I went to Academy Records this weekend to trade in some CDs and made a few purchases.

Danny Grissett: Promise (Criss Cross). The debut disc from this promising pianist who has making a name for himself on the NYC live jazz scene by gigging with heavyweights like alto player Vincent Herring & trumpeter Nicholas Payton. This one is in the classic trio format (piano, bass, drums) and features Vincente Archer on bass & Kendrick Scott on drums.

Ben "The Brute" Webster: Live at Montmartre 1973 (Steeplechase). A late addition to the discography of the greatest of the "bedroom tenors" Webster. Recorded with all Euro rhythm section, it isn't top shelf Ben and the bootleg quality of the sound leaves something to be desired, but it is Ben Webster.

Brad Mehldau: House on Hill (Nonesuch). Kind of a curio in Mehldau's discography this disc features the Brad-ster's penultimate trio with Larry Grenadier on bass & Jorge Rossy on drums. Rossy has since left the band to be replaced by Jeff Ballard and release of this disc was delayed caused by the implosion of Warner Brothers' jazz division. According to the liner notes, WB released a disc of standards recording at the same session as HOH and this one features all Mehldau originals. I'm not a huge Mehldau fan, but I did detect some swing on some of the cuts.

Eldar: Live at the Blue Note (Sony). This guy has only recently appeared on my radar screen. Evidently he is some sort of piano prodigy and is promising enough -- or is able to be marketed enough -- to garner a Sony record deal. I thought his style was a bit florid after one listen. The best cut features the great trumpeter Roy Hargrove guesting on one cut.

Miguel Zenon: Jibaro (Marsalis Music). The second disc on the Marsalis Music label for this sax player.

Geri Allen: Timeless Portraits & Dreams (Telarc). I'm a huge fan of Allen, but I think I should have read the liners before buying this one. She is backed by a choir so I don't know what to expect from this disc.

quote:

Originally posted by ChrisFromAstoria:
Geri Allen: Timeless Portraits & Dreams (Telarc). I'm a huge fan of Allen, but I think I should have read the liners before buying this one. She is backed by a choir so I don't know what to expect from this disc.

Have you checked out the Mary Lou Williams Collective's Zodiac Suite: Revisited, CfA? Allen plays music director for the project, which would be worth checking out if only for the fact that Williams work and influence has become criminally overlooked. Happily, it's worth checking out because it's a damn fine session. Buster Williams, Billy Hart, and Andrew Cyrille are featured as well, which is all the more reason to look for this one. Press releases claim it's only the first in a number of projects focusing on Williams' work, so I'm talking it up as much as possible if only in the hopes that they'll be able to live up to that promise.

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quote:

Originally posted by LinnTate:
Have you checked out the Mary Lou Williams Collective's Zodiac Suite: Revisited, CfA? Allen plays music director for the project, which would be worth checking out if only for the fact that Williams work and influence has become criminally overlooked. Happily, it's worth checking out because it's a damn fine session. Buster Williams, Billy Hart, and Andrew Cyrille are featured as well, which is all the more reason to look for this one. Press releases claim it's only the first in a number of projects focusing on Williams' work, so I'm talking it up as much as possible if only in the hopes that they'll be able to live up to that promise.

That Williams tribute disc is pretty good. I generally buy anything that has Geri's name on it. In fact, she's headlining at the Vanguard later this month and I intend to attend.

I did pick up one new CD this weekend. Kirk Lightsey, an ex-pat pianist, was performing at the Caramoor Jazz Fest, which I attended, and he was selling his new CD, "Estate," after the gig.

I decided to buy it because it is on an obscure European label called Itinera and I don't know if it will be distributed in the U.S. Lightsey, unfortunately, doubles on flute on the disc, but after one spin it sounded pretty good. His trio mates included Famoudo Don Moye on drums, who I have heard of, and Tibor Elekes on bass, who I have not heard of.

quote:

Originally posted by ChrisFromAstoria:
I did pick up one new CD this weekend. Kirk Lightsey, an ex-pat pianist, was performing at the Caramoor Jazz Fest, which I attended, and he was selling his new CD, "Estate," after the gig.

I decided to buy it because it is on an obscure European label called Itinera and I don't know if it will be distributed in the U.S. Lightsey, unfortunately, doubles on flute on the disc, but after one spin it sounded pretty good. His trio mates included Famoudo Don Moye on drums, who I have heard of, and Tibor Elekes on bass, who I have not heard of.

I've missed hearing Kirk Lightsey. He doesn't record enough and has never received nearly the attention he is due.

