Theo Croker - Play - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Johnny Hodges - The Clef & Norgran Albums 1951-54 - It's a snapshot of a particular and intriguing phase of Johnny Hodges' career. - Johnny Hodges was a jazz alto saxophonist, who enjoyed a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1920s through to his death in 1970. Best-known for his work with Duke Ellington, he had a pure tone and economy of melody on both the blues and ballads that won him admiration from musicians of all eras and styles, and made him ubiquitous on recording sessions across the spectrum of jazz. He occasionally led his own bands, and this 41-track 2-CD collection focuses on albums he made in a concentrated period in the mid-1950s with his small orchestra for the Clef and Norgran labels, owned by renowned impresario and producer Norman Granz, which were forerunners of Verve. It features the titles from the albums. InchJohnny Hodges CollatesInch, InchJohnny Hodges Collates No. 2Inch, InchSwing With Johnny HodgesInch, InchMemories of EllingtonInch, InchCastle RockInch, InchThe BluesInch and InchIn A Tender MoodInch, with some of the titles appearing on more than one album. A number of the titles were also released as singles, and two of them InchCastle Rock Inch and InchA Pound Of BluesInch, were US R&B hits. It naturally features some notable musicians of the era, including Al Sears, Leroy Lovett, Billy Strayhorn, Al McGibbon, Sonny Greer, Emmett Berry, Lloyd Trotman, Flip Phillips, Red Callender, Ray Brown, J.C. Heard and others. It's a snapshot of a particular and intriguing phase of Johnny Hodges' career, and a great showcase for his understated virtuosity as a jazz musician and leader.

Leading pianist and composer Geoffrey Fiorese has decided to build his Quartet project around the myth of InchTerpsichoreInch, the muse of dance. This close relationship between music and dance invites us to receive a sound, a melody, not by simple listening, but through the prism of a global perception, where the whole body serves as a receptacle for sound harmony. A large amount of improvisation is left to the musicians who are thus able to react in the moment to an impulse, a feeling, like an imaginary dance that one would build continuously from impressions left by the senses. This project is about living the music, feeling it to the depths of your being, taking the spectator through a unique experience. Between long meditative musical poems and surging improvisations bordering free jazz, this project transcends the frontiers of jazz and thus gradually brings the listener to unknown territories where listening results in self-forgetfulness.

Theon Cross - Fyah [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/15/2019