The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

Autumn music...

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There is an interesting back story on this from George Duke on how it came to pass:

This recording came about as the result of a party at Quincy Jones home. I had three movements in my sequencer. My manager had spoken to Claude Nobs, of the Montreux Festival, about doing a jazz/orchestral evening featuring this piece.
Quincy Jones was having a birthday party for Claude, so I went to celebrate his birthday and give him the tape to listen to at his leisure. Well, Quincy put it on without my knowledge, and it got very quiet at the party as everyone started to listen intently. After the first movement, Claude and Quincy raved that we had to do this at the Festival that year.
So, they commissioned me to finish the piece and debut it at the Festival. Matt agreed to release it on Warners. It was really tough dealing with an orchestra that was partially hostile. I won't go into detail because I am very happy to have the Suite documented on CD. However, many, many hours went into fixing these tracks, which should not have happened with musicians of that caliber. I have since performed it with other orchestras with an amazing result.
The featured musicians are Stanley Clarke on bass, Chester Thompson on drums, and Paulinho Da Costa on percussion.
Each phase, or movement, represents a different aspect of what Muir Woods means to me. I used to camp there as a young boy, and I remember being frightened and in awe of the giant trees and foliage - the sounds - the smells. I tried to bring all this to the Suite.

George Duke :: 1990s Discography
 
I'm new to this thread (how did it take me 20 years?)---so I don't know if the first album was covered, but Jeff Goldlum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra's second album, I SHOULDN'T BE TELLING YOU THIS, dropped November first, and it's fantastic:

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Album number one was a live session at the Capitol Tower and came out last year:

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Both are big fun, everyone plays their tails off and there are some surprising guest vocalists. It's not steeped in nostalgia and it's not handled like they're afraid of breaking something (Diana Krall, call your office)---it's just great songs done the way Jeff and company believe they should be done.
 
I recently found another one of the Capitol Ultra-Lounge CDs I wish I could have purchased back when they came out 20 years ago (I managed to only afford a few at the time). This one is BongoLand. It is as enjoyable as any other in the series, especially if you're a percussion fan.

What I found interesting was track 19 entitled "Colon" performed by Augie Colon. Augie Colon was a member of Martin Denny's Exotica group which also included Julius Wechter. The composer credit is "J. Wechter." Naturally I was excited to hear a Wechter tune I'd never previously heard... But sadly, it has nothing in the way of a melody that cries out "WECHTER!!!" It is just bongos and other percussion (no tuned percussion like marimbas, bells, vibes etc.) with the band yelling out "Colon!" after every verse. But it is interesting to hear a "pre-TJB/BMB Wechter tune. (I have not yet found or heard Linear Sketches).

--Mr Bill
 
I recently found another one of the Capitol Ultra-Lounge CDs I wish I could have purchased back when they came out 20 years ago (I managed to only afford a few at the time). This one is BongoLand. It is as enjoyable as any other in the series, especially if you're a percussion fan.

What I found interesting was track 19 entitled "Colon" performed by Augie Colon. Augie Colon was a member of Martin Denny's Exotica group which also included Julius Wechter. The composer credit is "J. Wechter." Naturally I was excited to hear a Wechter tune I'd never previously heard... But sadly, it has nothing in the way of a melody that cries out "WECHTER!!!" It is just bongos and other percussion (no tuned percussion like marimbas, bells, vibes etc.) with the band yelling out "Colon!" after every verse. But it is interesting to hear a "pre-TJB/BMB Wechter tune. (I have not yet found or heard Linear Sketches).

--Mr Bill
Out of that series I have Bossa Novaville and TV Town it was a great series and I like you unfortunately couldn't afford everything but those two were my favorite standouts
 
I put together an "originals" playlist on Qobuz, which covers the eleven tunes on The Mavericks' Play The Hits. Screenshot from Roon Player:

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Track #12 is performed by Dale & Grace, buried on a compilation CD. Strange I had trouble finding it, since I'm not that big of a listener of classic country, but I know that version of the song. (And not the Donny & Marie version...please! :D Linda Ronstadt also covered it.)