The only Lightsey and Don Moye collaboration from my collection that comes to mind are the two Leaders discs I have. I love Moye, though, since I'm a big fan of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. As I think back on it, they were probably one of my first introductions to the avant-garde back when I was buying pretty much everything I could get my hands on from ECM and The Third Decade came out. I had no idea at the time how tame it was by comparison to their earlier catalog.

Please report back on that Lightsey. I'm curious to hear more about it!

Oh, and I've never heard Tibor Elekes either.

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The Lightsey is pretty good, other than the cut/cuts where he plays the flute. It just doesn't work. The disc certainly isn't out, nor is it fully in the pocket. Sort of in-between stylistically, but well worth a listen/purchase.

I was in a used jazz store and picked up a copy of jazz guitarist's Mark Elf's LIFTOFF, on his own Jen Bay label. I'm not all that crazy about Elf's playing, but he manages to corral great sideman. I bought the disc primarily for what promises to be a sure-fire, finger poppin' rhythm section of David Hazeltine on piano, Peter Washington on bass & Lewis Nash on drums.

I picked up Bruce Williams' "More to Go" on what is surely the self-produced Brushwood Records label. Williams is an alto player, not all that well known, who recorded a couple of discs for the Savant Label, owned by Joe Fields, who also owns HighNote Records. Williams also plays in that Monk Tribute Band Ben Riley & Don Sickler co-lead. I bought the disc at Williams' gig, which I attended on Friday Night at the Lenox Lounge here in NYC.

Williams used three players in his rhythm section I've never heard of: Allyn Johnson on piano, the appropriately named Kris Funn on bass & Howard Franklin Jr. on drums.

I finally found a copy of pianist Helen Sung's new piano trio disc, "Helenistique" on the hard-to-find Fresh Sound New Talent label. Tower had one copy. Can't wait to play it. It goes on first tomorrow.

I also found a copy of Cedar Walton's newest disc, "One Flight Down" on the HighNote label.

And I was trolling in the used CD stores and picked up for $5.99 guitarist Freddie Bryant's "Live at Smoke" and $5.99 for 'bone player Wycliff Gordon's "The Joyride" on the Nigel-Hayer label. Gordon's disc includes a lot of the cats who gig (or gigged) in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

I picked up the band One For All's new disc on the Japanese Venus label called "Killer Joe." One For All is one of my favorite jazz bands and features my favorite tenor sax player, the incomparable Eric Alexander. David Hazeltine is not exactly chopped liver on piano and Joe Farnsworth is an A list drummer. Jim Rotondi is on trumpet and the ex-Messenger Steve Davis rounds out the band on 'bone. One For All doesn't have a permanent bass player -- though another ex-Messenger, Peter Washington, plays with them a lot -- so on this disc David Williams is on bass.

Jimmy Admadie Trio (featuring Phil Woods): Let's Groove (TPR)

Freddie Bryant & Kaleidoscope: Live at Smoke (Fresh Sound New Talent)

Wycliffe Gordon: The Joyride (Nigel-Hayer)

Richard Bona: Tiki (Decca/Universal Music Group)

Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra: Groove Shop (Capri)

Peter Zimmer Quintet: Burnin' Live at the Jazz Standard (Tippin' Records)

The Oscar Peterson Quartet: A Tribute to My Friends (Pablo/OJC)

Winard Harper Sextet: Make it Happen (Piadrum)

Harry "Sweets" Edison: Edison's Lights (Pablo?OJC)

Zoot Sims & Harry "Sweets" Edison: Just Friends (Pablo/OJC)

Bill Mays: at Maybeck Recital Hall (Concord)

Kirk Lightsey is great! Look for the little known album he did with danish bassist Lennart Ginman entitled "1991". Might be hard to find outside Scandinavia though, since it came out on a rather small danish label (Stunt records)

Recently I've managed to find a buch of early 90s jazz cd's for around $2 each at a local 2nd hand store:

Joshua Redman - Joshua Redman (Warner Bros, 1993)
Kenny Werner - Introducing The Trio (1989)

Kenny Werner - Uncovered Heart (Sunnyside, 1990)

Rachel Z - Trust The Universe (Columbia, 1991)

Ron Komie - Quest Of Dreams (Kazu, no release year given)

Strata Institute - Transmigration (Columbia, 1991) (one of the many M-Base releases feat. Steve Coleman)

oh, and about the Maybeck Recital Hall solo piano discs....anyone know how many actually came out and when they stopped doing them? The Stanley Cowell one is probably my favorite solo piano album of all time.

