Bill Evans Trio – Moon Beams (1962) [2002, Analogue Productions Stereo SACD] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Evans Trio – Moon Beams (1962) [2002, Analogue Productions Stereo SACD]
SACD ISO (Stereo): 1,57 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 730 MB | Artwork | 3% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Analogue Productions # CAPJ 9428 SA | Country/Year: US 1962, 2002
Genre: Jazz | Style: Post Bop, Instrumental, Modal

Review by Thom Jurek

Moonbeams was the first recording Bill Evans made after the death of his musical right arm, bassist Scott LaFaro. Indeed, in LaFaro, Evans found a counterpart rather than a sideman, and the music they made together over four albums showed it. Bassist Chuck Israels from Cecil Taylor and Bud Powell’s bands took his place in the band with Evans and drummer Paul Motian and Evans recorded the only possible response to the loss of LaFaro — an album of ballads. The irony on this recording is that, despite material that was so natural for Evans to play, particularly with his trademark impressionistic sound collage style, is that other than as a sideman almost ten years before, he has never been more assertive than on Moonbeams. It is as if, with the death of LaFaro, Evans’ safety net was gone and he had to lead the trio alone. And he does first and foremost by abandoning the impressionism in favor of a more rhythmic and muscular approach to harmony. The set opens with an Evans original, “RE: Person I Knew,” a modal study that looks back to his days he spent with Miles Davis. There is perhaps the signature jazz rendition of “Stairway to the Stars,” with its loping yet halting melody line and solo that is heightened by Motian’s gorgeous brush accents in the bridge section. Other selections are so well paced and sequenced the record feels like a dream, with the lovely stuttering arpeggios that fall in “If You Could See Me Now,” and the cascading interplay between Evan’s chords and Israel’s punctuation in “It Might As Well Be Spring,” a tune Evans played for the rest of his life. The set concludes with a waltz in “Very Early,” that is played at that proper tempo with great taste and delicate elegance throughout, there is no temptation by the rhythm section to charge it up or to elongate the harmonic architecture by means of juggling intervals. Moonbeams was a startling return to the recording sphere and a major advancement in his development as a leader. allmusicguide

There is a storyline running through this and the other two Evans album – also reviewed here – that provides depth to the music. It’s of course about LaFaro, but there is more. When Bill Evans does ballads I always feel he is talking, and that takes listening to him to a different level. It’s not only a fine flowing, elegant piano piece – but let’s not forget the sensitive contributions of Chuck Israels on bass and Paul Motian on drums. It has that something extra that is difficult to put into words. It invites you to really listen and it takes the ballad out of the realm of background music.

Analogue Productions has produced some of the best sounding piano on SA-CD, and this one is no exception. If you want to listen to Bill Evans’ story you owe it to yourself to buy all three discs (‘Saturday At The Village Vanguard’ and ‘Waltz For Debbie’ are the other two). sa-cd.net

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Bill Evans – Trio 64 (1964) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2012] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Evans – Trio 64 (1964) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2012]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 35:23 minutes | Scans included | 1,44 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 771 MB

Joining Bill Evans (piano) on Trio ’64 – his initial three-piece recording for Verve – is the compact rhythm section of Gary Peacock (bass) and Paul Motian (drums). The effort spotlights their communal and intuitive musical discourse, hinging on an uncanny ability of the musicians to simultaneously hear and respond. All the more interesting, Evans had not interacted in this setting before, having most recently worked with Chuck Israels (bass) and Larry Bunker (drums). The personable opener, “Little Lulu,” features the aggregate melodically molding individual and distinct sonic characteristics. Evans’ nimble and emphatic syncopation is not only ably supported, but framed by Peacock’s expressive runs and Motian’s acute sense of timing. “A Sleeping Bee” is one of the collection’s most endearing selections as the groove playfully scintillates surrounding some hauntingly poignant chord changes. Evans bandies back and forth with Peacock, the latter likewise providing a stellar solo. “Always” captures a similar effervescence as the instrumentalists ebb and flow in synchronicity. Since the December 18 session was held the week before Christmas 1963, they fittingly tote out “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” creating a minor masterpiece of post-bop from what could easily have started as a spontaneous seasonal suggestion. Noël Coward’s “I’ll See You Again” bears a brisk waltz persona, enabling the unit to fluently weave its offerings without obstructing the otherwise affective tune. Concluding Trio ’64 is Rodgers & Hart’s standard “Everything Happens to Me,” with an unhurried tempo lingering just long enough to embrace the familiar refrain. Evans sparkles, gliding around Peacock’s full-bodied basslines and Motian’s solid yet restrained beat.

