2014

Innehåller Evans första 12 album 1956 - 1962, från debutskivan med den ursprungliga versionen av hans "Waltz for Debby" - fram till hans nyskapande Empathy album 1962, Generellt anses detta i jazzkretsar som den period då Evans var som bäst.

Han är snart 72 år... Han har knappt varit vassare! Med sitt band - 4th Dimension; Gary Husband, Etienne Mbappe & Ranjit Barot tar han sin musik in ett ett landskap - en värld -<br/>som ingen annan kan. Att han spelar gitarr som ingen annan vet vi, och här med ett band utöver alt nu levande, bjuder han upp till en rockfusionsfest. Inleder med en av hans största nyare låtar för att avsluta med den klassiska You know you know, som han spelade in första gången 1971 för Inner mountain flame.<br/><br/>Digipack.

Tre original album på två CD:<br/>"Dregs of the earth", "Unsung heroes" och "Industry standards".

The Keith Jarrett Trio, playing live at NDR Funkhaus, Hamburg in July 1972. The trio with Haden and Motian was Jarrett's first great band, his choice of players a masterstroke. Charlie and Paul hadn't worked together until Jarrett brought them into each other's orbit in 1966. With the bassist who had learned his craft in Ornette Coleman's band, and the drummer from Bill Evans's ground-breaking trio, Jarrett was able to explore the broadest scope of modern jazz, from poetic balladry to hard-swinging time-playing to ferocious and fiery free music. <br/><br/>The improvisation heard in the Hamburg concert includes episodes with Keith on soprano sax and flute as well as piano, while Motian expands the role of percussion in the music, developing the supple, elastic, supremely unpredictable vocabulary that would subsequently become such a crucial part of both Jarrett's groups and Paul's own. The interaction between the three musicians is uncanny throughout, reaching a peak in an emotion-drenched performance of Charlie Haden's "Song for Che" (this is Jarrett's only recording of a piece that has become a new jazz classic). But from the first notes of "Rainbow", with its radiant piano, it is clear that something special is happening here.The German radio concert from which this album is drawn was part of a tour - the first European tour for this trio - organised by ECM. <br/><br/>Manfred Eicher returned to the original analog sources, remixing the music recorded by NDR engineer Hans-Henirich Breitkreuz for this edition in Oslo in July 2014, together with Jan Erik Kongshaug. (As it happened, the work took place the day after Charlie Haden's death.)Haden's importance in this music can hardly be overstated. He is such a strong, centering presence. Jarrett plus Haden was always a special combination, of course, as recordings from Arbour Zena to Last Dance have eloquently shown, but for dynamic interplay between pianist and bassist the Hamburg recording is hard to beat. <br/><br/>Charlie highly valued this musical association, and the way in which Jarrett would compose tunes for the strengths of the trio members: "I think some of the greatest music made in that time period came out of that group," Charlie told Ethan Iverson a few years ago. "Keith was always his own person, with original ideas as a leader. He wrote specifically for us. I loved it. He showed up at every rehearsal and sound-check with new music. It's amazing when you go over a new tune at a sound-check and can't wait to play it that night, since it already felt like 'you'."The Hamburg concert dates from the beginning of ECM's association with Keith Jarrett, whose solo album Facing You had been recorded the previous November and released just three months before this show. <br/><br/>In the US, Keith Jarrett had begun to include saxophonist Dewey Redman in his group music and the trio was in the process of morphing into the group colloquially known as Jarrett's American Quartet. Several of the Jarrett tunes heard here, amongst them "Everything That Lives Laments" and "Piece for Ornette", would also find expression in the quartet repertoire. Much inspired quartet music was ahead, including the landmark albums The Survivors' Suite and Eyes of the Heart. But Hamburg '72 captures the core trio of Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian at the very apex of its creativity.The trio's earlier albums were Life Between The Exit Signs (recorded 1967), Somewhere Before (1968) and The Mourning of a Star (1971).

