What Are You Listening To?

[Dennie]

Stormy Weather - The Legendary Lena 1941 -1958 -- Remastered CD

Lena Horne

1990 Bluebird/RCA Records

A great introduction to this legend..., October 16, 2000
By Aaron B (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stormy Weather (Audio CD)

Lena Horne is generally overlooked when it comes to jazz singers, and although technically she is not a jazz singer, her jazz phrasing, and her great sense of swing are immaculate. She really doesn't iimprovise all that much, but she can swing and make you at times think you are listening to Lee Wiley(another great, but overlooked jazz singer), yet she can also sing a torch song with as much verve as the younger Billie Holiday or Mildred Bailey. Horne here is backed by various swing bands, and the occasional small jazz combo. Most of these tunes are circa 1940's, however this CD covers from early 40's to to late 50's, where Lena has more sass,(& sounds a little more like Della Reese or Betty Roche) actually a more fairer comparison would be made to the later Conne Boswell of the 50's or Kay Starr, although Lena always had a style and distinctive voice all her own. Some of the highlights of this exellent CD are Good For Nothin' Joe, One For My Baby, and the quentessential and most difinitive version ever recorded of As Long As I Live. This set is recomended to jazz and vocal record collectors alike. Great music that generally swings.

Track listing

1. You're My Thrill
2. Good-For-Nothin' Joe
3. Love Me a Little Little
4. Don't Take Your Love from Me
5. Stormy Weather
6. What Is This Thing Called Love?
7. Ill Wind
8. Man I Love, The
9. Where or When
10. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
11. Moanin' Low
12. I Didn't Know About You
13. One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)
14. As Long as I Live
15. I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues
16. How Long Has This Been Going On?
17. It's Love
18. Let Me Love You
19. It's All Right With Me
20. People Will Say We're in Love
21. Just in Time
22. Get Out of Town

 

[Dennie]

Quiet As The Moon -- CD

Dave Brubeck

1991 Music Masters

Schroeder in the Desert, September 8, 2005
By Skylark Poems "the round & wagging dance" (of a summer) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Quiet As the Moon (Audio CD)

These tracks were recorded over a two plus year period beginning in late 1988 for a Peanuts Cartoon. I have titled this review "Schroeder in the desert" for obvious reasons. Dave seems to like getting "Forty Days" onto as many unrelated albums as possible and I'm sure I've heard "desert and the parched land" on another platter. In fact this is the 3rd straight album I've reviewed with "Forty Days" on it. It wasn't intentional. I swear it!

The album features:

Dave Brubeck (piano)
Bobby Militello (flute, alto sax, tenor sax)
Matthew Brubeck (cello)
Jack Six (bass)
Chris Brubeck (elec bass, bass trombone)
Randy Jones, Dan Brubeck (drums)

8 of the tracks were written by Dave, the rest by others. Great music.

If you love Brubeck you WILL buy Quiet As The Moon. "When I Was a Child" is pure genius in stride, not bad licks on the drum either. Militello is smooth on "Travelin' Blues" with a few righteous outbursts. "When You Wish Upon a Star" is so sweet you could eat it or kiss it [as you prefer]. Lastly, or maybe second since that's it place in the Moon cosmology, Dave is exquisitely adventurous with his piano banging on "Linus and Lucy."

Matthew Brubecks cello on "Forty Days" help make it the best of 6 instances of that title in my collection. The Bass Trombone and the Cello definitely make this a different and welcome mix!

Track Listing

1. Bicycle Built For Two
2. Linus and Lucy
3. Forty Days
4. When I Was a Child
5. Quiet as the Moon
6. Cast Your Fate to the Wind
7. Benjamin
8. Looking at the Rainbow
9. Desert and the Parched Land, The
10. Travelin' Blues
11. Unisphere
12. When You Wish Upon a Star

 

[Dennie]

My last one for the evening....

