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VA - The Soul Of Jazz, Vol. 1 (1995)

Posted By: Designol
VA - The Soul Of Jazz, Vol. 1 (1995)

Various Artists - The Soul Of Jazz, Volume 1 (1995)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 377 Mb | Scans ~ 58 Mb
Label: Gitanes Jazz Productions/Verve | # 525 558-2 | Time: 01:00:50
Jazz, Soul-Jazz, Hard Bop, Post-Bop, Latin Jazz, Crossover Jazz

What you see is what you get, an excellent little compilation of the various faces of soul-jazz as presented by the Verve label with their amazing array of artists from Hugh Masekela to Willie Bobo and Herbie Mann on the one hand, and Dizzy Gillespie, Jon Hendricks (in an outstanding reading of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man") the Heath Brothers, and Teddy Edwards on the other. The track list is wonderfully varied, too: there's a smoking version of Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" by Masekela, a pair by Jimmy Smith, and a big band – a new entry by the acid jazz group the James Taylor Quartet, but they get it deep; and Wynton Kelly goes deep into soul and blues with "Escapade." Anyway you cut it, it comes out great.

Azymuth - Brazilian Soul (2004) [Japanese Edition]

Posted By: Designol
Azymuth - Brazilian Soul (2004) [Japanese Edition]

Azymuth - Brazilian Soul (2004)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 465 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 197 Mb | Scans included
Label: Far Out Recordings | # COCB-53246 | Time: 01:07:48
Brazilian Jazz, Fusion, Jazz-Funk, Bossa Nova

hree decades after Azymuth made their first tentative steps into bossa nova society, Brazilian Soul is a return to their blistering form of the early '80s. The new album sees them borrowing from the musical vocabulary that has always been one of the most exciting narratives of Brazilian music, as well as indulging their enthusiasm for new sounds that still makes them heroes and inspirations to a generation of 21st Century producers, from 4Hero to Masters At Work. They have linked up again with a truly great cast of celebrated Brazilian performers, some who were there at the genesis of Azymuth, and some who hitched a ride during the last 30 years – any history of Brazilian music that didn’t include names featured on the album like Roberto Menescal, Fabiola, Emilio Santiago and Marcio Lott wouldn’t be one to be trusted. Although their sound hails from the tropical funk scene which emerged in Rio in the mid '70s, their music is still as pertinent now as was then – their live shows demonstrate that the percussive furnace which drives their sound is still burning bright.

Azymuth - Butterfly (2008) [Japanese Edition]

Posted By: Designol
Azymuth - Butterfly (2008) [Japanese Edition]

Azymuth - Butterfly (2008) [Japanese Edition]
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 289 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 102 Mb | Scans ~ 78 Mb
Brazilian Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Fusion | Label: Far Out/Victor | # VICJ-61569 | 00:44:35

Fourteen years is a long time to spend with one label, especially for jazz and fusion groups. Azymuth celebrated 14 years with the United Kingdom's Far Out label in 2008. Butterfly is their eight record for the imprint and their first new studio album in four years. The original trio – Jose Roberto Bertami (keyboards/vocals), Alex Malheiros (bass/guitars/vocals), and Ivan Conti (drums/percussion/vocals) – is still together after 35 years. Here jazz, funk, fusion, and elegant samba are woven together seamlessly. The disc was produced by the trio with David Brinkworth (Harmonic 33). "Butterfly," the album opener, is a sultry, breezy cover of the classic Herbie Hancock track, originally on 1974's Thrust. The elegant sound of gorgeously arranged strings (by Arthur Verocai no less), warm rolling Rhodes piano, Conti's breaking drums that walk the line between lithe funk and samba, and a pronounced but languid bassline gradually and deliberately build the space, stopping at interludes to reinsert the sensuous mood in the melodic line. Certainly it's an auspicious way to begin, but it's only one of the many highlights on this set.

