SPIRITS IN THE FIELD

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE TO GROOVE

Most people recognize Stan Hope as the favorite pianist of Houston Person (who appears on this album), Etta Jones & others - here he makes his debut as a leader, sprinkling some Erroll Garner tunes in with a selection of other great standards

On his Savant debut, cutting-edge bass player Plaxico has surrounded himself with the elite of the New York jazz scene: saxophonist Don Braden, pianist Eric Lewis (winner of the prestigious 1999 Thelonious Monk Piano Competition), trumpeter Ralph Alessi, Blue Note keyboardist Jason Moran & others; produced by Cassandra Wilson

Heid's amazing B-3 chops have made him the musical heir to the Larry Young/Don Patterson throne, shooting off wildly imaginative & hard-driving sounds w. 2 reed players rounding out the mix

Garnett is now considered one of jazz's most incendiary tenor saxophonists. Taking his Coltrane influences & mixing them with the experience gained from playing the likes of Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders & Art Blakey, he sprinkles his sound with the fiery Latin rhythms of his native Panama. For this, his Savant debut, he has assembled a "little big band" that roars, purrs, soars & sails through nine sizzling tracks. He pays tribute to Coltrane, Clifford Brown & his Latin heritage.

Tenor saxophonist leads his group through the "groove" sounds of the 70's w. Bernard Purdie-drms, Joey Defrancesco-organ, Rodney Jones-gtr, Tracy Wormsworth-bss

MY HEART SPEAKS

Two CDs. Available for the very first time, the intergalactic icon Sun Ra and his Arkestra's Lights On A Satellite: Live At The Left Bank was recorded on July 23, 1978 at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, Maryland by the Left Bank Jazz Society.

On trumpet, flugelhorn and bag flute, it's Charles Cha Cha Shaw-perhaps under-billed, but certainly worthy of a good listen-laying down some post-bop, obscure and free jazz. A soulful atmosphere is provided by the likes of Ronnie Boykins on bass and Art Blakey Jr.. on drums.

KENNETH PATCHEN READS WITH JAZZ IN CANADA

In a profession dominated by men, a few women pianists found employment playing and arranging music for piano rolls from 1890 until the 1920s. The women represented on this album were exceptional-not just as members of a barely-visible minority, but as virtuoso performers, arrangers, and vaudevillians.

This compilation traces the genre's early days in the recording studio. It includes a reissue of the Victor Talking Machine Company's first piano ragtime disc in 1916, as well as several performances of English ragtime. These sides portray the piano in an era when recording technology struggled to capture the instrument's full range.

Son of an impoverished violinist, Englishman Billy Mayerl grew up playing piano for silent movies and became one of the most famous novelty rag performers in the world. This album presents sixteen of his complex yet playful compositions, including several pieces from his celebrated piano suites.

This influential 1920s small jazz band played music ideal for dancing, while it's members' improvisational creativity offered listeners a new experience with every take. The Original Memphis Five is said to have recorded more records than any other jazz ensemble of it's time.

As it did with blues and jazz, the early recording industry missed the beginnings of ragtime. Luckily, the burgeoning player piano industry produced ragtime tunes on paper rolls, and these rolls augment the recordings we have. This collection presents ragtime played on piano rolls as well as on instruments like the banjo, which were suitable for early recording processes.

Recorded at four venues during Duke Ellington's first annual tour of the Pacific Northwest in 1952, these songs bring listeners to the ballrooms and armories of Oregon and Washington, where the legendary Ellington and his band had been hired to play for dancers.

This double set brings together thirty-five sides recorded by Mary Lou Williams for Moses Asch between 1944 and 1947. Twenty-eight of these songs were previously only released on 78 rpm, and this collection includes solo and trio performances, as well as small-group and big band recordings.

The life of jazz is in it's playing-in unrehearsed sessions in front of audiences or microphones, ears corporeal or mechanical that gauge the passing of time not by hands on a watch but by the birth and development of new musical ideas. Footnotes to Jazz, Volume 2 captures this process in a set of previously unreleased rehearsals by the Art Tatum Trio in 1944.

Since his childhood as a percussionist in the Chicago Defender Boys' Band and his work with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton's drumming and vibraphone playing have delighted audiences in person and on record. This collection includes tracks from Hamp's New Jazz Inner Circle's recording debut.

On this album, Mary Lou Williams presents a history of jazz in speech and in music, from meditations on learning ragtime and blues as a child to performances of her own compositions, including "Night Life," which was captured on her first recording in 1930 and became a Kansas City classic.

At the time his music was recorded in 1952, highly-respected trumpet player Kid Clayton was somewhat elusive, playing with pick-up marching bands but with no steady ensemble. After some effort, composer and jazz aficionado Alden Ashforth arranged a recording session, which features Clayton's buoyant trumpet playing alongside a host of skilled musicians, including Joe "Kid" Avery on trombone.

This companion album to Folkways FW02857, Emile Barnes: The First Session, presents all the issuable alternate takes from the clarinetist's first recording session in 1951.

Recorded when Ernest "Doc" Paulin was almost seventy-four years old, this album provides a glimpse into the musical life of a New Orleans marching band. The ensemble's blues-influenced repertoire includes traditional march tunes, spirituals, and pop standards, played with what New Orleans musicians call "lots of tone"-with overblown horns, and of course, at high volume!

As well as presenting a collection of first-rate piano solos from the likes of Willie "The Lion" Smith, Meade "Lux" Lewis, Art Tatum, Mary Lou Williams, Teddy Wilson, and Erroll Garner, this album stands as homage to Folkways Records founder Moses Asch, who recorded each of the tracks included here.