1 comments about John Hammond Solo.

1. "Solo" presents John Hammond at his best as a master of the country blues. Besides his heartfelt renderings of Robert Johnson classics, John includes some moaning and wailing tracks like "Drifting Blues" and "The Sky is Crying" that will surely carry the listener into the deep delta blues. John also gives us a glimps of his early Jimmy Reed influences with his sparkeling rendition of "Honest I Do". And if all this isn't enough to get your toes tappin', "Truckin' Little Baby" and the encore track "Got My Mojo Working" are sure to get you jumpin' and jivin'. If you love the country blues, then John Hammond is your man. And if you're a fan of John's, "Solo" is a must for your collection.

1 comments about Live.

1. roy cannot be denied on this live cd. a must for all buchanan fans. sound quality could be better, but still this cd is a keeper.

1 comments about At Cafe Des Copains.

1. Jay McShann may be best known as "Charlie Parker's first employer", but he is far more than that...This record of solo piano, live from a cafe in Canada, is breathtaking. The man tackles boogie woogie, blues, stride and more modern jazz with equal strength and authority, and the music swings with total abandon from start to finish. They just don't make them like this anymore.

2 comments about In Europe.

1. It pains me seriously to give Basie one star. How did this mess happen. The charts are classic with Freckle Face, Woodside, Basie and Whirly Bird. The side men are the best in the business at the time. Such stars as Sonny Cohn, wonderful Al Grey, Eric Dixon, Freddie Green (the time machine) and, even, the best drummer Basie ever had - Butch Miles - all participated. Finally by the early Seventy's Basie had matured to the point that he was a way of life with great insight into how a band should sound and had reached a level of financial clout to demand the best. So what happened? The sound engineering is awful! One could get better sound quality recording your six year old's class play. Amazingly it is consistantly bad at two different locations in two different countries. Apparently the recording engineer traveled on the bus and should have been jetisoned out the window on the Autobahn. Don't buy the record unless you really need to be infuriated.



2. Unlike many of the Count Basie band's other recordings, this album falls short of expectations. The band plays many of the old standards such as "Freckle Face" and "Jumpin' At the Woodside", yet the whole band sounds haphazard and not in top form. Since this was recorded live, I can see why the recording quality was somewhat poor, but the playing of each individual in the band sounds worse that usual, from the annoying vibrato and pitch-bending of the lead trumpet player to the elementary-sounding trumpet solo on "Hittin' Twelve". With most of their recordings, the band is able to keep rock-solid time and is almost always together, but on this recording they are just not on. Their "Things Aren't the Way They Used to Be" is meant to be a improvment on the Ellington original, but it just comes out as a jarbled mess, and the screech trumpet solo at the end is ugly and is nothing on Cat Anderson of the Ellington band. Overall, there are much better album out there if one wants to hear the best of the Count Basie Band.

No comments about Further Up The Road.

No comments about Live (1958-1959).

No comments about Live Show.

No comments about Blues Power: Trudy's Blues.

No comments about The Hits Alive.

No comments about At The Main Event.