Not only the trombonist Nils Landgren has built up an enormous fan base over the decades - with his Funk Unit, with big bands and alongside the greats of jazz music - so has the vocalist Nils Landgren. His clear, throaty and yet mellow voice is very distinctive, and perfect for ballads. Apart from on his Christmas anthology "Christmas With My friends," it could also be admired on "The Moon, The Stars And You" that came out two years ago. The moonstruck nature of jazz was the theme on that record, and both the choice of songs and the list of guests, from Joe Sample and Steve Gadd to Joao Bosco and Richard Galliano, were colourful. What is more, Landgren put together a rhythm section here that understood each other intuitively. Alongside his companion of many years Lars Danielsson on the bass and cello, and the Viktoria Tolstoy drummer Rasmus Kihlberg, he also added Michael Wollny as a consummate sensitive piano accompanist to the mix.<br/><br/>"Never change a winning team" they say, and so it was that for his new vocal and ballad project, Landgren once again reverted to this select band of brothers - with the further addition of guitarist Johan Norberg, with whom Landgren has performed on and off for decades. "It is my dream team, and one that I hope will play together for a long time," says Landgren of this group. It is also ideal for the approach that Landgren pursued on "Eternal Beauty": "I wanted to make a really homogenous record - just us playing the simple and beautiful melodies simply and beautifully." The album title indicates the direction that the songs chosen by Landgren, Wollny, Norberg and producer Siggi Loch took: "The music and lyrics had to fit us, and they had to be songs that are eternal for me, personally."<br/><br/>It is a criterion that most of the songs on "Eternal Beauty" will certainly also meet for many listeners, from George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity" to Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings" on through to "We don't Need Another Hero", made popular by Tina Turner. And not just the hits adapted from pop, no, also intelligent jazz ballads the likes of "One More Angel" from the jazz bassist John Patitucci and "Another Kind Of Blue" by the New York-based German guitarist Torsten de Winkel. Michael Wollny wrote the title track together with Eva Svensson, Esbjörn Svensson's widow.<br/><br/>So it is no coincidence that "Eternal Beauty" is also an homage to Esbjörn, without that being said explicitly anywhere on the record," says Landgren. "For me, Esbjörn is one of the greatest musicians of our age. And although he isn't around anymore, we still kind of communicate. I think of him a lot, and fortunately I'm really close to Eva and the kids. Our families are very close. That's why I wanted to record some numbers from him to. Johan's track "One Frozen Moment" also alludes to the moment when we heard of his passing."<br/><br/>It only makes sense that the album ends with Svensson's "Love Is Real," the song that will without the shadow of a doubt be one of the first and most important when and if a Great European Songbook is ever compiled. But one thing is important to Landgren: "Even if our thoughts went out to Esbjörn, Eternal Beauty is anything but a gloomy album. He wouldn't want that either. All the lyrics revolve around love and relationships, but they aren't one-dimensional. Like James Taylor's "Don't Let Me Be Alone Tonight," which I played once in Salzau with Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny and Esbjörn. I love that song. And the age-old folk number Green Fields. You can even interpret that as an environmental song if you are that way inclined."<br/><br/>So, much is left up to this talented team that Landgren trusts without reservation: "We did have an idea of how we could play each of the songs, but we didn't prescribe much and we arranged them very sparingly, because with these guys the musical concept arises when we meet. When we start to play, the magic begins."

Popstjärnan Lady Gaga och legendaren Tony Bennett släpper tillsammans jazzalbumet "Cheek To Cheek". Första smakprovet från samarbetet är den klassiska Cole Porter-låten "Anything Goes". Albumet innehåller klassiska jazzlåtar, i både duettform och som solospår, hämtade från the Great American Songbook. Bland klassikerna hittar man låtar som "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "Sophisticated Lady," "Lush Life," och titelspåret "Cheek To Cheek" vilka handplockats av Tony Bennett och Lady Gaga.

Spjärnsvallet var en mycket betydelsefull instrumentalgrupp i mitten av 70-talet. Den blev en brytpunkt bland annat för de tidiga världsmusikinfluenserna (såväl Berger som Bothén hade spelat mycket med Don Cherry och både undervisat Don och lärt av honom efter sina långa musikstudier i Indien, Marocko, Ghana och Mali. Christer Bothéns personliga etniskt färgade kompositioner framstår som höjdpunkter från den tiden och ter sig efter närmare 40 år, i likhet med gruppens förhållande till låtar och improvisation som vore de nyutsprungna. Ännu ett tillfälle att höra bortgångna multiinstrumentalistgeniet Kjell Westling är ytterligare ett skäl till att återutge denna sedan länge utgångna pärla, i synnerhet som cd-formatet gör att delar av inspelningarna som inte rymdes inom LP-formatet nu kan finnas med i sin helhet.