The only one I got hung up on was "Don't You Ever Get Tired (Of Hurting Me)". Ray Price had the original hit version that peaked at #11 on the Billboard Country chart, and it sounds closer to the version The Mavericks recorded on their new record. Yet Ronnie Milsap's version was #1 and a lot more popular. Some of these were covered by multiple artists, yet I found the original and/or most known versions. "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" dates back to Roy Acuff's original 1947, but is a tune that redefined Willie Nelson's career and without a doubt was the version most are familiar with.

I also forgot I had the Patsy Cline tune on a 2-LP 45 RPM set from Analogue Productions. That's old age for ya. :laugh:
 
Just heard The Ides Of March featuring Jim Peterik latest CD "Play On" which I downloaded on itunes. The song "Swagger" (featuring Mark Farner, former singer of Grand Funk Railroad) pays tribute to Mick Jagger. There is also the MONO 1970 45 single of "Vehicle" at the end of the CD which runs 58:45 in total time. This song "Song About Mary" (with David Pack of Ambrosia) is a great song which almost sounds like The Beach Boys.
 
Due out in February, 2020. Here's a preview track from Pat Metheny's upcoming album From This Place.



This album will be featuring some orchestrations. Unlike Secret Story, this one seems like the orchestrations will be darker and more complex--Alan Broadbent and Gil Goldstein are the two arrangers on this album (along with Pat's own arranging on one track). This is the culmination of touring with his current Side Eye band lineup over hundreds of gigs, going into the studio with music they have not yet "road tested," seeing it for the first time.

This track here is somewhat cinematic, and I suspect the rest will be similar.
 
Is that Broadbent at the keys? I met him in the late '60's when he was playing with Woody Herman...Man, he was good(still is)!
 
Is that Broadbent at the keys? I met him in the late '60's when he was playing with Woody Herman...Man, he was good(still is)!
That's British pianist Gwilym Simcock. Alan Broadbent has done only orchestrations on this record.

What's interesting is that Pat was partially inspired, many years ago, by the A&M/CTi albums, particularly how the orchestrations (by Don Sebesky and others) were wrapped around the jazz musicians. This isn't the first time he has mentioned it--he has particularly singled out Wes Montgomery's recordings, even on A&M, as being influential in his early days.

This is an excerpt of the notes Pat has written for the new album. I wanted to keep the quote brief, but there was so much background to the process that I wanted to include it all. In a sense, his comments about the Hollywood orchestra bring to mind the soundtrack work of Henry Mancini, and how he included the cream of the crop of west coast jazz musicians in his scores.

As we launched into the first day of recording, I had another light bulb moment.

As we were playing, I started hearing things in my head that were not there on the page - yet.

I understood quickly that these pieces were demanding orchestration, expansion, and color. Somehow while composing, I had the sense that the nature of what I was working on for these upcoming sessions contained a broader view of something, but I wasn't able to identify it until we actually started recording.

Right away, I started altering the music to allow for that, to make room for this other layer I was imagining, encouraging everyone to leave spaces for other yet undefined details to emerge. What began as a distant vision suddenly blossomed into a central aspect of what makes this record unlike any other that I have done.

As much as folks might describe the sonic language of the avant-garde movement of the Sixties as falling into an identifiable generic sound, I have always regarded the general expansion of creativity of that era in a more ecumenical way.

The stylistic changes that occurred then in our community included not only the obvious examples of individual players utilizing extended techniques on their instruments in new ways, or new types of ensembles, but also the wildly new approaches that technology, particular recording technology, offered.

Multi-track recording allowed for entirely new kinds of music to be made.

It is unlikely that the recordings of the CTI label of that time would likely never be thought of as "avant-garde" by garden variety jazz critics of that (or probably any other) era. But from my seat as a young fan, the idea of an excellent and experienced arranger like Don Sebesky taking the improvised material of great musicians like Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter and weaving their lines and voicings into subsequent orchestration was not only a new kind of arranging; it resulted in a different kind of sound and music.

