Recording three studio albums for the EmArcy label, Cannonball Adderley's Sharpshooters were a very potent jazz band in the late 1950s, one that could literally swing the daylight outs of any situation and stand tall with their peer group. With pianist Junior Mance, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, Cannonball and brother Nat Adderley were young and well-respected enough to lay claim to this quintet as a top five band along with any mainstream jazz groupings of the day. With quintessential small group players in the rhythm section, the Adderleys really have the best band anyone could hope for in a soul-jazz context, but also for hard bop. Tracks like Tadd Dameron's "Our Delight," the fast "Stay on It," and the standard "If I Love Again" are all superlative examples of rough-and-ready post-Charlie Parker music, especially the latter song where the horns delve into some fascinating interplay.

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a 50th Anniversary Remastered Edition of the debut album by The Moody Blues, "The Magnificent Moodies”.
Now associated as being pioneers of pro-gressive orchestral rock, the Moody Blues had another life between 1964-1966, as one of Britain’s finest Rhythm and Blues influenced acts. With a line-up of Denny Laine (Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica), Ray Thomas (Vocals, Harmonica, Flute), Mike Pinder (Keyboards, Vocals), Clint Warwick (Bass, Vocals) and Graeme Edge (Drums), the band signed to a London based management company who leased recordings to Decca Records. Their second single, a cover version of Bessie Banks’ ‘Go Now!’ was a huge chart success across the world. Their debut album, "The Magnificent Moodies” was released in1965 to great acclaim and tours with The Beatles eventually led them to become part of Brian Epstein’s management stable…

What these sound recordings attempt to do is to bring you face-to-face — or, perhaps more appropriately, sound to-heart — with actual works of the troubadours and, occasionally, of others in their circle of influence. The task is daunting for so many reasons: songs got written down decades, even centuries, after their dates of creation; only about ten percent of the original melodies survive; and most direct knowledge of how performers worked out their interpretations at the time has been lost. We know nothing whatsoever about the singing style, or about the techniques of instrumental accompaniment that may have been employed. These performances, therefore, of necessity, reflect a confluence of musicological and philological knowledge with performers' instincts and intuitions, as all of these tendencies interacted with each other at a specific moment in history, the late twentieth century.

Both more and less than what a partnership of Sumner and Marr would promise, Electronic's debut has weathered time much better than might have been thought upon its release, but ultimately only half works. When it does, though, it's fantastic, sometimes shifting from okay to fantastic within the same song. Opening number "Idiot Country" is a bit like that - the beginning sounds a little too rushed, Marr's heavy wah-wah riff OK enough but Sumner's semi-rap/semi-sung vocals a bit ham-handed. By the time the full combination of gentle keyboards, crisp rhythms, and the gentle, reflective chorus comes to bear, though, everything feels just great. Perhaps understandably Electronic leans much more toward New Order than the Smiths - Marr had already proven his desire to work in dance-crossover since his previous band's breakup, while Sumner's immediately recognizable, melancholic vocals call to mind New Order's rich history…