Michael Jackson – Ben (1972/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 31:12 minutes | 651 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul, Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UNI – MOTOWN
Ben is the second studio album by Michael Jackson, released by Motown Records on August 4, 1972, while Jackson was still a member of The Jackson 5. The album received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics. Ben was more successful on the music charts than Jackson’s previous studio album, having charted within the top ten on the Billboard 200. Internationally, the album was less successful, peaking at number twelve in Canada, while charting within the top 200 positions in Australia and France.
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Michael Jackson – Ben (1972/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 31:12 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: R&B, Soul, Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Motown
Ben is the second studio album by Michael Jackson, released by Motown Records on August 4, 1972, while Jackson was still a member of The Jackson 5. The album received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics. Ben was more successful on the music charts than Jackson’s previous studio album, having charted within the top ten on the Billboard 200. Internationally, the album was less successful, peaking at number twelve in Canada, while charting within the top 200 positions in Australia and France.
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Michael Jackson – Bad {25th Anniversary Special Edition} (1987/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:05:25 minutes | 4,65 GB | Genre: Pop, Soul, Funk, R&B
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy
“Bad, 25th Anniversary Special Edition” contains original album remastered with bonus tracks & remixes plus Live at Wembley on July 16, 1988. 40 tracks total.
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Michael Jackson – Bad (1987/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:13 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Epic – Legacy
Bad is the seminal masterpiece by one of music’s most influential artists. It has sold over thirty-five million copies worldwide, making it one of the bestselling albums of all time. The album includes five #1 singles: “Bad,” “Man In The Mirror,” “Dirty Diana,” “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Michael Jackson is among two artists to have five #1 singles from one album. The GRAMMY Award-winning album is included on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
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Curtis J Stewart – of Love. (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:02 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © New Amsterdam
Tearing down the facade of “classical violinist,” Stewart is in constant pursuit of his musical authenticity, treating art as a battery for realizing citizenship.
He has made special appearances with Los Angeles Opera and singer-songwriter Tamar Kali; as curator and guest soloist with Anthony Roth Costanzo and the New York Philharmonic “Bandwagon,” touring performance installations from NYC’s Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Modern Art; to MTV specials with Wyclef Jean; and sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Seal. Stewart’s 2021 album of quarantined song cycles and art videos, Of POWER (Bright Shiny Things), was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. JazzTimes raves, “he shows his audience the colors inside of himself—color(s) not yet invented. Far from self-indulgent, it is self-revelatory. It is vulnerable. It is creation.”
In 2022, he was named Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, a national organization dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by diverse and innovative American composers.
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Michael McDonald – Motown Two (2004)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST 64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 49:52 minutes | Scans included | 3,73 GB
or FLAC 2.0 (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,37 GB
One year later, McDonald again delves into the Motown bag to come up with another 14 selections from such giants as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Smokey Robinson. McDonald is a distinctive enough vocalist to bring something to these classics, as tough as that task is. Unfortunately, the uninspired production and stilted musicianship keeps the likes of “I Was Made to Love Her,” “Tracks of My Tears,” and Nowhere to Run” from being anything more than dubious offerings to McDonald partisans. Motown became a hit factory as much on the strength of its foot soldiers as it did its commanding stars, but producer Simon Cline employs thin and lethargic backing tracks where some of the most inspired pop playing in history once stood. Return to the Motown source to hear inspired pop soul music.
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Metropole Orkest – Metropole Studio Sessions: Dutch Jazz Jam II (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:24 minutes | 947 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Metropole Orkest
Metropole Orkest and NPO Radio 2 Soul & Jazz once again join forces to present the Dutch Soul Jam II on Friday 26 February. This evening the orchestra will share the stage with amazing soloists such as Shirma Rouse, Paul van Kessel, Latanya Alberto, Ivan Peroti and Patty Lou. You can expect music from the likes of Eddie Harris, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Kahn and Marvin Gaye.
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Meshell Ndegeocello – Comet, Come To Me (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 47:00 minutes | 514 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © naïve
Mercurial and masterful, Meshell Ndegeocello has survived the best and worst of what a career in music has to offer. She has eschewed genre for originality, celebrity for longevity, and musicals trends for musical truths. She has lived through the boom and bust of the industry and emerged just as she entered – unequivocally herself. Fans have come to expect the unexpected from Meshell, and faithfully followed her on sojourns into soul, spoken word, R&B, jazz, hip-hop, rock, all bound by a lyrical, spiritual search for love, justice, respect, resolution, and happiness.
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Melvin Lee Davis – Passion (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:26 minutes | 527 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bassment Productions
“I love communicating to the spirit of the listener and getting a response. There’s nothing better. I think success is being able to communicate through music, and touch, and affect lives. I think you have to be really passionate about it in order to be successful in this business.”
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Max Swan – The Fisherman (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 26:16 minutes | 284 MB | Genre: Neo Soul, Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © nicethingsMUSIC
A saxophonist, vocalist, and producer from Philadelphia by way of Perkasie, PA, Max Swan channels influence from the likes of Stevie Wonder, James Blake, Donny Hathaway, Michael Brecker, and Lenny Pickett. He’s gone from nothing-but-jazz, to everything-other-than-jazz, and all stops in between. Initially being the loud alto player that showed up for the jam session every week, Max slowly took on more opportunities in hip hop production, as both a bandleader and producer, playing with a number of artists and groups in the Philly area. Over time, the saxophone he’d lay on tracks led to supplementing keyboards, and writing string and horn section arrangements. The work that was done with these artists led Max to start laying vocals on his newer music, starting with “So Much Chime”. Swan received accolades during the creation of his current sound with Councilman David Oh’s PHLlive Center Stage Music Conference, Ernest Stuart’s Center City Jazz Festival, and was named one of the “Best of 2017” on WXPN. Most recently, “The Waters” was featured on NPR’s Heavy Rotation, and is currently featured on 88.5 WXPN on the daily. Since his residency with The Kimmel Center last spring/summer, Max curated MONO//POLY, a music series showcasing artists’ music in non-traditionally arranged ways, unique to each set, all backed by Max and the band. “The Fisherman”, his debut album, released August 23rd.
