Woody's band is rip roaring super. But, beware: not every track is worthwhile music. Keepers include Lazy Bird, Blues For Poland, What Are You Doing..., America Drinks, and Bass Folk Song. Skip the others. Thundering Herd is typical Woody for this period; super band, some terrific charts, and some cheesy charts. Emusic lets you combine the best of several albums from this period. Check out the others on the Fantasy label. Of course all his Concord albums are great.
Some good music never goes out of style: Jazz fans everywhere revere the cooking hard bop of the 1950s. So why is the other big '50s trend, cool jazz, barely on modern radar? If you want to know how fresh and airy it still sounds, hear trumpeter/composer/arranger/cool exemplar Shorty Rogers on "Popo," "Didi," "Four Mothers" and "Sam and the Lady" from his first 1951 octet session: tightly arranged, swinging jazz with breezy orchestral colors, and… more »
Of all the popular music styles and sub-genres of the late '60s and early '70s, "horn rock" is perhaps the only one that hasn't been revived and revered by subsequent generations. A perhaps inevitable offshoot of mid-'60s "blue eyed soul" acts like Tom Jones, The Righteous Brothers and Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the "horn rock" movement began in earnest in 1967 when Chicago pop group The Buckinghams, under the direction of producer James William… more »
