Tag Archives: Paul Kauppila

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers – Just Coolin’

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Title: Just Coolin’
Artist: Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
Label: Blue Note
Formats: CD, LP, Digital
Release date: July 17, 2020

 

This reissue of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers’ Just Coolin’ is from a 1959 studio album that was never released, most likely due to the fact that four of the six tracks were included several months later on a pair of live albums recorded at the legendary jazz club Birdland in New York City—Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at the Jazz Corner of the World (vols. 1 & 2, later reissued as a two-CD set.). Consequently, the original studio sessions comprising this release were shelved and are finally seeing the light of day 60 years later.

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James Booker – Classified

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Title: Classified
Artist: James Booker
Label: Rounder/Craft
Formats: LP
Release date: July 31, 2020

 

As part of Rounder Records’ 50th anniversary celebration, Craft Recordings is offering this remixed and remastered vinyl reissue of Classified, an unjustly overlooked 1982 release by New Orleans keyboardist James Booker, the iconoclastic disciple of the legendary Professor Longhair. On this record Booker performs an eclectic variety of songs, including tunes by R&B legends like Titus Turner, Fats Domino, and Lloyd Price. But he also covers “Hound Dog” (the Leiber & Stoller classic made famous by Big Mama Thornton and later by Elvis), the jazz standard “Angel Eyes,” the 1926 pop standard “Baby Face,” as well as the country classic “King of the Road” and two originals, particularly the scintillating “Three Keys” that concludes the record. Yet in spite of these disparate song sources, it all comes out sounding like Booker thanks to his inimitable musical talent and force of personality.

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Maceo Parker – Soul Food: Cooking with Maceo

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Title: Soul Food: Cooking with Maceo
Artist: Maceo Parker
Label: The Funk Garage
Formats: CD, LP, Digital
Release date: July 10, 2020

 

Saxophone legend Maceo Parker returns with his first album in eight years, Soul Food: Cooking with Maceo. Parker is best known for his work with the James Brown band and later with Parliament/Funkadelic. Although his solo recordings date back to the 1960s and 1970s, his current solo career really begins with the release of the Roots Revisited album in 1990.

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Frank Bey – All My Dues Are Paid

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Title: All My Dues Are Paid 
Artist: Frank Bey 
Label: Nola Blue  
Formats: CD, Digital 
Release date: January 17, 2020  

 

Georgia native Frank Bey’s recent release, All My Dues Are Paid, is another example of how the blues continues to hang on as a viable genre, even in the year 2020. Bey began singing professionally at the age of four with the gospel group the Rising Sons, which including a brother and two cousins. At 17 he opened for Otis Redding. In the early ‘70s he was a member of the radical funk group Moorish Vanguard, who were supposed to record for James Brown’s label, but the deal fell through. Disillusioned with the music business, Bey didn’t sing for another 17 years. Yet he was “rediscovered” by a blues fan who was blown away by the depth and emotional power of Bey’s voice, which led to a late-career resurgence similar to that of the late Sharon Jones. His new album takes on an especially poignant meaning since Bey passed away on June 7th, 2020, from kidney disease.  

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