What Are You Listening To? August 2022

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Keef Hartley Band - Little Big Band (1971)

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Scorching live album recorded over two nights at the Marquee Club in London. Jazzier than Chicago, harder rocking than BST, I have no idea why KHB weren't a lot more successful here. :shrug:
 
Maurice Marechal - The Artistry of Maurice Marechal (rec. 1929-35, comp. 1994)

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Achingly beautiful cello from the French master (1892-1964). Right now, I'm enjoying his version of Faure's melancholy "Elegie". Where Casals attacked the cello, Marechal made love to it.

Two world wars took away many of his prime performing years, and a debilitating muscle disease silenced his instrument permanently in 1950. However, he was able to continue teaching at the Conservatoire de Paris until shortly before his death.

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Kellye Gray - Standards In Gray (Justice Records 1990)

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Being the son of the flamboyant Joe Jamail, one of the most successful attorneys in Texas, has its advantages. Randall Jamail had a hankering to start a record label so he did. Justice Records started in 1990 as a jazz label and petered out in the 2000's. In between, Jamail's friendship with Willie Nelson led to several outlaw country releases from Willie, Waylon and the boys.

This was the very first album on Justice Records and it got the label off to a fast start. The late Kellye Gray (1954-2018) was born in Dallas but spent much of her career in the Bay Area. Her work as a stand up comedian gave her the bravado to put across a song in a powerful yet approachable way. Here she is backed by her club band which manages intuitively to keep up with such a strong performer on a variety of jazz tunes ranging from 3 to 11 minutes. I'm not a fan of the over-the-top American Idol singing style but somehow Kellye can be exuberant but not annoying.

:4.5: on the Sam-O-Meter.

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David Cullen ~ One Night, One Guitar (2007)

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1Midari
2Cycles
3Blue Counterpoint
4On The Way
5Birdland
Written By – Joe Zawinul
Written By – Joe Zawinul
6Keep It That Way
7Bahama Beach
6th Cello Suite By J.S. Bach
86th Cello Suite: Prelude
96th Cello Suite: Allemande
106th Cello Suite: Courante
116th Cello Suite: Sarabande
126th Cello Suite: Gavottes 1 & 2
136th Cello Suite: Gigue
14Spain
Written By – Chick Corea
 
Arthur Rubinstein, New York Philharmonic (Bruno Walter, Cond.) - The Historic Broadcasts, Vol. 3 (rec. 1923-87, comp. 1997)

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Part of a 10 CD box presenting for the first time a treasure chest of recordings not heard since their original radio broadcast. Right now, I'm enjoying Bruno Walter at the podium with Richard Strauss' Symphonia Domestica from December 1945 and Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, Rubinstein at the keyboard, from February 1947. The presence of these two Jewish emigres at the epicenter of American culture so soon after the end of WWII lends these performances an air of historical importance beyond the music itself.

The Symphonia Domestica, a tone poem dating back to 1904, had a special connection with New York. It received its first performance at Carnegie Hall under the baton of the composer himself, followed by two more shows at Wanamaker's Department Store :oops:. Wiki tells us that German press were not amused. :vic:
 
The Symphonia Domestica, a tone poem dating back to 1904, had a special connection with New York. It received its first performance at Carnegie Hall under the baton of the composer himself, followed by two more shows at Wanamaker's Department Store :oops:. Wiki tells us that German press were not amused. :vic:

It seems it was quite difficult to entertain the German press back in those days.
 
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