duaneiac

The nice thing about "forever" rate postage stamps is one can stock up when one finds a commemorative stamp design that is of particular interest. I am just about down to the last of the Ray Charles stamps I stocked up on years ago. I don't know that I love the design of this Sarah Vaughan stamp, but I will try to buy a couple of sheets at least. Now, USPS, how about a Shirley Horn stamp?

Jake Shimabukuro is THE MAN to go to for ukulele inspiration.

Nice selection, mjzee. That whole album is really good. To demonstrate how versatile Ms. Jordan can be/is, listen to her in this very different setting/mood from the video above. It's one of my favorite performances by Ms. Jordan and probably my favorite interpretation of this song, "The Water Is Wide".

Wow! This version of "Stardust" -- I had to listen to it 3 times in a row, it's such a masterful performance by Mr. Hawkins. I wish they had made that tune a two-sided record because I would have loved to have heard his solo go on for much longer.

Thanks for the info about that Tjader LP, HutchFan. That "Mambero" cut was way cool. It just amazes me that I've never even seen that LP, especially here in the SF bay area where Tjader lived and gigged frequently and had a big fan base. Previously listened to: I don't know how I stumbled across this disc. I'd never heard of Ingfried Hoffmann before (and honestly, I assumed that was a woman's name), but the liner notes state he "won several polls as Germany's best organist and pianist" as a member of Klaus Doldinger's quartet. The 10 James Bond inspired tracks from his 1966 From Twen With Love album are joined by 4 similarly themed bonus tracks. Rene Thomas is the only sideman I'd haerd of before and he has a nice solo on "TV-Swing". Now celebrating Happy Hawkday with Disc 1 of 2 from This disc has a couple of 1958 sessions pairing Hawk with Red Allen and the likes of Earle Warren, Marty Napoleon, J.C. Higginbotham, Cozy Cole, Milt Hinton, Chubby Jackson and others.

In all my years of record store bin browsing, I don't think I've ever even seen that album cover before. Has it been reissued on CD? What did you think of the music?

Onto Disc 7 of 8 from -- This Disc includes her final studio album, Patchwork, plus singles and some previously unreleased tracks. Patchwork is, quite simply, one of the finest pop albums you have likely never heard. Some marvelous songwriting -- all songs were written or co-written by her -- on what are basically a number of character sketches, from "Benjamin" who, among other things, was "selling Pacific Ocean water and calling it seaweed wine" to "Belinda" a burlesque dancer whose mantra is "you may know my body, but you cannot know my mind", to what is an apparently autobiographical tale in "Mean Stepmama Blues". There are a number of brief, beautiful musical interludes between many of the tracks. It is just an amazingly good album which sold very poorly. It is a little eerie hearing her sing "Lookin' In", the final track on her final studio album, Here she sings about the life of going from airport to limousine to show to hotel and having papers to sign and phone calls to take and about being tired of "thinking up new ways to do the same old thing". Perhaps my favorite track from this album How that did not become a hit is beyond me. Somebody should cover it today and they could still make a hit of it. And then in the bonus tracks you get a gorgeous little gem like this

Disc 5 of 8, which includes the album Touch 'Em With Love and previously unreleased bonus tracks. Love, love, love me some Bobbie Gentry and this beautiful package is a luxurious treat for any fan. Too bad Amazon already shows it is currently unavailable. Wonder why that is. It only came out last month.

I did not see any credit for arrangements on the "jazz album" tracks -- an odd omission since the extensive liner notes essay by Andrew Batt includes a lot of other details; for example, did you know Ms. Gentry was a part owner of the Phoenix Suns? They are bare bones recordings with Ms. Gentry accompanied by just guitar, bass and maybe piano and drums on some tracks. I guess strings would have been overdubbed had the project not been abandoned. She sounds quite good on "Save Your Love For Me" and "Stormy" (which also has a nice guitar solo, but I don't know if it's by her or by whom), but "Here's That Rainy Day" just plods along. "The Windows of The World" is probably my favorite Bacharach/David song and it still sounds gorgeous in this stark setting of just voice and guitar.

I have this one ordered, so I haven't heard it yet, but the audio samples on Amazon sounded good enough to get me to buy it.

which includes these two original LPs

Here's a review of the concert I attended last Wed, night. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/11/15/review-van-morrison-is-all-business-expect-for-maybe-a-giggle-or-two/

Wow! I have that set, but haven't opened it yet. That's something to look forward to. At this point, I'd say Willie Nelson is almost more of a jazz singer than he is a country singer.

A nice, mellow album by the former Indigo Swing singer, Johnny Boyd ( i wonder if he hates being identified that way -- that was, like, 25 years ago now.). It includes some originals, some covers of classics such as "Prisoner of Love" and "This Heart of Mine" and also a version of REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling".

2 albums on one CD. "Someone To Watch Over Me" is terrific.

I concluded my recent Van Morrison binge with a final blast of classics Then I eased my way back into jazz using Mose Allison as the stepping stone I love that title track. Now I am listening to I have a lot of these tracks on other discs, but it was nice to have them all compiled in one place and it was fairly cheap. Lots of heavy hitters on this disc but, for me, top honors today go to Houston Person for his rendition of "Just My Imagination". ! Good one!

Well, if this (terrific) concert film is to be believed, he did an encore back in 1979. The encore starts around 44:07. Maybe he only does them in Ireland.

I honestly had no idea he was still alive. I really enjoyed his work on Hee-Haw, as musician, emcee and comedian. "A TV camera goes right through your soul," Clark said of his screen work. "If you're a bad person, people pick that up." Perhaps nothing speaks better of Roy Clark the person than the phrase "his wife of 61 years". Rest in Peace, Mr. Clark. Looks like you had a good life.

I first saw him in concert back around 1999/2000. I've seen him 4 times total and I have never seen an encore. Not that I ever once felt short-changed. Each concert, though different from one another, was completely satisfying.

Yeah, I have that CD with Joey DeFrancesco. I liked it, but I don't know where I put it so I can't find it again right now to give it a listen. One of my favorites from the past few years was his Duets: Re-working the Catalogue album on which he redid some of his songs with guests like Taj Mahal, George Benson, Georgie Fame, Mick Hucknall, Natalie Cole, P.J. Proby, Mavis Staples and others. It might seem like a commercial gimmick, but I thought most of the collaborations worked well. Just watched this quartet version of "into The Mystic" from 1974. Equally fabulous as the 2018 version. A poster on YouTube has identified the band as Jerome Rimson on bass, Pete Wingfield on piano/Fender Rhodes, Peter van Hooke on drums.

One million thumbs up for that album and for this song in particular