The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

Wow thats kind of a relaxing change of pace
I was in more of a relaxed mood this evening, although I'm winding things up with Horace Silver (Song for my Father).
You'd probably like Four80East if you haven't checked them out yet. Nocturnal is probably my favorite, if I had to pick one album out of the bunch, but the just released Cherry Picked this year which is their first anthology. I also missed it, but they released a new album last March, Straight Round.

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The first track off of Nocturnal:

 
I was in more of a relaxed mood this evening, although I'm winding things up with Horace Silver (Song for my Father).
You'd probably like Four80East if you haven't checked them out yet. Nocturnal is probably my favorite, if I had to pick one album out of the bunch, but the just released Cherry Picked this year which is their first anthology. I also missed it, but they released a new album last March, Straight Round.

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The first track off of Nocturnal:


Thanks for sharing Rudy very enjoyable I love all kinds of instrumental music and this fits very nicely thanks again for introducing me to some new sounds ( at least new to me)
 
Thanks for sharing Rudy very enjoyable I love all kinds of instrumental music and this fits very nicely thanks again for introducing me to some new sounds ( at least new to me)
I was somewhat amazed when I started digging through their own YouTube account--they have their entire catalog of albums posted for listening. Of their albums, I've played the heck out of Nocturnal and En Route. Although I like all of them. Their style fits many things including groove, acid jazz, funk, house, maybe even ambient. It's that mash-up I enjoy, and it's kind of a unique style they've created for themselves. (Their history is in remixes for other artists, so this side-project kind of turned into a major gig for them, having been around for 21 years now.)

They now have all of the Four80East albums available for purchase at Bandcamp, both on CD and as downloads. If you're not familiar with Bandcamp, they have a minimum price to pay for albums, but you can offer to pay more for an album if you want to support them further. Four80East originally released their recordings on their own label Boomtang Records which was distributed by larger labels, but Bandcamp gives them a more direct path to their fans, and they can release albums at will.
 
I am really liking the Four80East EP Four on the Floor which I got from Bandcamp a couple of days ago. (I hadn't seen it prior to that, but it was released in 2018.) DeBoer and Grace have long been known for remixes (outside of Four80East) and for tapping into soul/funk grooves on some of their tunes. Their album Roll On squarely tackles some of the early to mid 70s funk, soul and fusion. This one is unabashedly made for the dance floor...circa the early 80s. It is an excellent throwback to similar music, yet it still features a few jazz breaks throughout, along with the touches the duo is known for.



The second tune on the EP, "Are You Ready?", features vocals by A&M recording artist CeCe Peniston--she fits this music like a glove. (This video is a playlist of the entire EP.)
 
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The duo of Rob DeBoer and Tony Grace worked together with Tony's brother Paul Grace as The Boomtang Boys, prior to forming Four80East. While they were known for remixing and production, they had a #1 Billboard hit in Canada for four weeks with "Squeak Toy" (featuring Kim Esty on vocals), the video also having won Best Dance Video on the Much Music Video Awards for 1999.



They also had a hit with a techno remake of a 70s single. "Popcorn (Microwave Mix)":



Their Boomtang Boys track that kind of lit the fire for Four80East was "Noodle Soup," here in its original 12" single version:



They rerecorded this for the En Route album, which was about the time they broke out of the studios and put together a band to perform live.
 
I'm enjoying the latest Matt Bianco album - "Matt Bianco and New Cool Collective - High Anxiety" - released late last year, and available on Bandcamp ...



 
I'm enjoying the latest Matt Bianco album - "Matt Bianco and New Cool Collective - High Anxiety" - released late last year, and available on Bandcamp ...
I've queued it up in Qobuz to listen to later. 👍👍 Been a while since I've played any Matt Bianco.

I also didn't realize they had an album from 2017, Gravity and The Things You Love from 2016. Queued those also. The latter has a few Nicola Conte remixes as the final two tracks.
 
I am a huge fan. I have everything from the beginning, but this one. He sneaks up on me with a new release about once a year or so. The last one I bought was Indigo 30th Anniversary Edition last summer. Will order today. Always fun. Thanks Murray.
 
Two of the members from Toto release solo albums, singer Joseph Williams "Denzien Tenant" & the only original member of Toto, guitarist Steve Lukeather "I Found The Sun Again". I will get those in the Summer.
 
Back when Basia's second album first came out, one of the local stations was playing "Half A Minute" from Whose Side Are You On? regularly.