There were at least 42 titles (see below) in the Maybeck series. I don't think there were many more, if any, that on the list. The Williams disc was released in '96 and recorded in August '95.

JoAnne Brackeen Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume One (CCD-4409)
Dave McKenna Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Two (CCD-4410)
Dick Hyman Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Three (CCD-4415)
Walter Norris Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Four (CCD-4425)
Stanley Cowell Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Five (CCD-4431)
Hal Galper Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Six (CCD-4438)
John Hicks Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Seven (CCD-4442)
Gerry Wiggins Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eight (CCD-4450)
Marian McPartland Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Nine (CCD-4460)
Kenny Barron Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Ten (CCD-4466)
Roger Kellaway Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eleven (CCD-4470)
Barry Harris Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twelve (CCD-4476)
Steve Kuhn Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirteen (CCD-4484)
Alan Broadbent Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Fourteen (CCD-4488)
Buddy Montgomery Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Fifteen (CCD-4494)
Hank Jones Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Sixteen (CCD-4502)
Jaki Byard Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Seventeen (CCD-4511)
Mike Wofford Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Eighteen (CCD-4514)
Richie Beirach Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Nineteen (CCD-4518)
Jim McNeely Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty (CCD-4522)
Jessica Williams Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-One (CCD-4525)
Ellis Larkins Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Two (CCD-4533)
Gene Harris Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Three (CCD-4535)
Adam Makowicz Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Four (CCD-4541)
Cedar Walton Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Five (CCD-4546)
Bill Mays Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Six (CCD-4567)
Denny Zeitlin Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Seven (CCD-4572)
Andy Laverne Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Eight (CCD-4577)
John Cambell Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Twenty-Nine (CCD-4581)
Ralph Sutton Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty (CCD-4586)
Fred Hersch Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-One (CCD-4596)
Sir Roland Hanna Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Two (CCD-4604)
Don Friedman Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Three (CCD-4608)
Kenny Werner Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Four (CCD-4622)
George Cables Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Five (CCD-4630)
Toshiko Akiyoshi Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Six (CCD-4635)
John Colianni Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Seven (CCD-4643)
Ted Rosenthal Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Eight (CCD-4648)
Kenny Drew, Jr. Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Thirty-Nine (CCD-4653)
Monty Alexander Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Forty (CCD-4658)
Allen Farnham Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Forty-One (CCD-4686)
James Williams Live At Maybeck Recital Hall, Volume Forty-Two (CCD-4694)

Thanks Chris, I was expecting it to be around that amount of volumes in the series. I stil need to get more, the standard is very high.

quote:

Originally posted by K-Bee:
Kirk Lightsey is great! Look for the little known album he did with danish bassist Lennart Ginman entitled "1991". Might be hard to find outside Scandinavia though, since it came out on a rather small danish label (Stunt records)

I'll keep my eye out for this one. I am on the e-mail list for Stateside Distributors, which distributes Steeplechase (Danish), Stunt & Video Arts (Japan) titles. Those are hard to find stateside.

You can buy the CD from the Sundance/Stunt website directly.
http://www.sundance.dk/website/lennart_ginman_kirk_lightsey_1.htm

dkk 139.- is around $24 but I'm unaware if they deliver outside the EU countries.

I had a couple of hours to kill tonight so I hit a couple of the used CD stores and picked up a few discs.

For $5.99 I found guitarist Anthony Wilson's eponymously titled CD on MAMA label. I don't know much about Wilson other than the fact that he is the son of legendary left coast bandleader Gerald Wilson. He has some good sideman on the disc, including pianist Brad Mehldau and drummer Willie Jones III.

The next three discs I paid $9.99 each.

Charles Owens: Live at Smalls Vol. I on what is no doubt his own label called Superbalanced. I don't know much about Owens other than he is one of those musicians associated with the jazz club Smalls. On this disc he uses bassist Barak Mori, drummer Daniel Freedman, another Smalls regular, and pianist Jeremy Manasia, new to me. In reading the liner notes, this is Owens' working band so it should be, if nothing else, a tight ensemble.

Bootsie Barnes Quintet: "Boppin Round the Center." (Harvest Records) With a name like that, how could I resist? The alliteration! The mellifluousness! I haven't heard Barnes as far as I know, but I do know he is a Philadelphia legend. He surrounds himself on this CD with some of Philly's finest talents, including trumpeter John Swana, who has recorded a number of discs on the Criss Cross label; pianist Farid Barron, who held down the piano chair in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra; bassist Derrick Hodge, currently a member of pianist Mulgrew Miller's ensembles; and Craig McIver on drums, new to me.