Watershed -- 2 CD Deluxe Edition

K.D. Lang

2008 Nonesuch Records

Watershed is the first major project from celebrated Canadian chanteuse k.d. lang since 2004's Hymns of the 49th Parallel. Where Hymns explored the music of fellow Canadians such as Ron Sexsmith, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, Watershed represents the first set of original songs from lang in around eight years. Self-produced and arranged by musicians she has worked with a lot in the past, the most striking aspect of the album is its intimate, homely feel. Adding to the cozy ambience is the fact that Watershed brings most of lang's musical passions and influences--jazz, country, folk, bossa nova--under one roof, lending the project a dreamy, mellifluous coherence. But if the musical landscape is mellow and easy to traverse, Lang's lyrics can be less comfortable. Using her laid-back, often ethereal arrangements as sugar-candied coating for thornier topics, the singer serenades with stories of broken love, occasionally harsh self-analysis and the obligatory forays into existential angst. These contrastive elements only serve to make the album stronger, adding emotional weight to the airless arrangements of "Once in a While," and the delicate "Close Your Eyes," and conjuring up images of beauty on the string-laden "I Dream of Spring," and the wonderfully lazy "Sunday". Intelligent, mature and sophisticated, Watershed is the kind of perfect pop album it's difficult not to fall in love with immediately and forever. --Paul Sullivan
Product Description

Deluxe packaging - UniBox with cloth wrap and embossed foil stamp, box contains 3 photo insert cards, 2 babyjacket CD sleeves, and 16-page 4/C booklet. Second cd includes 4 bonus tracks and interview.

No. Title Length
1. "I Dream of Spring" 4:00
2. "Je fais la planche" (lang, Ben Mink) 2:51
3. "Coming Home" 3:26
4. "Once in a While" (lang) 3:27
5. "Thread" 3:38
6. "Close Your Eyes" (Teddy Borowieski, lang, Greg Leisz, Piltch) 4:26
7. "Sunday" (Borowieski, lang) 4:17
8. "Flame of the Uninspired" (lang, Mink) 3:30
9. "Upstream" 3:37
10. "Shadow and the Frame" (Borowiecki, lang, Meredith) 3:07
11. "Jealous Dog" 2:32

Bonus live tracks
No. Title Length
1. "I Dream of Spring" 3:45
2. "Wash Me Clean" (lang) 4:11
3. "The Valley" (Jane Siberry) 6:20
4. "Hallelujah" (Leonard Cohen) 5:22

 

[Dennie]

Today's work truck music....

Endlessly -- CD

Duffy

2010 Mercury Records

A Mixed Bag, December 11, 2010
By pop culture icon
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Endlessly (Audio CD)

Like many others, I loved Duffy's first CD and have been waiting for the follow-up. And the involvement of Albert Hammond in this project held great promise. However, as other reviewers have noted "Endlessly" is a definite fall off from "Rockferry." That is the bad news. Several of these cuts are terrible and Duffy's voice even becomes annoying on some of them. However, there are four great cuts on this CD, and that is the good news. The title song, along with "Too Hurt to Dance," "Don't Forsake Me," and "Breath Away" are worthy of "Rockferry." I wish I could get in a time machine and take "Too Hurt to Dance" back in time and give it to Lesley Gore or Connie Francis to record. Great song, as are the other three.

1. "My Boy" 3:27
2. "Too Hurt to Dance" 3:15
3. "Keeping My Baby" 2:49
4. "Well, Well, Well" 2:45
5. "Don't Forsake Me" 4:01
6. "Endlessly" 2:59
7. "Breath Away" 4:12
8. "Lovestruck" 2:52
9. "Girl" 2:26
10. "Hard for the Heart" 4:57
Total length:
33:52

 

[heeman]

nats - that is a great box set!!

 

[jamhead]

 

[nats]

nats - that is a great box set!!

Yea,i love it now that my kids have grown up and give meaningfull gifts. although the seven turns album you previously posted is my favorite allman bros. album

 

[nats]

with audio clips from the les paul show from the 50s, one clip he is talking to steve miller as a kid on the show,telling him he is going to make it someday,then he does a great version of fly like an eagle. this album is a lot of fun

 

[Dennie]

Wow Nats, I've never seen that one. Thanks for posting it! :handgestures-thumbup:

Wish You Were Here -- CD

Pink Floyd

1975/1990 Columbia Records

Amazon.com Essential Recording

Wish You Were Here is a song cycle dedicated to Pink Floyd's original frontman, Syd Barrett, who'd flamed out years before: two grimly funny songs about the evils of the music business ("By the way, which one's Pink?"), and two long, touching ones about the band's vanished friend. The real star of the show, though, is the production: sparkling, convoluted, designed to sound deeply oh-wow under the influence--and pretty great sober too--with David Gilmour getting lots of space for his most lyrical guitar playing ever. And, though the album is big and ambitious, even bombastic, it somehow dodges being pretentious--the Barrett tributes are honest and heartfelt, beneath all the grand gestures and stereophonic trickery. --Douglas Wolk

