Airto – Natural Feelings
First vinyl reissue in over 45 years for a long-lost,
pivotal jazz fusion record! This album, originally released in 1970 on the
thinly-distributed Skye label, marks Airto's debut as a bandleader and captures
the percussionist right at the time he recorded Bitches Brew with Miles Davis,
and right before he joined Weather Report for their first album. Indeed, the
line-up on this album reflects the fact that Airto had one foot in the NYC jazz
scene and one foot in his native Brazil, as bassist Ron Carter joins Airto's
countrymen Sivuca and Hermeto Pascoal, along with Airto's wife Flora Purim. The
music's a fascinating blend of jazz-funk-fusion and Brazilian tropes, here
presented on 180-gram black vinyl, housed inside the original wild, Hieronymus
Bosch album art. Limited to 500 copies
Dave Douglas – Devotion
A pretty dynamic little album from trumpeter Dave Douglas –
but maybe one that comes as no surprise, given that the trio features piano
from Uri Caine and drums from Andrew Cyrille! In a stretch where Dave's given
us some great albums with higher concepts and different ideas, this one comes
in like a bullet to really get things back to basics – reminding us that in the
right sort of setting, Douglas can be an incredibly powerful, incredibly
free-voiced musician – especially when driven on by forces as great as Caine's
piano and the drums and percussion of Cyrille! Uri is pretty wonderful, too –
and again, the set's a great reminder of what he can do when he's set loose,
and maybe in a less structured setting – or maybe it's just the always-amazing
work of Cyrille that's got both of the other musicians really upping their
game. Titles include "D'Andrea", "Francis Of Anthony",
"Prefontaine", "Rose & Thorn", "We Pray",
"Devotion", "False Allegiances", "Pacific", and
"Curly". ~ Dusty Groove
Johnny Mathis – Killing Me Softly With Her Song /
When Will I See You Again
As Johnny Mathis plays to packed houses across the country
on his acclaimed The Voice of Romance Tour, Real Gone Music and Second Disc
Records continue their series of deluxe reissues from the superstar artist with
a new two-for-one CD debuting two albums on standalone CD. 1973’s Killing Me
Softly with Her Song and 1975’s When Will I See You Again both spotlight
Mathis’ silky interpretations of the day’s greatest hits. Killing Me Softly
with Her Song was his final full-length album collaboration with
songwriter-producer Jerry Fuller (Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, The
Knickerbockers) and premiered Fuller’s “Show and Tell,” a top 40 AC hit for
Johnny which singer Al Wilson subsequently took to the top of the U.S. Pop
chart. It also boasts classic songs from Thom Bell, Kenny Gamble, and Linda
Creed (The Stylistics’ “Break Up to Make Up”), Don McLean (“And I Love You
So”), Stevie Wonder (“You Are the Sunshine of My Life”), David Gates
(“Aubrey”), and Joe Raposo (Carpenters’ “Sing”) – adding up to one of Johnny’s
most eclectic long-players. 1975’s When Will I See You Again took its title
from Gamble and Leon Huff’s hit for Philadelphia’s Three Degrees, and featured
another tribute to the Philly sound with Bell and Creed’s beautiful “You’re as
Right as Rain.” Johnny brought Mathis magic to the Barry Manilow smash “Mandy,”
Neil Sedaka’s buoyant “Laughter in the Rain,” Marvin Hamlisch’s Oscar-winning
“The Way We Were,” The Sherman Brothers’ “The Things I Might Have Been,” and
three tracks from the pen of Paul Williams. This two-for-one disc boasts liner
notes by The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese with fresh quotes from Johnny Mathis
and Jerry Fuller. Mike Piacentini has remastered at Sony’s Battery Studios. It
all adds up to a release that’s right as rain.
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