Feb 072015
 

i was looking for some bessie smith the other day.  don’t actually remember why, probably a singer in a show i was listening to said that the song was originally done by bessie smith.  anyway, so i went onto the internet archive to see what there was to see (or hear, as it were).  after flaffing my way around a number of collections of .mp3 copies (and not very good ones, sometimes, but that’s a different discussion), i stumbled across the astounding “the david w. niven collection of early jazz legends, 1921-1991”.

check out the overview at https://archive.org/details/davidwnivenjazz:  “650 tapes · 1,000 hours · 1,378 WAV files · 637 GB · 691 JPEG scans of cassette liner cards & literature. Meticulously Collected, Compiled, and Narrated by David W. Niven, 1930-1993″.

this is a seriously large amount of sometimes very old music.  i’ve listened to a number of the cassettes, and the format is mr. niven giving some introductory comments, and then playing a song; another comment, another song, etc.  the comments are sometimes very interesting, and the passion behind the effort to record so many tapes really comes through.

each tape (or set of tapes) is devoted to a single artist.  for example, bessie smith, which is most of what she ever recorded (not all, though, i guess mr. niven didn’t have all bessie’s recordings).  or take the the ben webster tapes, which i’ve also been listening to.  mr. niven stays focused:  it’s not everything ben webster ever played on.  for example, from his years with the duke ellington band, only the songs where ben webster solo’ed are included.

the tapes have each been transfered to one .wav (or sometimes .flac) file per tape-side.  so there’s no tracking.  i’ve tracked a few things, and plan on tracking more.  i’ve created a permanent page on this blog with links to the selected internet archive pages from the collection and pages with tracked versions of recordings from the collection.

just to get you started, here’s a link to search the internet archive for the niven collection:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=”Niven%20Collection”%20AND%20mediatype%3Aaudio

 

 Posted by at 13:20
Feb 072015
 

StaceyKent_2014-08-15_croppedimagei have a few concerts by stacey kent, all of which are excellent, but this one particularly struck me.  most of the songs are from her 2014 album “the changing lights”.  i didn’t realize that the lyrics to the title track were by kazuo ishiguro… didn’t even know he wrote poetry or lyrics (as may be), but when i looked it up, turned out that they posted the lyrics to all the songs on that cd up on facebook.  and there it was.  actually, he also wrote the lyrics to “the summer we crossed europe in the rain” and “waiter, oh waiter”.  i also didn’t know that a lot of the songs are composed by her husband, jim tomlinson.  when did i stop reading liner notes?

anyway, it’s a great concert.  and stacey kent has a lot of shows coming up.  not around here, unfortunately… mostly around western europe + a few days in the us & canada, including 5 nights at birdland in nyc (!).

http://www.staceykent.com/
https://www.facebook.com/StaceyKent
http://www.jimtomlinson.net/


stacey kent
jazz middelheim 2014
antwerp, belgium
15 aug 2014

stacey kent (voice)
jim tomlinson (tenorsax)
graham harvey (piano)
jeremy brown (bass)
josh morrison (drums)

01. radio intro (1:45)
02. this happy madness (6:17)
03. só danço samba (6:29)
04. sait-on jamais? (4:40)
05. waiter, oh waiter (6:27)
06. mais uma vez (7:04)
07. so nice (4:49)
08. how insensitive (4:05)
09. one note samba (4:03)
10. the changing lights (6:17)
11. the waters of march (3:27)
12. that’s all (8:31)
13. samba saravah (12:02)

tt 1:16:56

radio klara fm (cable) -> adobe audition cs6.6 (48kh-16bit)(6db boost
and noise reduction applied) -> wav -> cdwave editor (tracking) -> tlh (flac8)


sample:  t10_the_changing_lights.mp3

download:  StaceyKent_2014-08-15_JazzMiddelheim.zip


Feb 072015
 

well, after that last post i took a bit of a breather.  but now it’s a new month, so maybe time for some new music up here.

there was a period around 2 or 3 years ago when i played this show in my car a lot.  noticed it on the hdd this morning, when i was randomly looking for something to play… so here it is.  i got this when jazzrita seeded it on dime back in mid-2009.

http://www.kenyattabeasley.net/


kenyatta beasley sextet – a tribute to lee morgan
rolf-liebermann-studio,
ndr jazzworkshop,
hamburg, germany
13 nov 2008

kenyatta beasley,tp
howard johnson,tu
billy harper,ts
boris netsvetaev,p
philipp steen,b
kai bussenius,dr
lee morgan,comp

1 kenyatta / announcement bh 16:44
2 ceora / announcement bh 17:04
3 search for the new land / announcement bh 24:30
4 capra black (bh,comp) / announcement bh 13:01
5 title 9:32
6 announcement speaker 0:29

tt 81:22

lineage: rete2 > received with satellite > tracked with wavelab > flac > dime
sound rating: a

uploaded by jazzrita 09-07-05

i have shorted the applaus a bit, because now the item fits on one cd!!


sample:  t5 (title not known).mp3

download:  KenyattaBeasleySextet_2008-11-13_Hamburg.zip