Dee Dee Bridgewater – Afro Blue

barabara sounds sez:
Dee Dee's first, she was just 23 and she sounds as beautiful as she looks. What a debut. And what a great band she had behind her too, led by the Bridgewater brothers and with Sir Roland too. But this show is all about Dee Dee, especially her take on the title track. Far too good to be OOP. Dusty doesn't disapprove...


dusty sez:
One of the greatest jazz vocal albums of all time – and one of the first true moments of genius from a young Dee Dee Bridgewater! The album's a Japanese only release (proof that they're always hipper to our jazz artists than we are!) – and it features Dee Dee singing material that's quite different than her later R&B-inflected sides from the late 70s – very soaring and spiritual work, delivered in a way that set a whole new standard for jazz at the time! Backing is by a small combo with brothers Ron and Cecil Bridgwater, plus Roland Hanna on acoustic and electric piano, George Mraz on bass, and Motohiko Hino on drums and percussion – but the star of the set is always Dee Dee, who sparkles beautifully on the album's classic versions of "Afro Blue" and "Little B's Poem" – both of which have been redone by many other singers over the years. Other great cuts include "People Make The World Go Round", "Love From The Sun", and "Love Vibrations".


stuff:
This album first came out on Trio, a brilliant Japanese label that delivered some great music, mostly jazz (Ornette, Mal, Gil Evans, Stanley Cowell and lots more) but also put out some unlikely stuff (T.Rex and the Dead Kennedys!). This rip is from the CD reissue on AMJ. The back cover posted below is from the album, from here.


For a great write-up giving some background to what Dee-Dee and Cecil and the crew recorded around the same time, check out Simon's post of the classic Strata-East joint, Billy Parker's Fourth World over at Never Enough Rhodes...

Nina Simone - Sings the Blues + ...

barabara sounds sez:  

Time for some Nina. I always have time for some Nina. Especially this one from 1967, her first on RCA and one of my all-time favorites (and I love that cover art). She sure does sing those blues: file this under 'R' for Real Real.

dusty groove sez:

Nina's not just singing the blues here – she's completely reinventing the sound of the format – by drawing on a long tradition of vocal expression, and infusing it with the hipper, more personally exploratory mode she forged in the 60s! The album's got a subtle brilliance that means it's sometimes overlooked next to her more forceful work of the time – but it's every bit essential Simone as some of her other key sides of the decade. The group is a small combo featuring Eric Gale, Bernard Purdie, Buddy Lucas, and Ernest Hayes... 

tracks:

Do I Move You?; Day and Night; In the Dark; Real Real; My Man's Gone Now; Backlash Blues; I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl; Buck; Since I Fell for You; The House of the Rising Sun; Blues for Mama.

personnel:

Nina Simone piano, vocals; Rudy Stevenson guitar; Eric Gale guitar; Bernard Purdie drums; Bob Bushnell bass; Ernest Hayes organ; Buddy Lucas harmonica, tenor sax.

Ah hell, let's make it a double: At Town Hall was the concert that put her on the map and made her a star. It was quite a performance. Here's a nifty review:

cokemanchineglow sez:

Despite being pound-for-pound the best straight-up jazz release in Simone’s catalogue, At Town Hall is strangely underrated. Lists of her signature tunes—“I Loves You Porgy,” “My Baby Just Cares For Me,” etc. — neglect the top flight fare here, like the hard swinging “Exactly Like You” or the deep, rumbling burn of “The Other Woman.” Simone even enters the old folk song “Black Is The Color of My True Loves Hair” — here given a vocal performance of impossibly subtlety — into the standard jazz repertoire without getting too much notice. Nevertheless, these tracks have the tight backing and titanic emotional force of the best Nina Simone, if not the best of her era.

Recorded partially live and partially in the studio, At Town Hall does suffer from a bit of the patchiness of Simone’s early albums. It’s strange that both an instrumental and vocal version of “Summertime” are included (or, depending on how you look at it, that Simone’s take has an intro longer than the song itself), and “Return Home” is an unfocused Afro-Cuban interlude. Yet even amongst these distractions, “Wild is the Wind” and Billie Holiday’s “Fine and Mellow” serve up Simone’s soulful jazz with formidable gusto. Her piano is expansive and thrilling without being overwrought, and the rhythm section is pitch perfect throughout. On balance, At Town Hall is an album of underrated classics, filled with stunning performances and one of the finest voices in the history of jazz. It’s all heartbreak gorgeously rendered, and while the few upbeat moments offer some reprieve, Simone’s staggering ballads sing the glory of love imperfect and love lost. 

tracks:

Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair; Exactly Like You; The Other Woman; Under the Lowest; You Can have Him; Summertime (instrumental); Summertime (vocal); Cotton-eyed Joe; Return Home; Wild is the WInd; Fine and Mellow.

Abbey Lincoln - That's him!

barabara sounds sez:

Abbey's work from the 60s and on is probably better known, but this is a lovely early side notable for the stellar cast of musicians backing her, billed here as the Riverside Jazz Stars. I never heard Rollins sound so lyrical! At this point in her career the Billie Holiday comparisons are inevitable — but that's the finest kind of recommendation in my book.

cduniverse sez:

Abbey's first early peak [is] a wonderful and confident set with a stunning ensemble... Lincoln opens with Oscar Brown Jr.'s "Strong Man" — she was one of the performers who regularly recorded his songs prior to his own debut as a recording artist in the early '60s... The gorgeous and dramatic "Tender as a Rose" is presented acapella. Throughout, Lincoln's singing easily mingles jazz, blues and folk influences and phrasings. This strong album pointed the way to her ABBEY IS BLUE, her essential work recorded two years later.