Side one
No. Title Music Lead vocals Length
1. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Parts I–V) Wright, Waters, Gilmour (Part I)
Gilmour, Waters, Wright (Part II)
Waters, Gilmour, Wright (Part III)
Gilmour, Wright, Waters (Part IV)
Waters, Gilmour, Wright (Part V) Waters 13:38
2. "Welcome to the Machine" Waters Gilmour 7:30
Side two
No. Title Music Lead vocals Length
1. "Have a Cigar" Waters Harper 5:24
2. "Wish You Were Here" Waters, Gilmour Gilmour 5:17
3. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Parts VI–IX) Wright, Waters, Gilmour (Part VI)
Waters, Gilmour, Wright (Part VII)
Gilmour, Wright, Waters (Part VIII)
Wright (Part IX)

 

[Dennie]

In Through The Out Door -- CD

Led Zeppelin

1979/1994 Swan Song/Atlantic Records

Amazon.com

Though the band likely didn't know it at the time, this would prove to be the last studio record by one of the most famous rock & roll bands in the world. Drummer John Bonham died shortly after its release. Although nothing compares to early Led Zeppelin--and they lost many longtime fans in the late 1970s--this LP is nothing to be embarrassed by. They were quick to embrace and experiment with synthesizers, and while it wears a little thin by record's end (the synth-bloated "Carouselambra" and the slick AOR hit "All My Love"), it adds a certain majestic tone to the heavy-hitting opener, "In the Evening," and gives a rollicking good-time feel to "South Bound Suarez." Plant's howl and Page's bluesy guitars are in fine form on "I'm Gonna Crawl" and the lilting "Fool in the Rain" recalls the pretty numbers from their early career. --Lorry Fleming

Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "In the Evening" Jones, Page, Plant 6:49
2. "South Bound Saurez" Jones, Plant 4:12
3. "Fool in the Rain" Jones, Page, Plant 6:12
4. "Hot Dog" Page, Plant 3:17
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Carouselambra" Jones, Page, Plant 10:32
2. "All My Love" Jones, Plant 5:51
3. "I'm Gonna Crawl" Jones, Page, Plant 5:30

 

[Dennie]

My last one for the evening... :handgestures-thumbup:

Nirvana -- CD

Bucky and John Pizzarelli

2003 LRC Records

Bucky - Truly "A Jazz Legend", June 3, 2001
By William Alan Hafey - See all my reviews
This review is from: Nirvana (Audio CD)

I've neen a Bucky fan for 30 years and never heard him play better. There is a handful of superb jazz guitarists still working today whose roots are in either the great ones from the '30s and early '40s or the swing era. (George Van Eps, Dick McDonough, Carl Kress, George Barnes, Django . . . of course . . . and Charlie Christian, together with many others, come to mind.) Bucky encompasses all of them, with an obvious Benny Goodman influence in the mix. But it may have been Van Eps who, as far as I know, invented the 7-string guitar . . . a traditional guitar with an added .80 mm A string tuned an octave lower, making it possible for Bucky to play chords and bass accents that only a very few (Howard Alden, John Pizzarelli Jr., etc.) CAN play, thus making him unique today among the guitar greats. Recently I attended a concert ("Legends Of Guitar")in Hartford CT where Bucky appeared with Gene Bertoncini, Howard Alden, and Frank Vignola . . . all deserving of the title billing. Bucky, at age 75, was never playing better. It was very obvious that the other guitarists agreed. Buy this recording, which was made about 15 years ago, and kick yourself for perhaps not knowing earlier what a genius this man has been. Plus . . . for it matters . . . he is also one of the gentlest, nicest, most unassuming persons you will ever meet. I am priviledged, after all these years, to call him a friend.

