Month: March 2023

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Quarteto Novo – Quarteto Novo (1967)

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Quarteto Novo – Quarteto Novo
1967 Odeon (S)MFOB 3505
EU Reissue 2008 EMI – 5099921674624

Holy hell somebody grab a fire extinguisher because this record cooks so much it started a grease fire and may burn your whole house down. Don’t believe me? Yes, the record starts out gently with acoustic treatments playing Northeastern musical motifs (what would have still been called ‘folklore’ back in the 60s), featuring Airto Morreira on various percussion and Hermeto Pascoal on flute. Continue reading

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Nat Turner Rebellion – Laugh To Keep From Crying (2021)

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Nat Turner Rebellion – Laugh To Keep From Crying
Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | |  Soul, funk
Philly Groove Records, Chrysalis – PGRV101

The Nat Turner Rebellion – the musical act, not the historical event – was a promising group from Philly that imploded before they ever really got off the ground, featuring vocalists Joe Jefferson, Major Harris, Ron Harper and Bill Spratley. With only a pair of singles issued while they were together, their planned debut record got shelved and sat collecting dust among the holdings of label Philly Groove Records before ending up in a stash of donated material at Drexel University, waiting almost half a century to finally be released. Continue reading

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Nina Simone – Nina Simone’s Finest Hour (2000)

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Nina Simone – Nina Simone’s Finest Hour
2000 Verve Records (314 543 604-2)

I thought I would make a quick blog post to commemorate International Women’s Day and pay tribute to one of my heroes, the great Nina Simone.  Superlatively gifted and inspired as both a pianist and vocalist, courageous and visionary, groundbreaking, tenacious, mercurial — I could keep throwing adjectives at this woman all day and never run out of them.  Is this collection her “finest hour”?  Continue reading

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Wayne Shorter – The Best of Wayne Shorter (1988, Blue Note)

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Wayne Shorter
The Best of Wayne Shorter
BLUE NOTE CDP 7 91141 2
Released 1988

I had a different blog post planned for today, but the world lost one of the great forces in jazz yesterday with the passing of Wayne Shorter.  If you don’t know why you should care about that, you can read one of his obits in the Old Grey Lady, The Atlantic, or the BBC.  It’s the kind of loss that has us checking the internet to see what other giants from that generation still walk among us. And there aren’t too many. Continue reading