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Marvin Gaye – Marvin Gaye Live! (1974/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 43:35 minutes | 1,89 GB | Genre: Soul
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UNI – MOTOWN
Marvin Gaye Live! is the second live album issued by soul musician Marvin Gaye. In 1973, Gaye released his greatest-selling album, Let’s Get It On, which made him the biggest-selling Motown artist during his lifetime. Motown Records, Gaye’s label for over a decade, had long wanted Gaye to promote his recordings with a national tour but the rebellious singer, who had begun suffering from stage fright after the collapse of his beloved singing duet partner Tammi Terrell in October 1967 and whom later died of a brain tumor two and a half years later in March 1970, had refused to return to live performing only agreeing to do it only at sporadic times including when he was honored in his hometown in Washington, D.C. in May 1972 and performed at the Kennedy Center and briefly on the 1973 film, Save the Children. But with the success of Let’s Get It On and Gaye’s now-increasing spending habit, he reluctantly agreed to start touring again in the beginning of 1974. After rescheduling the concert for January 4, 1974, at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, Gaye took the stage in front of 14,000-plus screaming fans. He performed a new song which he dedicated to his girlfriend Janis Hunter titled “Jan” and performed most of his 1970s repertoire, only including his 1960s classics in a sped-up “Fossil Medley”. Throughout his tours, Gaye began developing performance anxiety and had feared the public reception. To test the public, he reportedly forced his younger brother Frankie to come out before being confident enough to come out afterwards. The biggest fan response on the album came when Gaye retooled his song, “Distant Lover”, into a slower-paced version starting the song out as he segued from “Theme from Trouble Man” (seventh track from his Trouble Man album) to the song itself producing female shrieks, which kept up as Gaye continued his show-stopping performance of the song. The performance soon became a Gaye trademark onstage and the singer continued to perform the song in that similar style until his final performances in the 1980s. (Wiki)
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Mark Turner Quartet – Lathe of Heaven (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 58:20 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Mark Turner is one of the most admired saxophonists of his generation, renowned for his exploratory intellect and intimate expressivity on the full range of the tenor. This is his ECM leader debut, following albums for the label in the cooperative trio Fly with Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard, and appearances on key recordings by Billy Hart, Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani. Turner leads a quartet of kindred spirits here, often entwining in serpentine fashion with rising-star trumpeter Avishai Cohen. They play long, introspective lines of hypnotic grace; and with the lithe rhythm section of bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore, there is subtle volatility in the air.
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Mark Ronson – Uptown Special (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 38:44 minutes | 754 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul, Funk, Disco
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Columbia
Uptown Special is the fourth album from Mark Ronson. Another star-studded affair from the producer, it was preceded by a handful of singles, including a pair of throwback funk numbers in “Uptown Funk” (a Bruno Mars collaboration that reached number one on several charts, including Billboard’s Hot 100 in the U.S., and the U.K. singles chart) and “Feel Right” (fronted by Mystikal), as well as a spacy synth-disco workout in “Daffodils” (featuring Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker). On other songs, Ronson is joined by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Andrew Wyatt (of Miike Snow), and high-profile producer Jeff Bhasker. –Andy Kellman
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Mark Lettieri – Deep: The Baritone Sessions, Vol. 2 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 46:39 minutes | 598 MB | Genre: Jazz, Funk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Leopard
Mark Lettieri is known for his tight, aggressively grooving rhythm game, whether in the service of GRAMMY-winning band Snarky Puppy, the Fearless Flyers or on his six solo albums and has found the perfect algorithm for funk.
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Marcus Strickland Twi-Life – People Of The Sun (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:56 minutes | 912 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Blue Note Records
With his band Twi-Life, which includes trumpeter Keyon Harrold, bassist Kyle Miles, drummer Charles Haynes, and organist and pianist Mitch Henry, Marcus Strickland has always explored jazz from multiple angles. Produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, the saxophonist’s first album for BlueNote/Revive is influenced by a wide range of styles, drawing inspiration from the late hip-hop producer J Dilla, Fela’s afrobeat, Charles Mingus and even Bartók’s music! With People of the Sun, Strickland tells the musical and social tale of African diaspora from the present to the past with the aim of portraying his own identity: “I thought about where we come from and how that both clashes and goes hand in hand with what we’ve created here as Black Americans”. The result is a beautiful, dense, complex and welcoming album where Western African (the griot culture, afrobeat) and American (post-bop, funk, soul) influences collide and Bilal, Pharoahe Monch, Greg Tate, Jermaine Holmes, Weedie Braimah and Akie Bermiss cross over. These are rather unsurprising choices given that Strickland grew up in Miami surrounded by Haitian sounds, Afro-Cuban rhythms and southern rap, as well as Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane and P-Funk, his father’s favourite artists… This is a multifaceted piece of work zigzagging between Jazz, Soul, Funk and Rhythm’n’Blues in which Strickland’s sax gives us genuine melodic gems. – Max Dembo
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