Jed Levy Quintet: Mood Ellington (Steeplechase). Levey is an underrated tenor player who I've seen in several sideman situations and have a couple of his previous Steeplechase releases. How can you go wrong when you tackle the book of Ellington? This one was a no brainer. A good band too, including Bill Mays, one of my favorite pianists, bassist Martin Wind, who is a member of Mays' current piano trio, and Jeff Brillinger, who I don't know much about, on drums. Levy's front-line partner is trumpeter Jack Walrath, best known for his stint with Charles Mingues.

I had a 15% off coupon from Borders and picked up Roy Haynes' new disc on the Dreyfuss lable, "Whereas." Haynes has been leading bands populated by young up and comers, much the way Art Blakey and Betty Carter did. In this case, Haynes uses Jaleel Shaw on reeds and two musicians new to me, John Sullivan on bass & Robert Rodriguez on piano. The disc was recorded live at a club in St. Paul earlier this year.

Suprisingly, I had a tough time finding a copy of the hard bop band One For All's new Sharp9 disc, "The Lineup." Tower's Lincoln Center store, no doubt to the chain's bankruptcy, didn't have it; two Borders stores I went to didn't have it; and neither did Virgin's Union Square store. I had to pay full freight at Barnes & Noble.

One For All, which regarded its first disc a decade ago on Sharp9, is a stable band that features tenor giant Eric Alexander, pianist David Hazeltine, drummer Joe Farnsworth, 'bone player Steve Davis, an ex-Messenger, and trumpeter Jim Rotondi. They don't have a regular bass player and on this disc use John Webber, best known for his long stint in Johnny Griffin's quartet. My only quibble is that David Hazeltine plays at least some Fender Rhodes on the disc, though the liners don't say on how many cuts he plays acoustic piano versus the electric piano. When I play it I guess I'll find out.

I made good use of a Border's 30% off coupon to pick up drummer Louis Hayes' latest release "Maximum Firepower" on Joe Fields' Savant label. On this CD, the legendary drummer uses his Cannonball [Adderley] Legacy Band that features the virtuoso alto player Vincent Herring, who doubled as producer of the disc. Jeremy Pelt, the hot NYC trumpeter of the moment, joins Herring on the front line.

Hayes, of course, anchors the rhythm section and Richie Goods provides the pulse on bass. Hayes uses two pianists, Anthony Wonsey, my favorite, and Rick Germanson.

I gave it a spin this a.m. and it smokes, smoke, smokes.

I've been burning a hole in my wallet taking advantage of Borders' 30% off sale coupons, augmented by an additional 10% off because of some "personal shopping days" I'm been awarded. That is 40% off.

I picked up alto player Donald Harrison's "The Survivor" on the Nigel-Hayer label. Harrison, whose moniker is "Duck", was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers back in the mid 1980s when I first caught my jazz jones. This is a new disc that features his bandmate from his days with Blakey, pianist Mulgrew Miller, and his nephew, Christian Scott, on trumpet. Scott is a young guy just starting to make a name for himself (he opened for singer Cassandra Wilson at her Town Hall concert on Wednesday night).

Harrison used a couple of musicians new to me, Zaccai Curtis, on piano and Luques Curtis on bass. Both are new to me. John Lamkin, Harrison's regular drummer, rounds out the band.

And it has been a long time -- too long -- between recordings for trumpeter Jon Faddis, whose new CD "Teranga" was released on the Koch label earlier this year. Faddis specializes in high note playing and is most famous for having Dizzy Gillespie taking a shine to him and acting as his mentor/surrogate father.

Faddis' band includes David Hazeltine, a terrific pianist, Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass, and Dion Parson on drums. The quartet is augmented by several guests, including trumpeter Clark Terry and tenor player Frank "Magic" Wess. There are several African percussionists as well.

Continuing to burn a hole in my wallet using Borders 30% off coupons, I picked up "Hank and Frank," the "Hank" being Jones and the "Frank" being Wess on the new Lineage label. These two are joined by John Webber on bass (who also produced the disc), Mickey Roker on drums as well as a guitarist I'm not familiar with.

The other disc I picked up was Kenny Garrett's "Beyond the Wall," which did not get a good review in "The NY Times." The tunes were written in conjunction with a trip Garrett took to China and the influence of the wall.

Garrett, an alto player, is joined by a couple of ringers on the disc, tenor veteran Pharoah Sanders, and Bobby Hutcherson, arguably the greatest living vibes player. He also uses the *great* Mulgrew Miller on piano.

And one store was selling Diane Krall's new CD, "From This Moment On" on the Verve label for $9.99. Krall is backed by the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra on the new disc.