Lee Ritenour - Collection (1991)

Posted By: Designol
Lee Ritenour - Collection (1991)

Lee Ritenour - Collection (1991)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 405 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 164 Mb | Scans included
Crossover Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Guitar Jazz | Label: GRP | # GRD-9645 | Time: 01:06:55

GRP's generally well-chosen 1991 Collection covers an entire decade of Lee Ritenour releases from Elektra and GRP. As such, those years seem to form a late-'70s plateau descending into a commercial valley by the early part of the '80s and then gradually ascending a slope as Rit's playing grows and deepens in the decade's final years. Some of the high points are the Latin-inflected numbers from Festival ("Latin Lover") and Portrait ("Asa") and two excellent straight-ahead excerpts from Stolen Moments ("24th Street Blues," "Waltz for Carmen"), the latter two with lots of Wes Montgomery-like octave work. And even "Is It You?," Ritenour's pop hit from 1981, comes off as a good, catchy piece of record-making. Recommended for those who only want a sample of Lee Ritenour's voluminous solo output.

Stevie Wonder - Albums Collection 1966-1985 (14CD) Japanese SHM-CD Reissue 2012

Posted By: Designol
Stevie Wonder - Albums Collection 1966-1985 (14CD) Japanese SHM-CD Reissue 2012

Stevie Wonder - Albums Collection 1966-1985 (14CD) Japanese SHM-CD Reissue 2012
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 3.7 Gb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 1.35 Gb | Scans ~ 615 Mb
Label: Universal Music Japan | # UICY-20346-20359 | Time: 10:05:00
Funk, Soul, R&B, Pop/Rock, Jazz-Funk, Disco

Collection includes: 'Up-Tight' (1966); 'Down To Earth' (1966); 'My Cherie Amour' (1969); 'Where I'm Coming From' (1971); 'Music Of My Mind' (1972); 'Talking Book' (1972); 'Innervisions' (1973); 'Fulfillingness' First Finale' (1974); 'Songs In The Key Of Life' 2CD (1976); 'Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants' 2CD (1979); 'Hotter Than July' (1980); 'In Square Circle' (1985).

Etta James - Life, Love & The Blues (1998)

Posted By: Designol
Etta James - Life, Love & The Blues (1998)

Etta James - Life, Love & The Blues (1998)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 382 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 137 Mb | Scans ~ 69 Mb
Soul-Funk-Jazz-Blues | Label: Private | # 01005 82162 2 | Time: 00:59:38

Etta James followed her two deeply jazzy mid-'90s albums of torch songs with Love's Been Rough on Me, a flirtation with Nashville writers. On Life, Love & the Blues, she returns to her blues and soul repertoire, enlivening even the hoariest of tunes ("Spoonful," a gender-flopped "Hoochie Coochie Gal") with her growl. The tinges of funk underpinning "Born Under a Bad Sign" are given full room to stretch on a cover of Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay," and James nearly swipes "The Love You Save May Be Your Own," one of Joe Tex's great preaching ballads, from the master.

Herbie Mann - Super Mann (1978) Japanese Remastered 2014

Posted By: Designol
Herbie Mann - Super Mann (1978) Japanese Remastered 2014

Herbie Mann - Super Mann (1978) Japanese Remastered 2014
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 273 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 111 Mb | Scans included
Label: Atlantic/Warner | # WPCR-28081 | Time: 00:37:46
Crossover Jazz, Jazz-Pop, Jazz-Funk, Disco

In 1978, Herbie Mann came out with two very different LPs. The more improvisatory Brazil: Once Again fulfilled his need to record a serious Brazilian jazz-pop album, while Super Mann is a commercial disco effort that finds Patrick Adams doing most of the producing. The two LPs aren't anything alike – while the instrumental Brazil: Once Again makes extensive use of the flutist's jazz chops, Mann doesn't do any improvising on Super Mann. This album isn't about his virtuosity as a soloist – it's all about the beat and the groove. So naturally, Super Mann was trashed in the jazz press by critics who made the mistake of judging it by jazz standards and wouldn't have known a good disco record from a bad one. Judging Super Mann by disco standards, one hears an LP that is uneven and isn't in a class with Chic, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, or Sister Sledge but has its moments. While "Jisco Dazz" and "Rock Freak" are mechanical, stiff, and forgettable, Mann gets into a nice samba/disco groove on "Etagui" and demands attention with a speeded-up version of the haunting "Body Oil" (which he had previously recorded for 1975's Waterbed).