It was a way of presenting music that represented the impulses of the players and the improvisers at hand through orchestration in an entirely new way. I loved those records.

This will not be the first recording of mine where that equation - record first, orchestrate later - has come up. But it is by far the most extensive one, and I would offer the most organic. From the first notes we recorded, this was the destination I had in mind.

To assist in the next stage, I brought in two of my favorite musicians and two of the most distinguished and advanced arrangers on the scene today; the magnificent Alan Broadbent and the endlessly inventive Gil Goldstein. Having worked with both of them before, I knew them both to be exactly the right fit for what this music was asking for.

I split up the tracks between the two of them based on what material I thought they would each be most inspired by and gave each of them a few directions as to when what and where I was hearing things. In short order, they both produced brilliant charts that enhanced and colored what I had composed while referencing the performances themselves on the tracks they were assigned. (Saving at least one tune and parts of a few others for myself too.) It was thrilling to get their takes on this music and to marvel at the angles and dimensions they both were able to uncover.

Somehow a reference to film scoring and American movie music in general was sitting there just under the surface all along the way. While it is certainly possible to go to eastern Europe to record orchestral music (as is often the case these days for budgetary reasons), I felt that the essence of this music was so American in nature that if it were in any way possible, it needed to be done here in the States - and in Los Angeles in particular. There is a certain quality of rhythmic intensity as well as general excellence produced by the best film scoring studio musicians out there that I have never heard anywhere else.

Thanks to the efforts of the excellent conductor Joel McNeely and his associates, a scenario where we were able to not only get the best players in LA to perform under Joel's exemplary leadership but also to record it all in one of the best sound stages unfolded. We were able to achieve precisely the sound that I was hoping we might be able to get to.
 
"It is unlikely that the recordings of the CTI label of that time would never be thought of as avant-garde..."

Double negative, Pat. But I love your albums, so I'll be listening.

"Last Train Home" still leaves me feeling the way it did the first time I heard it 30-some years ago.
 
Some new ones today. The group Los Super Seven is like a collective/supergroup of core musicians and a wide range of guests. These two are excellent! Heard It On The 'X' gets its name from an early ZZ Top tune that pays tribute to the Mexican radio stations (which begin with the call letter "X") they used to listen to in south Texas. I singled out some of the featured artists in the lists below:



 
This is a stellar rendition of the Latin classic "Siboney."



While "The Burro Song" is a lot of fun:



Notable on the Canto album is Caetano Veloso's "Baby," which Bebel Gilberto covered on her self-titled second album.
 
This is promising. I've had this for a few months but have only gotten around to giving it a play:

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The credits read like a who's who of Latin music, including Luisito Quintero, Jorge Pardo, Michael Rodriguez, Ruben Blades, Maria Bianca, Nino Joselle, and others. So far it is very much in a Spanish/Latin groove but has layers of complexity here. Very nice!
 
This is why I like having a Qobuz subscription. I was looking through the Tamba Trio catalog and was curious to see what Luiz Eça had performed on his own. I had read in a bio that he had once recorded some of his compositions with strings, and I found the album Reencontro, which is that project. Anyone familiar with Tamba 4 will recognize this one:



The strings get some interesting arranging. This is the Tamba Trio tune "Tamba" (one of their finest tracks) redone with this configuration:



The original from the early 60s:



The nice part about Qobuz is that I can buy the album for $8.99 as a CD-quality lossless download. It was likely on CD at some point, but it's a crap shoot trying to find these older CDs.
 
So this new release is out on a mega-vinyl set. It's one of those I would consider if it were dirt cheap, but it's not...

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This is the super-ultra-mega-ginormous-whatever set (5 CDs, and I think 10 LPs) that has the original album remastered, alternate edits/remixes/b-sides, a bunch of studio outtakes, and a final set of tunes from the Masonic Hall (Detroit) gig, late show, 11/30/1982. I attended one of his handful of Masonic shows during one of those November dates, so it's an interesting artifact.

