without any sense of compromise — and it's all the better for it, putting much of the rest of his catalog into perspective. Rarely is the blues this heartfelt — and rarer still is it so well played. If this were his only recorded legacy, he'd still warrant the stature he's achieved.
   ~ Chris Nickson, AMG

ФИАЛКИ по СРЕДАМ (выпуск двадцать седьмой)

   Artist: Dave Grusin & Lee Ritenour
   Album: Amparo
   Label: Decca
   Year: 2008
   Format, bitrate: mp3, 320 kbps
   Time: 59 min, 24 sec
   Size: 143 mb

   Итак, друзья мои, очередная среда наступила, значит, что надо делать?
   Верно, слушать классику.
   Сегодня, пожалуй, я вспомню, что клуб-то у нас джазовый и предложу Вашему вниманию совместный проект двух известных джазовых музыкантов - Дэйва Грузина и Ли Ритенура, на котором для Вас прозвучат, как произведения классических композиторов (Гендель, Равель), так и авторские произведения Дэйва и Ли.

   Eight years ago the guitarist and pianist collaborated on a Grammy-nominated album, Two Worlds. The idea is provide some new arrangements of various classical works as well as some originals, with the guitar and piano often in the forefront as solo instruments. South American music had a strong input to the mix. The list of guest artists on some of the tracks is most impressive.
   The CD opens with three Latin American Dances by Grusin - each dealing with a traditional dance form from South America. The original form of the work was for a trio of violin, cello and piano - now arranged for guitar, piano and chamber orchestra. Faure’s familiar Pavane gets a sublime treatment featuring both soprano Renйe Fleming and violinist Joshua Bell. Another gorgeous French selection is the setting of Ravel’s Beauty and the Beast music from his Mother Goose Suite. The album’s title comes from a Jobim song also known as Olha Maria, but here the usual vocal part is beautifully taken by violinist Bell. The highlight of the CD for me is the setting of what I feel to be the No. 1 Baroque theme of them all - Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor. Chris Botti’s trumpet soars over the accompaniment of the guitar and piano together with the orchestra.
      audaud.com

   Итак...

    Artist: Buddy Guy
    Album: I Was Walking Through the Woods
    Label: MCA/Chess Records
    Year: 1960 - 1963
    Release: 1974
    Format, bitrate: mp3, 160 kb/s
    Time: 37:12
    Size: 44:10 (cover)
    AMG Rating:

   This slim yet potent sampler of Guy's excellent early-'60s work for Chess will no doubt please newcomers looking for a bargain introduction to the blues guitarist/vocalist's prime sides. With his guitar tapped for maximum intensity, spiky and tremolo-heavy, and those vocals all pathos-rich screams and in-the-pocket bravado, Guy especially hits bedrock on the blues-personified narrative "The First Time I Met the Blues" and the perennial "My Time After a While"; from lean combo cuts to horn-rich swingers, the remaining tracks never stray too far from this high-quality mark. And ensuring a fine ride throughout, regal blues veterans like Junior Wells, Otis Spann, and Fred Below help provide the tasty accompaniment. A solid shot from one of Chicago blues' second-generation stars.
   Stephen Cook, AMG

    Artist: Monty Alexander Trio
    Album: The Paris Concert
    Label: Inakustic
    Year: 2001
    Format: DVD-9 (Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS)
    Time: 01:49:36
    Size: 8 GB


    This magical concert from the New Morning in 2001, finds the magnificent Monty Alexander accompanied by Bobby Thomas, Jr. and Hassan W. Shakour. The life & career of pianist great and groove master Monty Alexander is a dream come true... Born in Kingston, Jamaica, on D-Day, this formidably gifted & happy child prodigy soon directed his feet to the sunny side of the street, like Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, his first hero, sang. His lucky star showed up before he was twenty years old, when Frank Sinatra produced him in that temple of fifties and sixties pop music, Jilly's Bar in New York. After Ray Brown invited Monty to sit in, he was ready to go. He never looked back. Monty's swing & lyricism inspired such giants as Milt Jackson, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie and a whole pantheon of stars, who he accompanied to the four corners of the Earth... - in the course of an exemplary musical journey both as monster pianist and subtle composer. These days, he revisits Randy Weston and Bob Marley for an irresistible return to his Jamaican roots.
    ~ MVD Enertainment Group

