From Wikipedia:
"...Fairuz (Arabic: فيروز, also spelled Fairouz or Fayrouz) is a distinguished Lebanese singer and one of the best known Arab singers of all time. Her songs are heard all over the Arab world and still spark Lebanese national pride...She was born in Jabal al Arz (Cedar Mountain) to a modest Syriac Catholic family and was married to Assi Rahbani, one of the two brothers who helped shaping her singing career. She is also the mother of the Lebanese singer and composer Ziad Rahbani and the Lebanese director and photographer Rima Rahbani.
Fairuz is sometimes referred to as Our (Lebanese) Ambassador to the Stars, Neighbour to the Moon, and the Poet of the Voice..."
This record,
Alquds Fil Baal (Jerusalem in My Heart), is her "love letter" to the city of Jerusalem...Gorgeous and worthy of many plays...
Download:Fairuz - Alquds Fil Baal (Jerusalem in My Heart)
From All Music:
"...Versus perfected the art of writing atmospheric songs that build and explode around the three-minute mark, revving up the hooks and drama into a compelling climax. Afterglow, however, seems to intentionally avoid the explosion -- it seems as if the band wants to write more composed, pop-oriented songs that can stand up even without the obvious power behind them. For the most part, this works -- "Raining" lays off on the fuzz in favor of complex, midtempo pop, and "Off the Hook" is gorgeous (in the vein of The Stars Are Insane's "Wind Me Up") -- but diehard fans of the band's early material may miss the crushing hooks."
Yes, it works...
Download:
Versus - Afterglow
From
AMG:
"Perico Sambeat, an overlooked Spanish altoist and composer, recorded this album in 1995 with the help of future superstars Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Mark Turner. Michael Leonhart, the underrated trumpeter, is the session's third horn. In the rhythm section are Joe Martin on bass, Jordi Rossy on drums, and both Guillermo McGill and Enric Canada on percussion. Enrique Morente contributes vocals on three tracks...Sambeat's Latin jazz compositions present the listener with an unusually dramatic sweep, a breathtaking landscape of beautiful melodies, striking harmonic colors, churning, multi-layered rhythms, subtle dynamics, and brilliant solos..."
This is a lovely record. Well worth the download time...
Download:
Perico Sambeat - Ademuz
There is a lot more to this compilation than I expected. What little contact I had with the label led me to believe that if you were not a Sufjan Stevens clone you need not apply...The label's website lists him as "Minister of Aesthetics" and that seems very apt...but there's more than that going on...
The Welcome Wagon, in particular are a treat. Though Stevens produced their record their unique style holds its own against The Minister's Aesthetic...
In all there are 27 tracks. If you are up for a little adventure in sound, I invite you to...
Download:Achoo! An Asthmatic Kitty Sampler Vol. 2
I have been quietly adjusting the plumbing behind the scenes so I decided to put up some new sheet rock and paint, too. Whattya think?
The big things for me is that I think it is a little easier to access all three of my music blogs now, to share individual posts and to find Burning Dervish on
Twitter and
Facebook, which more and more people seem interested in doing. The number of subscribers to the site's
RSS feed and
email list has spiked since the re-launch, too, so I guess it's all going according to plan...buhahahaha
Anyway, would welcome your thoughts...
Soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, reggae...yeah this joint has everything...some really, really sweet vinyl rips and scans...
the Redd Foxx post alone is worth your while...
Dig
FORREALHEADZ
Music Review - Steve Kuhn - At Birdland, Revisiting an Old Boss Named Coltrane - NYTimes.com:
"The pianist Steve Kuhn can play John Coltrane’s music meaningfully without sounding as if he lives by it. That shows self-possession, for a couple of reasons. Coltrane was the most influential jazz musician in the late 1950s and 1960s, when Mr. Kuhn got started. And Mr. Kuhn, now 71, also has something many of his peers don’t: a small but significant association with Coltrane on the bandstand...He played with the first version of Coltrane’s quartet, in the spring of 1960, during a long gig at the Jazz Gallery in the East Village before McCoy Tyner took over to finish the run. And that was it...Nearly 50 years later he has released a quartet record of Coltrane’s music, “Mostly Coltrane” (ECM). On Tuesday at Birdland he played some of it — elegantly — in a group that put the saxophonist Joe Lovano alongside Mr. Kuhn’s regular working trio, with David Finck on bass and Billy Drummond on drums..."
From Wikipedia:
"Reid Anderson is a bassist and composer originally from Minnesota...best known for his work in The Bad Plus with pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer Dave King. In 1998, Anderson and his trio...released the album Dirty Show Tunes to widespread critical and popular acclaim from the jazz community. A second album, Abolish Bad Architecture, was released a year later...This album generated even more attention..."
From AMG:
"...Abolish Bad Architecture is another exemplary showcase for the young bassist/composer and his fiery quartet. Jeff Ballard...on drums, deftly handling the complex rhythmic structures...Tenor saxophonist Mark Turner and pianist Ethan Iverson contribute some of their finest playing on record. The final selection, "Hommage: Mahler," contains whiffs of the "Adagietto" movement of Gustav Mahler's "Symphony No. 2." Anderson places the plaintive melody over a soft-rock drum beat, which somehow makes perfect musical sense. Only a superior conceptualist could pull something like this off."
Really a lovely record, deserving of many spins. Thank you, Craig, for the introduction to this one...
Download:Reid Anderson -
Abolish Bad Architecture
There is really no other way to say it: this record, this band, is just muthacluckin'
fun...
I first came across these guys in the late '90s...we had one of their CDs in an office I worked in and we played it constantly...it added a certain, um...levity to the environment...
I wound up with a copy of that disc but lost it...I recently came across the band again on eMusic and though they don't have that first album, I dug in with this one...yes, I will get them all at some point...
This music is sort of Austin Powers meets Jobim in
the house at the end of Zabriskie Point...
Listen to the tracks 'Hu Ha' and "Another B' and try not to smile. Let me know how that goes...
Download:Montefiori Cocktail: A Taste Of...Part 1
This site looks like it has gone silent but you should peep it out anyway...
"Famous reggae author Door Peeper & Mista P from the Port-O-Jam Sound System present new podcasts & achive shows from their Internet Radio Show on (defunct) GlobalGrooving.com A mixture of new releases, roots, revival from ska 2 skinhead 2 roots oldies 2 jazz rare grooves & some old chat"
Why should you care? Well, see, the podcasts are still up and running and they are well worth your time...streaming and download available...though not a main focus of the site, there are also
a bunch of scans of vintage reggae vinyl labels.
Dig
DoorJam Archive
Let's open with some brief excerpts from
a great review from AMG:
"...the pre-Messengers quintet heard on this first volume of live club dates at Birdland in New York City provides solid evidence to the assertion that this ensemble was a one of a kind group the likes of which was not heard until the mid-'60s Miles Davis Quintet...This recording, as well as subsequent editions of these performances, launches an initial breakthrough for Blakey and modern jazz in general, and defines the way jazz music could be heard for decades thereafter. Everybody must own copies of all volumes of A Night at Birdland."
There is an epic take on "A Night in Tunisia" but the highlight for me is a Horace Silver composition, "Quicksilver"...
Download:Art Blakey Quintet - A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1