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Bill Evans Trio – Portrait In Jazz (1959) [Reissue 2003] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Evans Trio – Portrait In Jazz (1959) [Reissue 2003]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 51:46 minutes | Scans included | 2,2 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,13 GB

The first of two studio albums by the Bill Evans-Scott LaFaro-Paul Motian trio (both of which preceded their famous engagement at the Village Vanguard), this Portrait in Jazz reissue contains some wondrous interplay, particularly between pianist Evans and bassist LaFaro, on the two versions of “Autumn Leaves.” Other than introducing Evans’ “Peri’s Scope,” the music is comprised of standards, but the influential interpretations were far from routine or predictable at the time. LaFaro and Motian were nearly equal partners with the pianist in the ensembles and their versions of such tunes as “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “When I Fall in Love,” and “Someday My Prince Will Come” (which preceded Miles Davis’ famous recording by a couple years) are full of subtle and surprising creativity. A gem.

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Bill Evans Quintet – Interplay (1962) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Evans Quintet – Interplay (1962) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 38:59 minutes | Scans included | 1,63 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 878 MB

Interplay stands as some of Bill Evans’ most enigmatic and unusual music in makeup as well as execution. It was recorded in July 1962 with a very young Freddie Hubbard from the Jazz Messengers, guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Percy Heath, and drummer Philly Joe Jones performing five veteran standards. Evans has a more blues-based approach to playing: harder, edgier, and in full flow, fueled in no small part by Hall, who is at his very best here, swinging hard whether it be a ballad or an uptempo number. Hubbard’s playing, on the other hand, was never so restrained as it was here. Using a mute most of the time, his lyricism is revealed to jazz listeners for the first time — with Art Blakey it was a blistering attack of hard bop aggression. On this program of standards, however, Hubbard slips into them quite naturally without the burden of history — check his reading and improvisation on “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Ironically, it’s on the sole original, the title track, where the band in all its restrained, swinging power can be best heard, though the rest is striking finger-popping hard bop jazz, with stellar crystalline beauty in the ballads.

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Bill Evans – Explorations (1961) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Evans – Explorations (1961) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 51:01 minutes | Scans included | 2,16 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 0,99 GB

When this album was recorded in February of 1961, it had been more than year since the Portrait in Jazz was issued, the disc that won the critics over. By the time of this issue, Evans had released four albums in six years, a pace unheard of during that time. Most musicians were issuing two, three, and even four records a year during the same era. Many speculate on Evans’ personal problems at the time, but the truth of the matter lies in the recordings themselves, and Explorations proves that the artist was worth waiting for no matter what else was going on out there. Evans, with Paul Motian and Scott LaFaro, was onto something as a trio, exploring the undersides of melodic and rhythmic constructions that had never been considered by most. For one thing, Evans resurrects a number of tunes that had been considered hopelessly played out, and literally reinvents them — “How Deep Is the Ocean” and “Sweet and Lovely.” His harmonic richness that extends the melodic and color palette of these numbers literally revived them from obscurity and brought them back into the canon. He also introduced “Haunted Heart” into the jazz repertoire, with a wonderfully impressionistic melodic structure, offered space, and depth by the understatement of Motian and extension by LaFaro’s canny use of intervals. Also noteworthy is Miles Davis’ “Nardis,” which Evans first played on a Cannonball Adderley set a couple of years before. The rhythmic workout by the Motian and LaFaro places Evans’ own playing in a new context, with shorter lines, chopping up the meter, and a series of arpeggios that open the ground for revelatory solo in counterpoint by LaFaro. Explorations is an extraordinary example of the reach and breadth of this trio at its peak.

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Bill Evans – Bill Evans At The Montreux Festival (1968) [Japanese Reissue 2004] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Evans – Bill Evans At The Montreux Festival (1968) [Japanese Reissue 2004]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 52:20 minutes | Scans included | 2,16 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 1,07 GB

Recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino De Montreux, Montreux, Switzerland on June 15, 1968. Originally released on Verve (8762). Includes liner notes by Gene Lees. Digitally remastered by Dennis Drake (Polygram Studios) & Gert Van Hoeyen (Polygram Sound Lab, Baarn, The Netherlands). A unique Japanese SACD remaster of the American musician’s 1968 release as part of the ‘Verve 60th Anniversary Supreme Sound Edition’ series; DSD digitally remastered by Seigen Ono. Centre label of the original LP faithfully reproduced on the CD.

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Big George Brock – Heavyweight Blues (2007/2013) DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Big George Brock – Heavyweight Blues (2007/2013)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time – 53:08 minutes | 2,15 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:08 minutes | 1,03 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet

From APO Records and Blue Heaven Studios…blues so raw and real they’ll make you sore. There’s no surprises here – just straight-ahead force. The songs are standards, some of ’em covered thousands of times. But nobody comes closer to evoking the real feel of Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf than Big George Brock. His voice is as rich as fertile soil. But this isn’t some imitation-contest record. Big George has got the goods all his own and has had ’em on display since the 1950s. He’s a former Heavyweight boxer, and just like with the best of that sport, he’ll gladly tell you what’s coming. You still can’t get out of the way.