Hiroshi Suzuki - Cat (1975) Remastered Reissue 2014

Posted By: Designol
Hiroshi Suzuki - Cat (1975) Remastered Reissue 2014

Hiroshi Suzuki - Cat (1975) Remastered Reissue 2014
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 255 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 100 Mb | Scans included
Jazz Fusion, Jazz Funk | Label: Columbia | # COCB-54118 | Time: 00:40:20

Hiroshi Suzuki is probably the best know japanese jazz trombonist with Hiroshi Fukumura. Hiroshi started his professional career in the Nobuo Hara' Sharps & Flats big band, played for various jazz artists as well as Sadao Watanabe, Takeshi Inomata, Yuji Ohno or Shungo Sawada. In 1969, he recorded for Takt Jazz Series, the japanese jazz masterpiece Variation with the Masahiko Togashi Quintet, and Up Up And Away with his big band, The Happy Cats. Later, Hiroshi joined the new super Jazz combo formed by Akira Ishikawa & Hiromasa Suzuki, the Freedom Unity, featuring saxophonist Takeru Muraoka & bassist Kunimitsu Inaba, all present on this recording. Titles include the familiar Jazz standard Walk Tall composed by Joe Zawinul for Cannonball Adderley, Cat by Takeru Muraoka and Romance by Hiromasa Suzuki plus two original compositions by Hiroshi Suzuki, Shrimp Dance & Kuro To Shiro.

Patrice Rushen - Pizzazz (1979) Reissue 2003

Posted By: Designol
Patrice Rushen - Pizzazz (1979) Reissue 2003

Patrice Rushen - Pizzazz (1979) Reissue 2003
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 261 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 100 Mb | Scans included
Jazz-Funk, R&B, Disco | Label: Wounded Bird | # WOU 243 | Time: 00:38:48

Patrice Rushen was an R&B-jazz vocalist/pianist/songwriter who in the 70's and 80's had numerous albums make the Billboard charts. The majority of her work originally came out on Elektra Records but has never been issued on CD anywhere in the world until now. Pizzazz was her second highest charting album, reaching #39 in 1979. It features the hit single 'Haven't You Heard'.

Steve Coleman And The Council Of Balance - Synovial Joints (2015)

Posted By: Designol
Steve Coleman And The Council Of Balance - Synovial Joints (2015)

Steve Coleman And The Council Of Balance - Synovial Joints (2015)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 371 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 143 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Contemporary Jazz | Label: Pi Recordings | # PI57 | Time: 01:02:01

Synovial Joints is the most ambitious project of Coleman s 30+ year career, featuring 21 musicians from the jazz, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian and contemporary classical circles on horns, woodwinds, piano, vocals, percussion and strings. The music is based on the physiological processes, functions and rhythms of the human body, in particular the musculoskeletal system. Coleman also explores an orchestration technique inspired by sounds that he recorded in the Amazon Rainforest, in which instrumental colors move gradually from foreground to background, much as the variety of layered sounds reveal themselves in the rainforest.

Level 42 - Level Best (1989)

Posted By: Designol
Level 42 - Level Best (1989)

Level 42 - Level Best (1989)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 464 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 166 Mb | Scans ~ 53 Mb | 01:12:50
New Wave, Jazz-Funk, Pop/Rock, Sophisti-Pop, Synthpop | Label: Polydor | # 841 399-2

Polydor's Level Best is a thorough, successful overview of the smooth, jazzy British sophisti-pop outfit, containing all of their biggest hits and best material, including the sublime "Something About You." At 18 tracks, it may run a little long, but it still is as comprehensive a summary of Level 42's career as could be hoped.