But here's the thing. I have an earlier 180 gram set that was supposedly "remastered" and feel it sounds fine. Would I like the b-sides? I have all three of those on another set, as well as on original vinyl. There really was only one remix (for "Little Red Corvette") and I already have that on an import 12" single since it was never released in the US except as a promo. The 7" single edits don't interest me, and there are many.

This set kind of outlines why I really don't like these mega-sets. The few studio outtakes I've sampled...well, let's be kind to the dearly departed and simply say that there are a reason Prince never issued these recordings. It reminds of those Beatles Anthology sets--something you listen to once out of curiosity and never play again.

As much as I'm a "completist" here, the studio stuff is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Prince saw his albums as complete projects, and his strength was also in live performance in his second decade and beyond, when he would jam onstage and turn familiar tunes inside out, the entire band in sync, an ensemble as tight as anything James Brown ever dealt. I don't care to hear him experimenting in the studio, especially in rough mixes. The set promised a "full" version of "Delirious" but if it's from the same performance as the album version, it has an odd, stuffy mix to it that is unsettling.

That same unsettling feeling happens with the live tracks. It's was taken off of the soundboard, but I don't know if it was recorded on the spot as 2-channel or a multitrack. So for that reason, I have to give the live tracks a pass since they have to mix for live sound over recorded. But if this were mixed recently, it's awkward sounding with his voice too far up in the mix.

I should also say this is perhaps my favorite of everything in his catalog; it certainly was the most played. So I would give five stars to the original album, four stars for the alleged remastering (sounds a bit stuffy to me), and one star for the extras.
 
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Something a little better:

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OK, a lot better. This is jazz bassist Kyle Eastwood's latest. The album opens with the Lalo Schifrin theme to "Bullitt," and it's a winner. One listen and you have a feel for the entire album. There are enough echoes of the theme throughout the tune, as well as the melody opening and closing the track. In between, plenty of room for some tasteful solos, without the typical noodling. Included here are tunes from the films "Taxi Driver," "Charade," "The Pink Panther," "Gran Torino, "The Eiger Sanction" and "Unforgiven," the latter two possibly having some ties to a relation of Kyle's. 😉 The sound is in sumptuous high-res, with kind of a smoky nightclub feel. Definitely a winner here!
 
There was an album pre-release EP that had the full "1999," one (?) other track, and "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" that I saw once in a local record store. I figured the album would be out soon and I didn't need it. Turns out "How Come" wasn't on the album but was the first B-side on the "1999" single, and I was never able to find that again afterwards and had to settle for that 45 RPM single. I didn't have it digitally until his 3-CD "Hits" package was released, where the third disc was all B-sides. In typical record company fashion, you could buy discs 1 and 2 as volumes 1 and 2 of the hits, but the B-sides disc that everyone wanted was only sold in the set. Although I think there may have been one or two tracks on the first two discs that were new recordings.
 
This one is playing currently:

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The first album by Bill Evans, from 1957. Even at this early stage, he already had his own unique, melodic style. Three of the tunes are solo, including the first studio recording of "Waltz for Debby," and the rest feature drummer Paul Motian and bassist Teddy Kotick.
 
My late dad had this album called Ira Ironstrings Plays With Matches (1959 on Warner Bros.). Problem is, it is NOT on itunes BUT the Christmas album is only available. This is the complete STEREO version. I do have the MONO album version on the blue logo than the light brown WB logo.
 
He was quite popular back in his era and time. Was married to one of the King sisters from the King Family. They were 4 sisters, the King Sisters, that sang great harmonies together. They had a huge extended family, their children were known as the King Cousins. They all had albums out in the 60’s. There are a couple of DVD’s available too. I remember watching them on tv every year. Fun to play at Christmas Time.
 
"Was" spinning in Miami...



(I'd hate to correct Raul on his spelling though. :D )
 
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