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Big Brother & The Holding Company – Cheap Thrills (1968) [Remastered Reissue 1999 (2003)] MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Big Brother & The Holding Company – Cheap Thrills (1968) [Remastered Reissue 1999 (2003)]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 57:06 minutes | Scans included | 3,75 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 55:12 mins | Scans | 1,04 GB
or DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | 00:55:08 mins | 2,18 GB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Big Brother are primarily remembered as the group that gave Janis Joplin her start. There’s no denying both that Joplin was by far the band’s most striking asset, and that Big Brother would never have made a significant impression if they hadn’t been fortunate enough to add her to their lineup shortly after forming. But Big Brother also occupies a significant place in the history of San Francisco psychedelic rock, as one of the bands that best captured the era’s loosest, reckless, and indulgent qualities in its high-energy mutations of blues and folk-rock.

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Liza Ferschtman – Biber, Bartok, Berio, Bach (2014) DSF DSD64

Liza Ferschtman – Biber, Bartok, Berio, Bach (2014)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:17:33 minutes | 3,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDMusic |  © Challenge Records / Northstar Recordings

“This is an invitation: an invitation to join me in an adventure. It would normally take place in the concert hall, because the combination of pieces I’m presenting to you here is not a typical programme for a CD. It’s an overwhelming recital that demands a great deal not only from me as the musician, but also from you as the audience. When I play this recital in a concert setting, which I’ve done on many occasions, I always find it to be a battle, where I’m reaching for my own limits and for the audience’s limits. But this is a constructive battle. The battle is the pathway and at the end of it we’re in a better place. From the stage, I can take the audience by the hand as stunning beauty alternates with uncomfortable and what can even be almost ugly sounds.
These are exactly the pieces I wanted to record. This is a highly personal program. It’s a program of contradictions: the ostensible simplicity of Biber and Bach contrasting with the complexity of Bartók and Berio. It’s emotional but at the same time highly cerebral.

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Bill Crow Quartet – From Birdland To Broadway (1996) [Japan 2015] SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Crow Quartet – From Birdland To Broadway (1996) [Japan 2015]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 59:53 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 2,42 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Front/Rear Covers | 2,38 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,36 GB

In the course of his long career as a bassist, Bill Crow has rubbed elbows with such luminaries as Gerry Mulligan, Marian McPartland, Stan Getz, and Duke Ellington. On this release for Japanese Venus Records, Bill Crow, who is an accomplished soloist when he chooses to take a chorus or two, is joined by veteran tenor saxophonist Carmen Leggio, guitarist Joe Cohn (son of tenor sax legend Al Cohn), and drummer David Jones.

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Bill Charlap Trio – Stardust: The Music Of Hoagy Carmichael (2002) [SACD Release 2003] MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Charlap Trio – Stardust: The Music Of Hoagy Carmichael (2002) [SACD Release 2003]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 68:20 minutes | Scans included | 4,33 GB
or FLAC 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 68:15 minutes | Scans included | 1,28 GB
Jazz | Blue Note # CBLU 41746 SA / SACD Reissue 2003 | Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Bill Charlap is one of the strongest mainstream jazz pianists on the scene and one of the most gifted interpreters of standards. Stardust is a wonderful album, which began a series of albums that focused on a single composer. Stardust featured the music of Hoagy Carmichael. Features the special lineup of guest stars like Tony Bennett, Shirley Horn & Jim Hall.

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Bill Charlap Trio – ‘S Wonderful (1999) [Japan 2000] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Bill Charlap Trio – ‘S Wonderful (1999) [Japan 2000]
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 57:02 minutes | Front/Rear Covers | 2,29 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Front/Rear Covers | 1,15 GB
Genre: Jazz

Before the talented pianist Bill Charlap went “major” with the Blue Note label, he was discovered by Venus Records and the Japanese audience. This “debut” album of Charlap, released in 1999, was an enormous hit and became an instant classic. Deeply rooted in the tradition of jazz and with tremendous knowledge and respect for the American songbook, Charlap’s piano playing is lyrical, fantastic and powerful. This album may not dazzle you with apparent “newness,” but the beauty of melody, sound, and deep swing will move you and make you smile. The great New York rhythm section, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, contributes with great performances as well.