   Artist: Carla Bley Big Band
   Album: Appearing Nightly
   Label: ECM
   Year: 2008
   Format, bitrate: mp3, 256 kbps
   Size: 103,4 MB


   Trips down memory lane often fail to generate much more than a nostalgic kind of jazz - but if there's anyone whose musical past is likely to be captivating, it is composer Carla Bley. Her flawless ear catches the bravura and spontaneous eloquence of the Count Basie big-band style she heard as a teenager in New York in the 1950s. This recording of a show in Paris sees her create an idiosyncratically fresh swing repertoire, enhanced with so many twisted fragments of classic standards that you eventually stop counting them. Greasy Gravy (inspired by Pretty Baby) is a sleazy slow-burner full of spluttering brass. Awful Coffee is a fast bop-swinger with a blistering baritone-sax solo from Julian Arguelles, a high-pitched riff-chatter of squawks and squeals from the band, and half a dozen standard soundbites, including Salt Peanuts and Watermelon Man. Trumpeter Lew Soloff plays a beautiful muted rhapsody on the title track; saxophonist Andy Sheppard is as gracefully lyrical as ever; Gary Valente is raucously petrifying on trombone. It is intentionally rough-edged and headlong music, but a consistent delight.
   ~ John Fordham, The Guardian

   Artist: Blood, Sweat & Tears
   Album: Live and Improvised
   Label: Columbia/Legacy
   Year: 1975
   Release: 1991
   Format, bitrate: mp3, 128 kbps
   Time: 88 min
   Size: 155 mb

   Blood, Sweat & Tears didn't get around to cutting an official live album until they were well past their prime years -- in this case, 1975, long after every original member (and even most of their first-generation successors) except for drummer Bobby Colomby (a true founding member, going back to the Al Kooper lineup) and vocalist David Clayton-Thomas, was gone. But, as Clayton-Thomas was back for the accompanying album, New City, and was with the group on this tour, one supposes that Columbia Records decided to take advantage of its good fortune by taping several shows. For his part, the singer is more mannered and pretentious than ever on most of this album, his singing powerful enough but his instincts pushing him more toward loud, ultimately over-the-top soul strutting, lacking any hint of subtlety. His performance would be more of a problem, except that members of the group also stretch out for solos on trumpet, flьgelhorn, etc., on tracks such as "Unit Seven," and extended versions of "Ride Captain Ride" and other numbers, thus counter-balancing his excesses with their own. What's also lacking is some excitement -- in the group's evident desire to emphasize their jazz side while minimizing any rock elements in their playing, they've also banished any tension, or the interplay between rock and jazz elements upon which their original appeal was founded. Numbers like "Spinning Wheel," "Lucretia MacEvil," "And When I Die," and "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" are done in such loose-limbed fashion that, apart from showcasing some virtuoso playing and Clayton-Thomas' more oppressive mannerisms, they're rather weak reinterpretations. It is curious to note, however, that even at this late date, Clayton-Thomas and company were still doing the Al Kooper-era "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know," and were also still utilizing arrangements by Kooper and co-founder Fred Lipsius. On the positive side, along with the presence of those arrangements, the playing is very good, if not always terribly involving, and in those moments when Clayton-Thomas keeps his instincts in check, the material does recapture and expand on the best components of the original group's sound. This album was part of a small group of live recordings done by Columbia during this period Donovan's Live in Japan was another -- that were intended for the European and Japanese markets (in later years, there was also a laser disc of a concert from the same tour issued in Japan), where the group was still considered commercially viable.
   ~ Bruce Eder, AMG

   Artist: Trudy Desmond
   Album: Make Me Rainbows
   Label: Koch Jazz KOC 3-7803-2H1
   Year: 1995
   Format, bitrate: FLAC & MP3@320
   Size: 285 MB & 102 MB
   Time: 54:13


