Ray Obiedo - Carousel
The ninth release by Bay Area guitarist and composer Ray Obiedo,
Carousel on Rhythmus Records, is another collection of original compositions
fused with Contemporary Jazz, Latin and Brasilian-styled rhythms. His eclectic
groove-oriented compositions never stray far from his love of R&B. The
melodies are simply stated, and gracefully glide over jazz influenced chord
structures. Obiedo enlisted some of the music industries top musicians and
longtime cohorts for the project. Santana members David K. Mathews and Karl
Perazzo contribute their expertise. Percussionist Peter Michael Escovedo, steal
pan master Andy Narell and Tower of Power drummer Dave Garibaldi all make
appearances. Harmonica master Toots Thielemans is featured on "Song for
Jules". Yellowjacket's saxophonist Bob Mintzer appears on two tracks,
"Jinx" and "Modern World". Carousel also features reed
player Norbert Stachel, steel pan player Phil Hawkins, pianist Peter Horvath
and trumpeter Mike Olmos. Obiedo has 5 previous releases the Windham Hill Jazz
label. This is his third release on his own Oakland-based Rhythmus Records
label. The music on "Carousel" is a highly energized and hypnotically
rhythmic soundscape, revealing all the passion, flavor, color and style of the
San Francisco Bay Area which conceived, nourished and inspired Obiedo's latest
musical venture.
Keely Smith - You're Breaking My Heart
After the huge success of 1964's Sings the Lennon-McCartney
Songbook in the UK, Keely went to London to record the sessions that became
You're Breaking My Heart. Since it only came out in the U.K., it's easily the
rarest of Keely's Reprise albums and a real gem, featuring renditions of Willie
Nelson and Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and Neal Hefti's "Sunday
Mornin.'" And for this Expanded Edition, we have excavated a genuine
treasure, a demo version of Tony Hatch's classic song "Call Me!"
Remastered from original tape sources by Mike Milchner at SonicVision, and
featuring liner notes by Steve Hochman with vintage photos, this debut CD
release of You're Breaking My Heart restores a key missing piece of the Keely
Smith discography!
Evan Parker & Matthew Wright - Trance Map And Crepuscule In Nickelsdorf
A dream-like aura surrounds these recordings by Evan Parker
and Mathew Wright - Trance Map+ from the Jazz Festival Nickelsdorf: Crepuscule
in Nickelsdorf. "Filtered through the silicon of the hard drive, birds and
insects often sound electronically generated and some of the synthesized
sounds, designed in software, sound like birds and insects with wings of their
own," writes American journalist Bill Shoemaker. The real seems virtual;
the virtual seems real - it is the ambiguity essential to the power of dreams.
Evan Parker and Matt Wright met in 2008 and out of their first studio sessions
developed Trance Map - a project, that mixes field recordings, samples from
cassettes, turntable scratching and the live processing of Evan Parkers's
relentlessly evolving saxophone lines. Since that time Trance Map has developed
to include live events across Europe. Evan Parker recommends playing Trance Map
late at night at a low volume and letting the music point the way to and
through sleep - beautiful dreams, that's what he wishes the listener. That may
be possible with Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf, although the enthusiastic applause
at the end of the performance confirms the audience remained wide awake
throughout. A better send-off for the listener of this recording may well be to
say Bon Voyage.
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