Artist: John Lee Hooker
     Album: House of the Blues
     Label: Verbatim /Chess Records
     Years:1951-54, release: 1998
     Quality: MP3 ;320 kBit/s
     Size: 76 MB, incl. 10% recovery record.
     Total time: 32:42
     AMG rating





Verbatim CD reissue of a 1959 Chess album that collected 1951-1954 efforts by the Hook. Some important titles here: an ominous "Leave My Wife Alone," and the stark "Sugar Mama" and "Ramblin' by Myself," and with Eddie Kirkland on second guitar, "Louise" and "High Priced Woman." ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide

Artist: Back Door
Album: Back Door
Year: 1972
Genre: Jazz / JazzRock
Label: Blakey / Warner
Format, bitrate: mp3 / 320 kbps
Size: 51,4 MB


Released by the band on the Blakey label in 1972 and then re-released by Warner in 1973, this instrumental album is impressive from start to finish, and a veritable catalog of bass guitar technique. Asbery's funky sax and flute work leaves the bottom end completely open to the bass guitar, and Hodgkinson's use of strummed chords is ably backed by his bandmates on the squalling opener "Vienna Breakdown." The mel-low fon-kay bass solo, "Lieutenant Loose," makes effective use of ringing open strings, while "Slivadiv" is a fret-hammering delight. If you're a bassist, be forewarned: listening to this album is a deeply humbling experience. ~ Paul Collins, All Music Guide
Someone once wrote about Colin Hodgkinson that he sounded like a lead guitar, a rhythm guitar, a bass and a set of organ pedals at the same time..
I had the honour to visit one of their live concerts in 1984. I hope you find them just as fascinating that I did. Enjoy !

     Artist: Red Garland
     Album: Red's Blues
     Years: 1956-1962, release: 1998
     Label: Prestige
     Quality: FLAC (Tracks), Mp3, 320 kbps.
     Size: ~ 400mb; 140 mb (with scans)
     Total time: 75:06

With sights set firmly set upon the blues, this is bedrock Red Garland, aimed squarely down the middle of his most fertile period. Not everything here is a blues, but they might as well be, given the sameness of mood and approach in this selection of small-group blowing sessions. Wherever you go on Red's Blues, you can't miss Garland's distinctive block chords and light-handed right-handed bop patterns recorded in the soft-focused Van Gelder studio manner, all of which jazz fans would hear constantly down the road in the '60s. And not only that, almost all of the tunes are in the keys of B flat or C, which could make this disc useful for background if not extended listening. Nevertheless, the personnel is often stellar; John Coltrane and Donald Byrd turn up on "Birks' Works," and Arnett Cobb saunters through "Black Velvet" (better known as "Don'Cha Go Way Mad"), Coleman Hawkins is in fine funky form on "Red Beans," and Ray Barretto's congas light up one of the few jazz compositions ever named after a critic ("Ralph J. Gleason Blues"). The 75-minute disc, all of whose contents have been issued on CD before, opens with a long, majestic Garland meditation on "See See Rider" and that pretty much sets the tone. ~ Richard S. Ginelly, All Music Guide

Artist: Tomasz Stanko Quintet
Album: Freedom In August
Release Date: 2009
Label: ECM
Quality: FLAC (tracks)
Size: 172+167 MB

Польский трубач Томаш Станко получил международную известность, благодаря совместным работам с Krystof Komeda, Cecil Taylor, Jack DeJohnette и David Murray , а также известен по своим сольным выступлениям. В его звучании можно услышать все от фолка до фри джаза. Большинство его альбомов выпущено на престижном немецком лейбле ECM. На данном диске представлена его новая работа со Скандинавским квинтетом.

Tomasz Stanko’s smouldering Slavic soul music and grainy-toned trumpet finds a new context on Dark Eyes. Like his hero Miles Davis, the Polish jazz master also has an impressive record as talent scout and mentor, and his latest ensemble pools young players from Finland and Denmark – his ‘Nordic’ quintet – for what is an exciting and notable new album. It’s launched with a UK tour, including a concert at the London Jazz Festival. Tomasz has had strong connections to Finland in particular since the early 1970s when he was part of Edward Vesala’s creative circle.

Now he welcomes two prodigiously gifted Finns into his group, pianist Alexi Tuomarila and drummer Olavi Louhivuori, both expressive and imaginative players. On Dark Eyes, Jakob Bro, the young guitarist heard on ECM on Paul Motian’s Garden of Eden is cast most often in the role of subtle colourist, while fellow Dane Anders Christensen, on electric bass throughout, provides the band’s throbbing pulse.

The programme features new Stanko compositions, including “The Dark Eyes of Martha Hirsch”, inspired by an Oskar Kokoschka canvas, plus a new version of “Last Song” from Tomasz ECM debut “Balladyna”, as well as “Dirge for Europe” and “Etiuda baletowa nr. 3” - from the pen of Krzysztof Komeda. When Tomasz Stanko won the European Jazz Prize in 2002, the jury declared him: “A world-class player, a stylist, a charismatic performer and original composer – a true master and leader of European jazz… (with) a unique sound and personal music that is instantly recognizable and unmistakably his own...” His association with ECM goes back to 1975 but his three albums with his young Polish trio, Soul of Things, Suspended Night & Lontano hit a new level of international popularity.