   A fine singer who unfortunately passed away too young, Trudy Desmond is heard in top form on her third recording. Her delivery is basic and lightly swinging on a variety of standards and obscurities, with the highpoints including "You'd Better Love Me," "The Best Thing For You," "Falling In Love With Love" and "Too Close For Comfort." Desmond uses a variety of different personnel including a couple different rhythm sections (with Bill Charlap, Mike Renzi or Don Thompson on piano) and appearances by guitairst Ed Bickert, tenor-saxophonist Rick Wilkens, Tom Szezesniak on accordion and a string quartet on various cuts. This was one of Trudy Desmond's finest efforts, making one particularly wish that she had stuck around longer.
   ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

   Artist: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
   Album: Live
   Release: 2004
   Video: 720x416 (1.73:1), 29.970 fps, XviD build 47 ~1157 kbps avg, 0.13 bit/pixel
   Audio: 48 kHz, AC3 Dolby Digital, 2/0 (L,R) ch, ~192.00 kbps avg
   Size: 182+182+182+174 Mb
   Time: 01:12:09.091 (129743 frames)


   This release contains a live recording of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy playing a concert at the Majestic Ventura Theatre on May 15, 2003 in both an audio and video flavor. It's quite exciting to see (and hear) this band in action. Unlike some bands, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy plays really well live. It's clear from watching the DVD that they have a lot of talent. They produce an energy that makes you just want to smile, sing, and dance. Whether a fan or newcomer, seeing Big Bad Voodoo Daddy play live is quite the positive experience.
   DVDtalk

   Artist: B.B.King
   Album: King Of The Blues [Box Set]
   Label: MCA
   Year: 1949 - 1991
   Release: 1992
   Format, bitrate: MP3, 320Kbps
   Time: 242:29
   Size: 676 Mb

   We can not speak of this as the definitive collection of BB King 16 years because of the teacher's edition of the Blues is alive, well, recording and performing as usual. However it offers through its 4 CD's an excellent retrospective of the bulk of his brilliant career, and allows the young (and not so young we do not live those times) come into contact with his old material to find out where they are the roots of many of the artists and bands we like. Because B.B. Not only is the greatest living guitarist from the legendary masters of the blues, he was perhaps best summed up the legacy of the Mississippi Delta to the electric sounds of the big cities (with Chicago in the lead) to produce a unique style and original descent who had a particularly large in England, helping to define the prototype of the rock guitarist in the 60s. This brilliant collection we walk through the musical career of the teacher themselves from their inception through 77 items taken from LP's, singles and direct, plus some new pieces, a perfect balance of classics and rarities to satisfy the most demanding and the curious. The only defect of this and other collections of Blues that is entered in the 80's music is contaminated synthesizers, percussion and synthetic theater that atmosphere worthy of those years, which contrasts with the greatest virtue of the Blues: the naturalness but this can be solved with this wonderful edifice of modern technology known as Forward ... remainder of this collection is not in the least waste. The 4 CD's come in a mudding book with 73 pages of text and photos, of which I have only included those related to the songs a few more photographs, as this format is difficult to get without damaging the scanner. But what it is intact is the wonderful music of the King of the Blues, Mr. Riley B. King.
   ~ Aldoux-

    Artist: Oscar Peterson
    Album: Quiet Now: Time & Again
    Label: Polygram Records
    Release: 2000
    Format, bitrate: mp3, 160 kb/s
    Time: 59:32
    Size: 69,7 Mb (cover)

            EVERY DAY IS AN OSCAR PETERSON DAY!

   Oscar Peterson has never been shy about his abilities to romp across a keyboard in decorous, generously swinging displays of flash. But Time and Again catches the Oscar that lulls you into classic sessions like Exclusively for My Friends and those where he tackles the song books of Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter. The 14 tracks that make up this anthology are all delicate, all gorgeous, all touched with a grace that precious few pianists can muster. The album comes with only the most skeletal details--track titles, albums of origin, tune titles. But it's meant to be streamlined, to turn the mind to the music, which, as part of Verve's Quiet Now series, is meant to be midnight-safe and mellow. In the case of Oscar, the collection is an embarrassment of musical riches, a chilled-out heartful that will ease the aches unrelentingly.
   - Andrew Bartlett, Amazon.com