Reviews by markjazz

A great follow up release from the previous s/t album. Each track is so smooth and I swear this could have been released 50 years ago and no one would have notice the differance. Lots of saxophone, which is my favorite, in most of the tracks. There's bongo's, ograns, piano, bass and great drum work, which is the elements of good jazz anyway. A lovely release and I'd recommed it for anyone into future jazz or just jazz as a whole.

I love the artwork and I love the idea behind the Blue Series but as with a lot of Matthew Shipp releases he never seems focused enough, even for avant-guard jazz. At times it sounds like he's just playing the piano for the fun of it and hopes a decent sound comes out of it. Some of the tracks are ok on here, like To Vitalize and the title track but for the most part the drums are way to far in the background and don't make enough of a presence. It's a fair disc overall and I'll keep checking him out but this isn't one of my favorites, by far.

I love this cover artwork a lot better than the original version and this one was only $2 more so I bought this Limited Edition version with the DVD. As far as the music goes I love it and I think this album is just as good as their last one. The tracks aren't long and drawn out and they all blast some pretty fast bpm too. I wouldn't say there was one track that blew my mind on here but I didn't dislike a single one and that's just fine with me.

The DVD is pretty pointless. The tracks are just audio over a screen shot and the band interview is about 24 minutes and is dubbed in English. So they sing songs in English but do interviews in Greek. Odd. The direction of the interview tries to make it all scary and deep but it's nothing a metal fan hasn't seen or heard before. I'm not sure if it's just my copy but one major thing that I don't get is on the menu selection screen I can't see where the pointer is. I just have to randomly move it and hope I get what I want. Luckily I only payed $17 for this Limited Edition.

You can't really go wrong with this compilation. Sure there's only four tracks but it features his best material all crammed into one disc. We have some beautiful creations on here starting with Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt that's a short 16 minutes, by short I mean it doesn't seem that long when listening to it. It's an almost ambient jazz track and if your a fan of Eastern jazz then it's right up your alley.

Next we have The Creator Has a Master Plan. which is a 32 minute journey that can be broken down into 5 parts all-the-while still flowing together very nicely. Unlike Sun Ra's Space Is the Place track, which I find has a similar feel, this track is not clumped up in random noise and vocals. The lyrics are deep and the music is even deeper with a lovely message, no matter what God you believe in.

Astral Traveling and Spiritual Blessing are a bit more similar in style and in length. It's the type of jazz that Alice Coltrane was doing at the same time with her harp. Very spiritual (as the title suggests) and has so much soul coming out of it you'll be hard pressed not to love them, even if your the devils child. Overall, it's a great compilation and a good starting point for any new listener to Pharoah Sanders, which is what I think it was intended for.

As far as cheap DVD's go this one was pretty good. Hearing and watching the interview after the title track is a nice thing to watch as I don't get to see that often. Rollins is very vocal and has a lot to say and comes off as very musically intelligent. This DVD features 3 different live sets.

The first three tracks were done on the Jazz Casual show and are probably the best three on here. Track 4, My Kinda Love has no Sonny Rollins in it, just Jim Hall and his band in 1964. The last two were done in Europe and appear in color, being done live in 1973. Hearing St. Thomas in the 70's is a treat as the band adds a little funk feel to it. All in all this is a good buy for $12 Canadian.

This is a pretty good compilation if you want a great introduction to the man known as Sonny Rollins. This compilation spans through the years 1951-1956 and has tracks from 8 different albums, 3 of which are from the classic album Saxophone Colossus. That's probably why I've never bothered to buy that album because 3 of the 5 tracks are on this compilation. In any event though, this is one of the better artist comps I own because the selection is pretty good. It prompted me to buy the album Plus 4 after hearing I Feel a Song Coming On, which is pretty mellow hard bop track, plus Max Roach is on it so it gets 1 star automatically for that. This track happens to be one of my favourite from Mr. Rollins. It's a good length, it's quick, it has trumpet by Clifford Brown, so it rules on all levels. This compilation came with it a free Various Artist compilation here; Profiles Collectors Edition Volume 3, which is pretty awesome on it's own too. A great buy and a great start to get into this amazing sax player.

This is still my favorite of the Jazz in Paris series. Max Roach delivers one of his best peices on this disc, which is the title track, Parisian Sketches, a 17+ minute journey of great hard-bop jazz featuring a pretty underated cast but it still offers a very solid sound. You can always tell a Roach drum solo and there's plenty on this disc. The title track is broken up into 5 parts with each having thier own title and movement. Much like a piece of well orchestrated music. Tracks 2-5 aren't as great but they stand out very well and this is the type of jazz I'm most fond of. Something you can read to if you want or something you can play during dinner. It's a good mix.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones
But chains and whips excite me."

Wal-Mart use to sell shirts with this quote on them 15 years ago. Yeah, she's awesome.

I love this release and I enjoy it more as a great example of 1940's jazz, besides the vocal jazz craze, than a Django Reinhardt compilation. These tracks are taken from 4 shows from April - December 1947. This is a very good selection of tracks but it's pretty short, under 38 minutes. I think out of any track on here the one that represents Django Reinhardt the most would be Danse Norvégienne. It's a slow piece but he plays brilliantly on here and isn't horned out by his accompanying band members. I don't really have a favourite track on here, as they're all nice, but I wish the release was a few tracks longer. The solo's on some of these tracks are awesome too, especially on Vette, which is probably my favourite track if I was forced to pick. I still can't believe I don't own anything else by this guy. Better get off my ass!!!

Credits:
Clarinet - Hubert Rostaing (tracks: 3 to 10)
Double Bass - Ladislas Czabanyck (tracks: 3 to 12) , Willy Lockwood (tracks: 1, 2)
Drums - Al Craig (tracks: 1, 2) , André Jourdan (tracks: 3 to 10) , Ted Currie (tracks: 11, 12)
Guitar - Joseph Reinhardt (tracks: 1 to 10)
Guitar - Django Reinhardt
Piano - Eddie Bernard
Alto Saxophone - Hubert Rostaing (tracks: 11, 12) , Michel De Villers (tracks: 1, 2)
Trumpet - Rex Stewart (tracks: 11, 12)
Written-By - Django Reinhardt (tracks: 1, 2, 7, 8, 10) , Eddie Barclay (tracks: 5, 6)

The big problem I have with this album is the songs are so short and don't really go anywhere. Or they start to get good and then it just drops into some odd technical thing or slows way the fuck down into some chilled out guitar. The edition with the two bonus tracks doesn't offer much as they're just demos and sound like shit. This album does have some pretty good music though but not enough for me to explore this band much. I did listen to Prey for Eyes and thought it was even worse than this release. Maybe I'm just not into deathcore a whole lot. The cover art sucks ass too. It looks like it could be for some minimal techno album and I will admit they did do a better job with the art on later albums. I'm not a fan of the track titles either and don't find any humor in it, if there was suppose to be. Example: Like a Train Through a Pigeon and That Certain Special Ugly. Overall it's a decent album with some fast metal going for it but it's not the best I've heard. A good start for this group though.