Sammy Davis, Jr. – Porgy And Bess (1959/2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Sammy Davis, Jr. – Porgy And Bess (1959/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:07 minutes | 629 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

Porgy and Bess is a 1959 album by Sammy Davis Jr. of selections from George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess co-starring Carmen McRae. Davis is accompanied by orchestras conducted by Buddy Bregman and Morty Stevens, sometimes supported by the Bill Thompson singers. McRae is featured on three of the ten songs, “Summertime”, “My Man’s Gone Now” and the only duet, “I Loves You, Porgy”, all three backed by an orchestra directed by Jack Pleis. “The record is piled to the sky with strings, harps, choruses, and pillowy orchestration,” writes Tim Sendra on Allmusic, but “credit[s] Sammy and Carmen for holding up their end of the deal.”

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Robert Lockwood, Jr. – Delta Crossroads (2000/2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Robert Lockwood, Jr. – Delta Crossroads (2000/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:01:17 minutes | 2,80 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Telarc

Robert Lockwood Jr. is a blues treasure. Blues credibility doesn’t get any deeper or more real than Robert Lockwood Jr. On Delta Crossroads, the 85-year-old Delta bluesman lays out a heartfelt homage to the immortal Robert Johnson, his guitar teacher, close friend, role model and possibly step-father. Playing the acoustic 12-string guitar and singing with uncommon authority, Lockwood delivers unaccompanied, bone-chilling renditions of Johnson classics like “32-20 Blues,” “Stop Breakin’ Down Blues,” “Mr. Downchild,” “Love In Vain Blues” and “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” along with authentically earthy readings of Leroy Carr’s “Mean Mistreater Mama” and “In the Evening,” Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “C.C. Rider” and “Key to the Highway,” which Lockwood says was written by Jazz Gillum and not Big Bill Broonzy, who usually gets credit. I guess he would know. This purely acoustic offering is a rich tribute and a must for Delta fanatics.

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Lafayette Harris, Jr. – Swingin’ Up in Harlem (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Lafayette Harris, Jr. – Swingin’ Up in Harlem (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:12 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Savant

In the grand tradition of jazz piano trio records, Lafayette Harris returns to the Van Gelder studios for ‘Swingin’ Up In Harlem’, covering a wide spectrum of tunes by composers ranging from Hoagy Carmichael to Stevie Wonder.

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Grover Washington, Jr. – Prime Cuts: The Columbia Years 1987-1999 (1999) [Japanese Reissue 2001] SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Grover Washington, Jr. – Prime Cuts: The Columbia Years 1987-1999 (1999) [Japanese Reissue 2001]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 63:35 minutes | Scans included | 2,61 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,33 GB

Grover Washington, Jr.’s fatal 1999 heart attack cut a successful 30-year recording career tragically short. Washington’s legacy was his ability to combine jazz and pop by tracing their common roots in R&B and soul music. He found fans among the younger wave of jazz listeners, who were attracted to the sounds of what became known as “smooth jazz.”

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Hank Williams, Jr. – Rich White Honky Blues (Explicit) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Hank Williams, Jr. – Rich White Honky Blues (Explicit) (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 45:51 minutes | 554 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Easy Eye Sound

Produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and recorded over three days, Hank Williams Jr.’s 57th studio album is a set of mostly covers of songs by blues greats, backed up by a killer North Mississippi band: bassist Eric Deaton (who played with T-Model Ford on Fat Possum’s Juke Joint Caravan), electric slide guitarist Kenny Brown (who R.L. Burnside called “my adopted son”) and drummer Kinney Kimbrough (son of Junior Kimbrough), plus Auerbach. Williams has long flirted with what he calls “stripped-back blues,” usually under the stage name Thunderhead Hawkins. Here, he sounds, at times, jubilantly playful—riffing and strutting like a Bantam rooster on Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “My Starter Won’t Start” and getting deep into the rollicking, bottom-heavy grease of Burnside’s “Georgia Women.” (“All the way to Mobile, baby/ All the way to Birmingham!” Williams crows.) A particular standout is Burnside’s sweltering-cool “Fireman Ring the Bell,” a funky dance-floor call with Williams unleashing a fiery “whooooo!” He even adds his own unique wail at the end: “His name is Thunderhead ’cause he fell off that mountainside,” a reference to the 1975 climbing accident that nearly killed the singer and led to his signature look of a beard, sunglasses and cowboy hat, all to cover his scars. Other bits of improv are more cringeworthy, like when Williams announces “I ain’t gonna be here crying after you, bitch” on Jimmy Reed’s “Take Out Some Insurance.” Too bad, as the song is a corker up until that point, with Williams twisting the word “insurance” into some language of his own and borrowing a bit of his dad’s famous yodel for the line “if you e-e-e-ver say goodbye.” Likewise, a muscular take on “TV Mama” swings and sashays so much you don’t miss the piano rolls and powerful elegance of Big Joe Turner’s voice . . . but Auerbach could’ve cut the ad lib “I must be having one of them wet dreams.” Williams also rolls out a few of his own numbers, including the chugging title track and “I Like It When It’s Stormy,” which is the most country of the bunch and has a real outlaw feel: sun-leathered and don’t give a damn. His “Call Me Thunderhead,” a growling junkyard dog of a song, is almost parody with its list of self-referential bona fides, warning of “imposters”: “They got no scars” and don’t know nothing about being whiskey bent and hell-bound (the title of a classic Jr. country track). It all closes out with a super soulful, shambling spin on Hopkins’ “Jesus, Won’t You Come By Here” that exposes the twisted and overlapping roots of country, gospel, and blues.

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