Miles Davis - On The Corner (1972) [MFSL Remastered 2016]

Posted By: Designol
Miles Davis - On The Corner (1972) [MFSL Remastered 2016]

Miles Davis - On The Corner (1972) [MFSL Remastered 2016]
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 369 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 138 Mb | Scans included | 00:54:55
Fusion, Jazz-Funk, Jazz-Rock | Label: Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab | # UDSACD 2171

On the Corner is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded in June and July 1972, and released later that year by Columbia Records. The album continued Davis' exploration of jazz fusion, bringing together funk rhythms with the influence of experimental composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Recording sessions for the album featured a changing lineup of musicians including bassist Michael Henderson, guitarist John McLaughlin, and keyboardist Herbie Hancock, with Davis playing the electric organ more prominently than his trumpet.

Ray Charles - The Very Best Of Ray Charles (2014) 5CD Box Set

Posted By: Designol
Ray Charles - The Very Best Of Ray Charles (2014) 5CD Box Set

Ray Charles - The Very Best Of Ray Charles (2014) 5CD Box Set
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 1.64 Gb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 718 Mb | Scans ~ 37 Mb | 05:10:41
Rhythm & Blues, Soul-Jazz, Big Band, Soul, Funk, Gospel | Label: Wagram | # 3299892

Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form, but Charles did even more to devise a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. Then there was his singing; his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader. The brilliance of his 1950s and '60s work, however, can't obscure the fact that he made few classic tracks after the mid-'60s, though he recorded often and performed until the year before his death.

Caldera - Caldera (1976) Japanese Reissue 2015

Posted By: Designol
Caldera - Caldera (1976) Japanese Reissue 2015

Caldera - Caldera (1976) Japanese Reissue 2015
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 279 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 106 Mb | Scans included
Fusion, Jazz-Funk, Latin Jazz, Jazz-Rock | Label: Capitol | # UCCU-90112 | Time: 00:38:39

With Wayne Henderson of Crusaders fame handling the production, Caldera showed a great deal of promise on its self-titled 1976 debut album. The Latin jazz-fusion unit isn't afraid to take chances on such imaginative pieces as Jorge Strunz's "El Juguete" and Eduardo del Barrio's "Exaltation" – chances that pay off in a major way. Though one can tell that Caldera's members were well aware of such explorers as Return to Forever, Weather Report, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, it's also clear that they were major Earth, Wind & Fire fans and had absorbed a wide variety of Latin music. Strunz and del Barrio were hardly the only fusionists who incorporated Latin rhythms in the 1970s – Chick Corea, George Duke, Wayne Shorter, Al DiMeola, and Joe Zawinul were all well aware of the musical innovations of Latinos, but Caldera was unique in the sense that the band represented a real melting pot of Latinos bringing different ideas to the table. And on this LP, those ideas work magnificently.

Bob James - Touchdown (1978) Japanese Remastered Reissue 2015

Posted By: Designol
Bob James - Touchdown (1978) Japanese Remastered Reissue 2015

Bob James - Touchdown (1978) Japanese Remastered Reissue 2015
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 236 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 103 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Smooth Jazz | Label: Tappan Zee | # VICJ-61719 | Time: 00:38:15

Bob James' most enduring recording is perhaps one of his least adventurous. Full of simple laid-back melodies, light, airy grooves, and quiet backdrops, it's a smooth jazz "masterpiece." It's an enduring part of his catalog and was the launch pad for many movie and television projects, and for a string of hit recordings for the Warner label in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. In effect, it insured his financial security for the future. The set is notable for its heavyweight cast including David Sanborn, Ron Carter, Idris Muhammad, Steve Gadd, Eric Gale, Hubert Laws, and Earl Klugh. It also netted the monster hit "Angela (Theme from Taxi)," which continued to get airplay on smooth jazz stations into the 21st century. James is a highly developed pianist, arranger, and composer, and while the music here is as safe as milk, it nonetheless spoke to millions.