THE GARY BURTON QUARTET - LIVE IN TOKYOA wonderful live set from Gary Burton – originally issued only in Japan, but a wonderful record that stands strongly with Gary's classic early 70s work for Atlantic and ECM Records! The group's a quartet – and has Gary's vibes alongside warm guitar lines from Sam Brown – a player whose sense of tone and timing really echoes that of Burton – cascading fresh sounds one minute, laying back in waves the next – always hitting the right balance of space and tone to keep things right. Other players include Tony Levin on electric bass and Bill Goodwin on drums – and tracks are nice and long, with that sort of extra-imaginative quality that always seems to happen with American jazzmen working in Japan at this time. Titles include "Ballet", "On The Third Day", "Sunset Bell", "Portsmouth Figurations", and "The Green Mountains". ~ Dusty Groove
Drummer Willie Jones takes on the music of Max Roach – and not just songs composed by Max, but his whole overall aesthetic too – served up here in a smoking sextet that's especially strong on the righteous elements of Roach's late 50s Mercury years, and his important groups of the 60s on records for labels like Impulse, Atlantic, and Candid! Jones picks just the right songs as standouts – a few penned by Roach, but others by Stanley Cowell, Gary Bartz, and some of the key young talents who helped Max really grow as an artist during the 60s – served up here with a wicked lineup that includes Steve Davis on trombone, Stacy Dillard on tenor, Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, Eric Reed on piano, and Dezron Douglas on bass. The set was recorded live, and all tracks are long – and titles include "Libra", "Equipose", "To Lady", "Freedom Day", "Mr X", and "Ezz Thetic". ~ Dusty Groove
Some of the greatest music ever recorded – seminal sounds from one of the most enigmatic artists to ever walk into a recording studio! This wonderful set brings together the five key albums in the early career of Scott Walker – Scott 1, Scott 2, Scott 3, Scott 4, and Til The Band Comes In – music that's beyond description, and which came as a real surprise to folks who'd only known Walker as a poppish act just a few years before! Scott draws from a few key moments of mid-century pop music – with an especially strong influence from Jacques Brel – but he also adds in plenty of his own words and darkly complex themes – all set to lavish orchestrations that feel like mainstream music, but which are something deeper and much spookier underneath! The balance is amazing – a mixture of modes that comes off with the same sort of edge you'd get in a classic Ingmar Bergman film, or a vintage episode of The Prisoner – one of those weird once-in-a-lifetime pieces of work that comes forth with a compelling aesthetic that's all its own. We love these records to death, and have done so for decades – and this LP set features all 5 albums in indivudal packages with artwork, plus a booklet that has new notes on each record, and really puts the music in context. ~ Dusty Groove
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