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The Very Best of John Coltrane
: :With his inexhaustible technique, trademark sound, and limitless imagination, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most dominant musicians. This collection covers his important Atlantic Records sessions recorded from 1959 to 1960 (chronicled in their entirety on Heavyweight Champion). The tunes signal an important transitional phase from Trane's stints with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to his emergence as a leader in his own right. 'Giant Steps' 'Naima,' and 'Cousin Mary'--featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor--crystallized Trane's supersonic 'sheets of sound' style. 'Like Sonny,' an Afro-Latin ...
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Ultra-Lounge: Christmas Cocktails, Pt. 2
: :With his inexhaustible technique, trademark sound, and limitless imagination, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most dominant musicians. This collection covers his important Atlantic Records sessions recorded from 1959 to 1960 (chronicled in their entirety on Heavyweight Champion). The tunes signal an important transitional phase from Trane's stints with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to his emergence as a leader in his own right. 'Giant Steps' 'Naima,' and 'Cousin Mary'--featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor--crystallized Trane's supersonic 'sheets of sound' style. 'Like Sonny,' an Afro-Latin ...
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My Favorite Things
: essential recording:This 1960 recording was a landmark album in John Coltrane's career, the first to introduce his quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones and the first release on which he played soprano saxophone. It also provided him with a signature hit, as his new group conception came together wonderfully on the title track. It's an extended modal reworking in 6/4 time that brought the hypnotic pulsating quality of Indian music into jazz for the first time, with Coltrane's soprano wailing over the oscillating piano chords and pulsing ...
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Cabaret: Original Soundtrack Recording (1972 Film)
: :Cheated out of playing nightclub canary Sally Bowles on Broadway in director Hal Price's Cabaret, Liza Minnelli nevertheless delivered an Oscar-winning star turn in Bob Fosse's cinematic reinvention of the show (which had the good sense to retain perverse imp Joel Grey from the stage production). Although the 1972 film discarded several songs from the original score, the new ones sound even better: Minnelli's breast-beating 'Maybe This Time,' the sultry 'Mein Herr,' and the salaciously satirical 'Money, Money.' By placing almost all the pertinent musical action on the stage of the ...
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The Secret Garden (1991 Original Broadway Cast)
: :Inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel of the same name, The Secret Garden was set apart from the beginning by the composition of its creative team. Not many Broadway shows can boast a female composer (Lucy Simon), director (Susan H. Schulman), librettist/lyricist (Marsha Norman), and producer/set designer (Heidi Landesman)--not to mention an 11-year old (Daisy Eagan) in the lead. This story of a little girl who helps her grieving uncle and sickly cousin regain a taste for life is a delicate, lovely achievement. Steeped in moody Victoriana, it should enchant those ...
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Our Delight
:Album Description:First recording together in over 50 years by two of the greatest performers in the history of modern jazz. For over six decades, saxophone master James Moody has serenaded lovers with his signature song 'Moody's Mood for Love', an improvisation on the chord progressions of 'I'm in the Mood for Love.' In 1946, he joined the seminal bebop big band of Dizzy Gillespie, which included Milt Jackson, Kenny Clark, Ray Brown, and Thelonius Monk. His now-legendary 16-bar solo on Gillespie's 'Emanon' alerted jazz fans to an emerging world-class soloist. NEA ...
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Let Yourself Go
: :Kristin Chenoweth won a Tony for the supporting role of Sally Brown in the 1999 revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, made a memorably vampy Lily in the 1999 television film of Annie, and had an NBC sitcom created for her, Kristin! Now she grabs the spotlight in Let Yourself Go, her first solo recording. She mixes torchy standards ('My Funny Valentine,' 'How Long Has This Been Going On?') with Faith Prince-style sauciness ('If'), gets to show off her operatic and scat chops in the miniplay 'The Girl in ...
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Best Of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
: essential recording:Ella Fitzgerald's voice was satin to Louis Armstrong's sandpaper, but when you put them together on a single song, their chemistry was unimpeachable. This disc selects highlights from the three albums they made together at Verve (including their Porgy and Bess), and adds a spiffy live track from the Hollywood Bowl. Though they don't harmonize much (Armstrong's voice wasn't built for harmony), Ella's dignified swing and flashes of teasing wit play off Satchmo's gritty, good-humored roar symbiotically. The material is mostly lightweight Tin Pan Alley stuff (lots of Gershwin, ...
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History, Mystery
:Album Description:Two CD set. Bill Frisell's History, Mystery is a series of short pieces, alternately elegant and playful, written by Frisell for an octet comprised of the guitarist himself and a group of longtime collaborators-friends. One evocative snippet melds into another to form a virtually seamless work that unfolds over the course of this double-disc package. It has an engrossingly theatrical quality, as if it were the score to some unseen play. Some of these tracks were originally written for Mysterio Sympatico, a 70-minute multi-media dialogue between Frisell and fellow Seattle ...
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Ask Me Again
:Album Description:'After Nancy's death in 1995, many radio DJ's across the country kept her music alive by playing cuts from her CD's. But one DJ, Jonathan Schwartz, had access to a special private collection of unreleased recordings that Nancy had given him copies as gifts. Over the years, Jonathan would regularly play these recordings, and every time he did, we would get calls asking; 'Which CD is that on? How do I get a copy of the that song?'. Of course, there weren't on any CD, so we had a lot ...
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