I knew that Peter White, who played on her recordings, also had his own solo career in contemporary jazz. The times I saw her in concert was around the time his first album came out. What I didn't realize until a few years later, when I started listening to Al Stewart, is that Peter White was the guitarist on those earlier albums like Year of the Cat and Time Passages. That explained why the guitar sounded familiar.
 
Back when Basia's second album first came out, one of the local stations was playing "Half A Minute" from Whose Side Are You On? regularly.

I knew that Peter White, who played on her recordings, also had his own solo career in contemporary jazz. The times I saw her in concert was around the time his first album came out. What I didn't realize until a few years later, when I started listening to Al Stewart, is that Peter White was the guitarist on those earlier albums like Year of the Cat and Time Passages. That explained why the guitar sounded familiar.
Al Stewart also was a Guest artist on the Smooth Jazz group Windows Album " The French Laundry" he Sang on the title Track one of their best early albums IMO
 
The vinyl arrived early this afternoon. Now spinning this:

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The other record won't be here for another month yet, or maybe a little more--pressing plants are backed up and it's in the queue waiting to be manufactured. It's the remix album. Also a great album cover layout!

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Wow...



That tune was begging to be set to words, and Zizi Possi did it up with just the right amount of emotion. I was searching for Milton Nascimento's reading of it, but came across hers first.

The music is by the late, great Lyle Mays, and under its original title "Close to Home," it is one of my top favorites among his recordings.

 
I've been sending this to random speakers in the house today... :whistle:




(So yeah, it's from the same duo who make up Four80East. 😁 Rob DeBoer is performing the sped-up vocals and keyboards; Tony Grace is doing the rap and percussion. Literally a world of difference!)
 
I've been sending this to random speakers in the house today... :whistle:




(So yeah, it's from the same duo who make up Four80East. 😁 Rob DeBoer is performing the sped-up vocals and keyboards; Tony Grace is doing the rap and percussion. Literally a world of difference!)

Sounds suspiciously like the Whistle-Stop Song from Walt Disney's Robin Hood, written by Roger Miller.
 
Sounds suspiciously like the Whistle-Stop Song from Walt Disney's Robin Hood, written by Roger Miller.
Disney didn't allow them to use their original recording, so they made their own.

This tune and video, silly as it is, was one of the very first Internet sensations (and CNet in 2005 named it the #1 Web fad). The Wikipedia link above describes it more fully, but the short version is that an art student created several GIFs of dancing hamsters and put them on a Geocities Web page with a sped up nine second loop of the Roger Miller tune, naming it after her pet Hampton the Hamster. After it became so wildly popular, it was expanded upon into a full song and video. Boomtang Boys rerecorded and expanded it for that video (crediting Roger Miller) and the full tune led to a series of Hamster-themed recordings, almost like a modern-day Chipmunks phenomenon.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine....


The link to that site was often used as a prank on office computers, when someone would change a coworker's home page to the Hampsterdance page. A precursor to being "Rickrolled." 😁
 
I discovered this album today by keyboardist Pat Coil. Meticulously recorded on the Sheffield Lab label, these performances were all recorded direct to 2-track, so, no mixing or overdubs. Thankfully available on Qobuz.

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I only included the one credit here, as there are many great musicians who also appear on the recording. The credit here is incorrect as Lyle did not perform on the album, but arranged and produced it. His recorded output under his own name only includes five albums, six if you include the duo album with Pat Metheny. But he had played on a few other recordings or like this one, arranged and produced it (some tracks with fellow Metheny Group member Steve Rodby).

This one is a very nice recording, both in sound quality and the music therein. Very nice contemporary jazz with a lot of well-known names playing on it.

The following I only listened to the first track on (via YouTube):

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The notable thing about this big band album? It features the work of Lyle Mays from 1975. The album is notable for two additional reasons. First, it's the first NTSU album where a single person has arranged all the tunes on the album, and composed all but one of them (a Chick Corea tune is the only one Lyle didn't compose). Second, it was the first college/university big band album to be nominated for a Grammy award. Even back then, Lyle's arranging and composing was being noticed...in a big way. The "Lab" series of NTSU Lab Band albums were released once a year and, I believe, they still are to this day, as I found a handful of recent releases from the past few years.
 
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This is some gooood stuff. It satisfies my appetite for 60s-era soul-jazz-funk with a gritty Hammond B-3, guitar and drums. Think Booker T. & the MGs. The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio's third album was released in January this year on Colemine Records.

More, please!

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