The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

From what I can figure, once an art form become stable -- that is obvious progression / development has ceased -- subsequent artists act more as caretakers to maintain the now established form. (For instance, compare the development of jazz 1920-1970 to 1970-2020...need I say more?)
For the recording I mentioned, I almost want to say it's watered down, and too meticulous. Latin percussion is present, but it's not doing "Latin percussion things," like creating fire, or a mood (like in a bolero or guajira). It's almost like window dressing. Or faux Latin--add the right percussion instruments and play in standard Latin rhythms. Almost like Pepe LePew's faux French...
 
Friday night it's party time feeling ready looking fine...
Funny. Almost 20 years ago in the throes of my Corrs fandom, I was on the computer one Sunday morning and somehow stumbled on the fact that a song was fast becoming "the" new dance/song/craze all over Europe and it was called "The Ketchup Song". Finding the audio somewhere on the 2000's Internet, I was smitten with the song - but in all Spanish, although I understand that even much of the lyrics mean nothing in Spanish. This is the version I was taken with. It wasn't too long before I had the chorus syllables memorized.



When I listened to that English version, it sounded all wrong.
 
Funny. Almost 20 years ago in the throes of my Corrs fandom, I was on the computer one Sunday morning and somehow stumbled on the fact that a song was fast becoming "the" new dance/song/craze all over Europe and it was called "The Ketchup Song". Finding the audio somewhere on the 2000's Internet, I was smitten with the song - but in all Spanish, although I understand that even much of the lyrics mean nothing in Spanish. This is the version I was taken with. It wasn't too long before I had the chorus syllables memorized.



When I listened to that English version, it sounded all wrong.

Speaking of the Corrs, didn't they do a song in Spanglish? The title escapes me at the moment. I know that it's not "Una Noche", as I think that was all in Spanish.

I'm amazed at all the interesting music I'm discovering on YouTube, from other regions of the world. The video I posted today is from Romania, of all places, and the past month I've been immersing myself in Russian and Ukrainian music.
 
Speaking of the Corrs, didn't they do a song in Spanglish?
I found it! The song was "Me iré (The Hardest Day)" - a duet with Alejandro Sanz.



Then, there was the version that was just titled "The Hardest Day", in which Alejandro sang his parts entirely in English.

 
More new stuff. (Included in this haul are The Pentangle's first three releases (1968-69); The two Helen Merrill / Dick Katz albums (1965, 1968) and Aimee Mann's new CD -- released two weeks ago!)

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I must give a thumbs up to The Pentangle (and Bert Jansch's solo work)...

But in keeping with Murray's "Friday Night" theme (though it's Monday now) I offer "Los Hijos De Pantaleon" by Sparx... (NOT the Mael Brothers band Sparks, mind you)



--Mr Bill
 
This is a recording that kind of slipped past me years ago. In a way, it is almost like a throwback to the brass-oriented Crusaders albums, with more of a funk/groove feel to the music than Sample's easier albums.

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The tunes are all Joe Sample originals, save the Lee Morgan classic "The Sidewinder" which the band has a lot of fun with here as they stick to Morgan's version with some added funk in the mix. And Sample is really enjoying himself here as well.

 
I don't want to call this John Klemmer album a Brazilian version of Touch, but its relaxed vibe is reminiscent of that album, and in a good way. All of the tracks, save one ("Summertime"), are penned by Klemmer. The list of backing musicians is notable here--Jorge Dalto, Airto Moreira, Paulinho da Costa, Alex Acuña, Oscar Castro-Neves, Lenny White, Victor Feldman, Abe Laboriel and Bob Magnusson. Where Touch was centered around a Rhodes and acoustic guitar accompaniment, Brazilia wins with its easygoing Brazilian groove throughout.


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This is "Tropical Snowflakes."

 
I don't want to call this John Klemmer album a Brazilian version of Touch, but its relaxed vibe is reminiscent of that album, and in a good way. All of the tracks, save one ("Summertime"), are penned by Klemmer. The list of backing musicians is notable here--Jorge Dalto, Airto Moreira, Paulinho da Costa, Alex Acuña, Oscar Castro-Neves, Lenny White, Victor Feldman, Abe Laboriel and Bob Magnusson. Where Touch was centered around a Rhodes and acoustic guitar accompaniment, Brazilia wins with its easygoing Brazilian groove throughout.