     Artist: Jazz Quintet
     Album: Jazz Quintet 60
     Label: Universal Music (Japan)
     Year: 1962
     Quality: mp3, 320 kb/s
     Size: 83.5 mb

    Artist: Keith Jarrett
    Album: Hymns/Spheres 2 LP
    Label: ECM
    Release: 1976
    Style; Modern Classic
    Format mp3, bitrate: 192 kb/s (vinyl rip)
    Time: 1:32:05
    Size: 144 Mb

Restlessly searching out new territory for improvisations, Keith Jarrett tackles the massive Karl Joseph Riepp "Trinity" Baroque pipe organ at the Benedictine Abbey in Ottobeuren, Germany. He starts out with a pastoral "Hymn of Remembrance," then embarks upon a long nine-movement series of "Spheres" before closing with a grand "Hymn of Release." The devotee of Jarrett's piano will quickly discover that his organ idiom has nothing to do with his piano performances; he likes slow-moving, pulseless, sometimes dissonant, sometimes reverent or ecstatic smears of sound (which makes practical sense in the hugely reverberant churches where pipe organs are found). In the ninth movement, Jarrett can fool you into thinking that he is playing floating electronic space music (on an 18th-century organ!). Yet if one must apply a category, despite the improvisatory element, this double-CD is contemporary classical organ music, much closer to that of Olivier Messiaen than anything in the jazz world — and only intermittently as striking. (Note: on the single CD issue, only "Spheres" is listed). - Richard S. Ginell at AMG

    Artist: Keith Jarrett
    Album: Live at Open Theater East
    Studio: Image Entertainment
    Year: 1993
    Release: 2001
    Genre: jazz/post-bop
    Format avi, bitrate: 320 kb/s
    Time: 2:10:00
    Size: 1,12 Gb
    Bubu's Rating:

Superb audio, interesting video direction, three virtuoso players interacting for more than two hours: recorded jazz concerts don't get much better than this performance by the Keith Jarrett Trio. Pianist Jarrett, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and bassist Gary Peacock play two complete sets of standards in this 1993 Japanese concert. Watching them is fascinating--especially Jarrett, eyes scrunched in concentration, writhing intensely, coaxing and wrenching ideas from his keyboard, and punctuating his improvisations with weird, off-key vocalisms. But listening to them is even better. This is a group in perfect sync with one another; even a 26-minute version of Miles Davis's "Solar" and Jarrett's own "Extension" doesn't have a boring moment. You won't get much of a "show," per se--typically, Jarrett doesn't say a word to the audience--but that's hardly the point. With musicians this good, the playing's the thing. --Sam Graham at Amazon.com

    Artist: Keith Jarrett
    Album: Live at Umbria Jazz Festival 1974
    Label: bootleg
    Year: 1974
    Genre: jazz/post-bop
    Format mpg
    Time: 14:29
    Size: 140 Mb

Only 14 minutes of Jarrett piano solo. That's what we have here in this video taken from an Italian TV transmition (black & white of course). Comparing this solo improvisations with the famous Koln concert, from the same era, we find a complete different musical approach played on the same middle section of the keyboard. Here we have more themes and a much more diversity. While the video has a fair quality the sound suffers from a continuous background little noise, but this doesn't make Keith's marvelous performance less interesting.

     Artist: Bob Florence Limited Edition
     Album: Eternal Licks and Grooves
     Label: MAMA Records (MAA 1030)
     Release: 2007
     Format, bitrate: MP3 / var. br
     Time: 70 min
     Size: 104 MB
     AMG Rating


Bob Florence has built a reputation as a solid arranger and composer who has amassed quite a discography that extended nearly a half-century by the time this studio recording was made in the spring of 2006. Leading an all-star West Coast-based big band sprinkled with a few guest soloists, the pianist starts things off with his imaginative "Eternal Licks & Grooves," an IAJE-commissioned work saluting Count Basie that utilizes a repeated lick from Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" but not in a traditional swing setting. Claude Debussy's French Impressionist work "Claire de Lune" seems like a brand new composition after Florence applies his master strokes on the charts for his band, transforming it from a quiet ballad to an upbeat cooker. Branislaw Kaper's "Invitation" is a favorite of singers and instrumentalists alike, typically played in a bossa nova setting; Florence's approach is more reserved, gaining steam gradually and providing an excellent solo showcase for tenor saxophonist Jeff Driskill and trumpeter Steve Huffsteter. Finally, "Appearing in Cleveland" serves as a finale, saluting bandleader Stan Kenton and incorporating several of his most famous compositions in aFlorence's imaginative extended suite. Highly recommended! This CD was nominated in 2007 for a Grammy award as Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. ~ Ken Dryden, All Music Guide