{"id":15380,"date":"2018-11-06T05:30:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T10:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15380"},"modified":"2018-11-12T13:56:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T18:56:23","slug":"notable-vinyl-reissues-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/06\/notable-vinyl-reissues-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Notable Vinyl Releases, Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

These three are reissues.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hank Jones \u2013 Arigato
\n<\/i><\/b>Jones\u2019 recording career as a jazz pianist began in 1947 and continued until age 91 with the aptly-named Last Recording<\/em> in 2010. Recipient of numerous accolades (NEA Jazz Masters, ASCAP Jazz Living Legend Award, etc.), Jones was a prolific musician; he released some five dozen albums under his own name. He was a frequent sideman on other recordings as well. (Personal note: he\u2019s the pianist on the album that represents my own gateway into jazz, Cannonball Adderley\u2019s landmark 1958 record, Somethin\u2019 Else<\/i>.)<\/p>\n

Arigato<\/i> represents a slice of Hank Jones\u2019 mid 1970s work; it\u2019s his sole release for the Progressive label. Customary in that it\u2019s a mix of jazz standards, American Songbook selections and originals, Arigato<\/i> is a varied and thrilling ride. For all of the LP\u2019s eleven cuts, the music is played by Jones on piano, upright bassist Richard Davis and drummer Ronnie Bedford (guitarist Ray Rivera guests on his own composition, \u201cMajorca.\u201d) As best as I can tell, Arigato<\/i> is the only Jones album to feature this lineup of players.<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 lyrical and precise style is bright and full of uptempo feeling; he never overplays, and the arrangements here allow each musician to take his turn at blowing. Even a bossa nova-leaning cut like \u201cNight Sadness (Notte Trieste)\u201d Is exciting in this trio\u2019s capable hands. The blues underpinning of \u201cWhat Am I Here for\u201d isn\u2019t quite soul jazz, but it\u2019s certainly soulful. A near perfect balance of carefully-crafted style and substance, Arigato<\/i> is a tasty addition to one\u2019s jazz library. The 2018 ORG Music release is (per the hype sticker) pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl in Germany.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ofege \u2013 Try and Love
\n<\/i><\/b>It\u2019s part and parcel of Westerners\u2019 self-centeredness \u2013 the idea that the cultural world somehow not only revolves around, but starts and ends with, us \u2013 that we rarely pay attention to the creative output of what we used to call \u201cthird world\u201d countries. Well, in 1973 Nigerian group Ofege released an LP called Try and Love<\/i>, and it\u2019s quite, quite good.<\/p>\n

The production values are first rate; in fact other than the lilt of youthful, African-accented English vocals, there\u2019s nothing here that would lead a listener to suspect that the members of Ofege were all high school students. The music has elements of funk and reggae, and the occasional splash of combo organ pulls things in a garage-rock direction.<\/p>\n

But just a bit; the songs are fully developed, and the playing is simultaneously taut and loose. If Try and Love<\/i> sounds like anything you\u2019ve heard, it\u2019s a bit like early Santana, filtered through an African sensibility. The trendy sounds of the era \u2013 fuzz, wah-wah \u2013 are all used with judicious restraint. One gets the sense listening to Try and Love<\/i> that these guys probably tore it up live; in the recording studio, they seem to be holding back just a bit.<\/p>\n

The limited-edition (500 copies) vinyl re-pressing has been done with the cooperation of Ofege founding member and lyricist Melvin Ukachi. He authors an essay — printed on a color insert — that provides additional context for both the group and its music (they released three more albums over the next few years). Try and Love<\/i> is a delightfully engaging record.<\/p>\n

\"\"Roland Hanna \u2013 Perugia: Live at Montreux \u201874
\n<\/i><\/b>The ability to hold an audience\u2019s rapt attention should never be taken for granted. Plenty of top-flight ensembles of musicians can\u2019t do it. Pulling that off in front of a jazz audience is tougher still, as jazz audiences are among the most demanding. Try it as a solo musician and it\u2019s an exponentially more daunting proposition.<\/p>\n

All that is true, but apparently nobody told pianist Roland Hanna. Onstage facing the audience at the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival, Hanna plays like a man on fire, unaccompanied (save for his Monk-like vocalizations).<\/p>\n

Released the year of its recording, Perugia<\/i> was only Hanna\u2019s seventh album; he\u2019d go on to release nearly sixty more. The six tunes \u2013 three standards, three originals \u2013 showcase the breadth of the man\u2019s expressive musicianship, from the subdued blues of Billy Strayhorn\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ve Got it Bad and That Ain\u2019t Good\u201d to the majestic \u201cA Child is Born\u201d (Thad Jones) to the classical-meets-ragtime workout of Hanna\u2019s original \u201cWistful Moment.\u201d Solo piano records should always be as filled with verve and variety as Perugia<\/i>. First-pressing copies of the \u201874 LP are (apparently) easy to come by, but this new ORG Music reissue on audiophile vinyl is a treat nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These three are reissues. Hank Jones \u2013 Arigato Jones\u2019 recording career as a jazz pianist began in 1947 and continued until age 91 with the aptly-named Last Recording in 2010. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,62,64,65,73,76],"tags":[3578,1319,3579,3580,3577],"class_list":["post-15380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jazz","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","category-vinyl","category-world","tag-hank-jones","tag-light-in-the-attic","tag-ofege","tag-org-music","tag-roland-hanna","cat-42-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","cat-76-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15380"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15617,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15380\/revisions\/15617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}