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This is "Tropical Snowflakes."


I have this CD and I throughly enjoy it the track "Bahia" is my favorite I remember playing it a lot in my radio rotations over the years it fit very nicely into my mellow music playlists
 
Klemmer spent part of a year in one of Don Ellis's big bands. I only recently found the live album, Don Ellis at Fillmore, where Klemmer had arranged and featured as a soloist. I've probably posted this before, but here's "Excursion II" which he also performed on his Cadet Concept album Blowin' Gold.

The breakneck-paced Ellis version really goes off the rails at about 2:50. 😁 (A good example of his "playing/yelling" style that he used as a party trick every so often.)




The slightly more tame version, called "Excursion #2," from the wild Blowin' Gold.

 
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Kenny Drew. Not well known in the US, Drew relocated permanently to Northern Europe in the early '60s. Although he recorded several duo and trio LPs, I have none at this time. He's a good composer of melodic hard bop melodies. The quintet date above is in the early '60s Blue Note mode.
 
Does anyone think Raya Yarbrough has a voice similar to Lani Hall? The first time I heard this song, I immediately thought of Lani singing "We Could Be Flying."
 
So here's an album by composer Cy Coleman. The lead-off track, "Playboy's Theme," is one I know well from Mancini's Combo! album, which featured a small big band type combo like the Peter Gunn records, but with a harpischord.

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I don't know what kind of drinks the dude poured for these girls, but I certainly never had all that lavish attention whenever I sat down at the piano! 😁
 
Quite a delightful little album from the early 50s.

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There is also his final album, Yeah!, which leads off with the Horace Silver track "Yeah". Silver's melody is already playful, and Jolly dances around the keys with it. The album features his long-time working trio featuring Chuck Berghofer and Nick Martinis. I believe they had been together for about 25 years at this point.



The one thing these two albums have in common is that both feature "Diablo's Dance," an early Shorty Rogers composition. It just shows that even after decades, Jolly never tired of playing many of these tunes.
 
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Bill Evans. Like Thelonious Monk, Evans burst onto the scene with a unique and singular approach regarding both piano technique and songwriting...and like Monk he changed very little throughout his recording career. It can be easily said that 1948 Monk is consistent with 1968 Monk; too, 1958 Bill Evans is pretty much the same with 1978 Bill Evans. As such Evans, like Monk, is recognized as a point source for a stylistic change, shift, addition or what have you within the realm of "jazz". Similarly with Monk and his first dates at Blue Note, Evans' first dates with Riverside are the most sought after. Given that by far the majority of Evans' releases were trio dates indicates he had little long-term interest in ensemble interplay.
 
That's why I like Bill Evans' recordings so much--I can pick nearly any album of his (especially from the Riverside era, and some of the Verve titles as well) and know what to expect. I'd be hard pressed to pick an absolute favorite--I was all about Moondreams for a while, and then Explorations...and the two Village Vanguard albums which I tend to play back to back, being from the same gig.

That's one thing I had asked Chad at Analogue Productions--he had reissued a boxed set of all the Riverside albums at 45 RPM and they sounded fantastic, but were long out of print by the time I asked. As he put it, he kept throwing money offers at the label but never got a response. There is still demand for that set, pricey as it was. That body of work is a gold standard among Evans enthusiasts.
 
New Passion #1: Solo acoustic guitar. I've always been a fan of acoustic instrumental guitar (both my father and uncle played...), but of late, I'm really liking the way the instrument is managed by far East musicians. Yang (from China) and Muraji (from Japan) program a combination of "classical" pieces with a couple pop tunes sprinkled here and there. Park (from South Korea), on the other hand, appears to be fully "classical" focused. There's a unique attention to melodic detail that I like with these offerings. Yang has been recording for about 25 years and Muraji for about 20. Park is younger and has been at it for nearly 10 years. Luckily, the CD is alive and well in the far East so these issues are available.

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