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Big Star – #1 Record + Radio City (1972+1974 / 2 albums on 1 Disc) [1992, Reissue 2004] MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Big Star – #1 Record + Radio City (1972+1974 / 2 albums on 1 Disc) [1992, Reissue 2004]
PS3 Rip | ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 73:16 minutes | Scans included | 1,49 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,62 GB

The quintessential American power pop band, Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll. Originally led by the singing and songwriting duo of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, the Memphis-based group fused the strongest elements of the British Invasion era — the melodic invention of the Beatles, the whiplash guitars of the Who, and the radiant harmonies of the Byrds — into a ramshackle but poignantly beautiful sound which recaptured the spirit of pop’s past even as it pointed the way toward the music’s future. Although creative tensions, haphazard distribution, and marketplace indifference conspired to ensure Big Star’s brief existence and commercial failure, the group’s three studio albums nevertheless remain unqualified classics, and their impact on subsequent generations of indie bands on both sides of the Atlantic is surpassed only by that of the Velvet Underground.

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Big Brother & The Holding Company – Cheap Thrills (1968) [MFSL 2016] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Big Brother & The Holding Company – Cheap Thrills (1968) [MFSL 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 37:05 minutes | Scans included | 1,51 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 750 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2172 | Genre: Rock

Cheap Thrills, the major-label debut of Janis Joplin, was one of the most eagerly anticipated, and one of the most successful, albums of 1968. Joplin and her band Big Brother & the Holding Company had earned extensive press notice ever since they played the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, but for a year after that their only recorded work was a poorly produced, self-titled album that they’d done early in their history for Mainstream Records; and it took the band and the best legal minds at Columbia Records seven months to extricate them from their Mainstream contract, so that they could sign with Columbia. All the while, demand continued to build, and they still faced the problem of actually delivering something worthy of the press they’d been getting – Columbia even tried to record them live on-stage on the tour they were in the midst of when the new contract was signed, but somehow the concert tapes from early March of 1968 didn’t capture the full depth of their work. So they spent March, April, and May in the studio with producer John Simon and, miraculously, emerged with something that was as exciting as anything they’d done on-stage. When Cheap Thrills appeared in August 1968 – sporting a Robert Crumb cover on its gatefold jacket that constituted the most elaborate album design ever lavished on a rock album from Columbia Records, as well as a pop-art classic rivaling the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s jacket – it shot into the charts, reaching number one and going gold within a couple of months, and “Piece of My Heart” became a Top 40 hit and helped to propel the LP to over a million sales. Joplin, with her ear- (and vocal cord-) shredding voice, was the obvious standout. Nobody had ever heard singing as emotional, as desperate, as determined, or as loud as Joplin’s, and Cheap Thrills was her greatest moment. Not that everything was done full out – there were relatively quiet moments on the album that were as compelling as the high-wattage showcases; her rendition of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” was the finest rock reinterpretation of a standard done by anybody up to that time (though, in an incident recalled in his autobiography Clive, when Columbia Records president Clive Davis played it to Richard Rodgers to give him an example of some of the sounds that younger audiences of the late ’60s were listening to, the 66-year-old Rodgers stomped out of the Columbia corporate offices in fury, vowing never to write another song); and Joplin’s own “Turtle Blues” showed that she and the band could turn down and do credible acoustic blues, in something like an authentic period Bessie Smith (or, more properly, Memphis Minnie) sound. Big Brother’s backup, typical of the guitar-dominated sound of San Francisco psychedelia, made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in precision. But everybody knew who the real star was, and Joplin played her last gig with Big Brother while the album was still on top of the charts. Neither she nor the band would ever equal it. Heard today, Cheap Thrills is a musical time capsule and remains a showcase for one of rock’s most distinctive singers.

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Billy Joel – The Nylon Curtain (1982) [MFSL 2012] SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Billy Joel – The Nylon Curtain (1982) [MFSL 2012]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 41:50 minutes | Scans included | 1,29 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 816 MB
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab # UDSACD 2093

Billy Joel hit back as hard as he could with Glass Houses, his bid to prove that he could rock as hard as any of those new wave punks. He might not have proven himself a punk — for all of his claims of being a hard rocker, his work inevitably is pop because of his fondness for melody — but he proved to himself that he could still rock, even if the critics didn’t give him any credit for it. It was now time to mature, to move pop/rock into the middle age and, in the process, earn critical respect. In short, The Nylon Curtain is where Billy Joel went serious, consciously crafting a song cycle about Baby Boomers in the Reagan era. Since this was an album about Baby Boomers, he chose to base his music almost entirely on the Beatles, the pivotal rock band for his generation. Joel is naturally inclined to write big melodies like McCartney, but he idolizes Lennon, which makes The Nylon Curtain a fascinating cross between ear candy and social commentary. His desire to record a grand concept album is admirable, but his ever-present lyrical shortcomings mean that the songs paint a picture without arriving at any insights. He occasionally gets lost in his own ambition, as on the waterlogged second side, but the first half of the song suite — “Allentown,” “Laura,” “Pressure,” “Goodnight Saigon,” “She’s Right on Time” — is layered, successful, mature pop that brings Joel tantalizingly close to his ultimate goal of sophisticated pop/rock for mature audiences.

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