AMG (Scott Yawno) sez: 

[On] Abbey Lincoln's second recording and first for Riverside, [she] is accompanied by quite an all-star roster... and, even this early, she was already a major jazz singer with a style of her own. Lincoln was careful from this point on to only interpret lyrics that she believed in. Her repertoire has a few superior standards (including several songs such as "I Must Have That Man!" and "Don't Explain" that are closely associated with Billie Holiday) plus Oscar Brown, Jr.'s "Strong Man" and Phil Moore's "Tender as a Rose"; she takes the latter unaccompanied. "Don't Explain" is slightly unusual in that Paul Chambers is absent and Wynton Kelly makes an extremely rare appearance on bass.

personnel: 

Abbey Lincoln vocals; Kenny Dorham trumpet; Sonny Rollins tenor saxophone; Wynton Kelly piano; Max Roach drums.

Sarah Vaughan with Michel Legrand

from the liner notes:

'The first take,

as I recall, was "The Summer Knows". Sarah sang her heart out and I got swept up in the music too. We finished the song and I glanced around the studio and nearly all of the musicians had tears streaming down their faces, they were so moved. (Michel Legrand)

barabara sounds sez:

It sounds pretty damn fine now, too. On Vaughan's second album for Mainstream, Legrand's soaring

orchestrations elevate this set of ballads

by the Divine One to the stratosphere. A heavenly session indeed!

I know it's already out there in the blogosphere, but this is the JP CD reissue and includes a couple of fabulous bonus tracks — Jobim's Wave (which appeared on Vaughan's Send in the Clowns album); and Deep in the Night (originally on Feelin Good, her 3rd album for Mainstream) — thereby collecting everything the two did together.

dusty sez:

A beautiful collaboration between Sarah Vaughan and Michel Legrand -- and easily one of Sarah's greatest albums of the 70s! As he was doing with other singers at the time, Legrand helps Vaughan hit a new level of sophistication here — bringing in tunes that really get past simple pop and older standards, with adult themes supported by equally mature backings — filled with rich colors and complicated tones developed over Legrand's great work on film scores. Almost all tunes are originals by Michel — many pulled from his film work — and he also scored the arrangements here, working with the orchestra in a swirling blend of strings and jazz.

And one last thing... big up to Cheeba and the excellent Shad Shack site...

If you haven't checked it out yet, it's over here!

Cleveland Watkiss - Green Chimneys

barabara sounds sez:

Cleveland Watkiss just celebrated his 50th birthday with a gig at the London Jazz festival... So let's celebrate with this little gem.

Don't know Cleveland? He's a top vocalist and super versatile. Genres mean nothing: he's sung soul, gospel, reggae, jazz, drum'n'bass — even opera and choral work. And really he's nothing like Bobby McFerrin.

He was a founder (with Courtney Pine and all) of the Jazz Crusaders Warriors (thanks anon), a pioneer of UK jungle/d&b (here's more on that), and if you don't know his 2002 album Victory’s Happy Songbook, you're missing out on a true barabara classic.

But this one — his first album (or was there one before this?) from 1991 — is straight ahead jazz, which is no doubt why it came out on Verve.

AMG (Yawno) sez:

In the late '80s, Cleveland Watkiss was thought of as a British Bobby McFerrin; where has he been since?At the time of this CD, he showed a great deal of potential and was becoming more original. He is joined by some of the top young English jazz musicians of the era (including pianist Jason Rebello and, on a couple of separate songs, Courtney Pine and Steve Williamson on sopranos) with guest appearances from American drummer Clifford Jarvis and tenorman Jean Toussaint. Watkiss is the main star throughout, singing his words to Thelonious Monk's "Green Chimneys" and Wayne Shorter's "Seeds of Sin," and contributing some adventurous originals of his own. The comparisons with McFerrin apply most tonewise; Watkiss has a similar adventurous spirit, and both singers achieving a lot less in the 1990s than one might have expected. This increasingly hard-to-find CD is well worth searching for.

update...

I've dropped links in the comments for 2 other tracks by Cleveland — Kamikaze; and the DJ Patife remix of Torch Of Freedom (from Victory's). Enjoy.

Karin Krog & John Surman - Bluesand

barabara sounds sez:

One of Karin Krog's more recent (1999) and lesser known (at least to me) collaborations, but hauntingly beautiful as usual. This is the Japanese reissue which has an extra track featuring her on a version of Air on a G String arranged by keyboard maestro Morgan Fisher. This was used for a TV commercial advertising a brand of saké. It's rather tasty (and so is the music). The rest of the album is Karin with John Surman, who adds keyboards to his usual outstanding palette of clarinet and sax.

dusty sez:

For the past 30 years, Karin Krog has been one of Europe's greatest jazz vocalists -- but although she spent a time in the 70s doing some very experimental material, she's been spending a lot more time on standards lately. However, this release marks a new direction -- and has her working again with British reed genius John Surman, a frequent collaborator during the old days. All of the tracks are in English, and are penned by Surman and Krog, with a spare folksy style that hearkens back to their more progressive work in the 70s. Surman plays reeds, piano, and synthesizer -- while Krog sings and manipulates her voice with electronics. Titles include "Sas Blues", "Bluesand", "Secret Games", "Fly Away", "Sombre Woods", and "Ribbon of Sand".