Bill Hafey

Recording Date : Feb 21, 1995

1 Azurte (Davison) 3:27
2 Sing Sing Sing (Prima) 6:39
3 A Little World Called Home (Dominick, Hire) 7:13
4 Pick Yourself Up (Fields, Kern) 2:48
5 Nuages (Reinhardt) 5:53
6 Honeysuckle Rose (Razaf, Waller) 7:37
7 Willow Weep for Me (Runnell) 3:51
8 Medley: It's Been a Long Time/Don't Take Your Love from Me (Cahn) 4:24
9 Tangerine (Mercer) 6:51
10 Two Funky People (Cohn) 3:04
11 Come Rain or Come Shine (Arlen, Mercer) 5:57
12 Stompin' at the Savoy (Goodman, Sampson, Webb) 4:44

Bucky Pizzarelli (Guitar)
John Pizzarelli (Guitar)
Lynn Seaton (Bass)
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie (Drums)

 

[heeman]

"You're No Good" (Clint Ballard, Jr.) 3:16
2. "Dance the Night Away" 3:06
3. "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" 2:52
4. "Bottoms Up!" 3:05
5. "Outta Love Again" 2:51
6. "Light Up the Sky" 3:13
7. "Spanish Fly" (Instrumental) 1:00
8. "D.O.A." 4:09
9. "Women in Love..." 4:08
10. "Beautiful Girls" 3:56

 

[Dennie]

Today's work truck music....

Full Moon Fever -- CD

Tom Petty

1989 MCA Records

Amazon.com essential recording

Ten years had passed since Petty's last solid outing (*** the Torpedoes in 1979), and Full Moon Fever fully resuscitated the artist's career, which--some would say "arguably"--had been losing steam. With the album's four major hits and rave reviews from the critics (these things do not always go hand-in-hand), Petty must have breathed a sigh of relief. He left the Heartbreakers behind, hooked up with musician, writer, and producer Jeff Lynne, and rocked out with "Runnin' Down a Dream," got mellow and introspective on "Free Fallin'" and "A Face in the Crowd," and paid tribute (finally) to the Byrds with a cover of "Feel a Whole Lot Better." He perfected the sing-along guitar-pop song on "Yer So Bad" and had a wild time on "Zombie Zoo." Pure Petty perfection! --Lorry Fleming


All songs written by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, except as indicated.[2]

"Free Fallin'" – 4:14
"I Won't Back Down" – 2:56
"Love Is a Long Road" (Mike Campbell, Petty) – 4:06
"A Face in the Crowd" – 3:58
"Runnin' Down a Dream" (Campbell, Lynne, Petty) – 4:23
"I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" (Gene Clark) – 2:47
"Yer So Bad" – 3:05
"Depending on You" (Petty) – 2:47
"The Apartment Song" (Petty) – 2:31
"Alright for Now" (Petty) – 2:00
"A Mind with a Heart of Its Own" – 3:29
"Zombie Zoo" – 2:56

"Hello, CD listeners…"

Early pressings of the album on compact disc contain a hidden track at the beginning of track 6. The interlude, which is referred to in the album credits as "Attention CD Listeners", features a brief tongue-in-cheek monologue by Petty, over a background of barnyard noises:

Hello, CD listeners. We've come to the point in this album where those listening on cassette, or records, will have to stand up, or sit down, and turn over the record. Or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we'll now take a few seconds before we begin side two. [pause] Thank you. Here's side two.

 

[topper]

 

[nats]

These brothers 1st album was produced so vanilla it was pop, but i was convinced to wacth there live dvd and it made me a fan, then saw them live and bought this live cd and i recomend it. live there influences are srv -santana-and zztop amonst others. you should give it a chance if you like any of those.

 

[Zing]

Think Melissa Etheridge but with more soul...less pop/rock and more blues.

 

[PaulyT]

Nice! I think I posted about that one a while back in the blues thread... she's good!

 

[Zing]

Nice! I think I posted about that one a while back in the blues thread... she's good!

I don't think you did but, regardless, I quit reading your posts after you fell in love with Joey. :teasing-neener:

 

[PaulyT]

Well maybe it was in this thread... don't remember. Anyway, I have that Fuchs album and like it a lot!

 

[nats]

Nice! I think I posted about that one a while back in the blues thread... she's good!

I don't think you did but, regardless, I quit reading your posts after you fell in love with Joey. :teasing-neener:

speaking of joey, i put a video up(well my wife did it for me)