Ethel Waters Jazz Blues Singer Rare Signed Autograph

New West Records, Inc. ( July 21, 2009 ), Genre: Rock & Pop

Sepia Records ( September 12, 2006 ), Genre: Jazz Vocal

On her follow-up to the 2005 Grammy winner (for Best Jazz Vocal Album)R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal), classic jazz singer Nancy Wilson takes it nice and easy. Overall, it would have been nice to get more tracks with the "All Star Big Band, " which percolates beautifully on Duke Ellington's "Take Love Easy" and Vernon Duke's "Taking a Chance on Love." The joy with which Wilson surfs over these arrangements is infectious and allows the listener to overlook the occasional roughness of breathing and pitch. The rest of the album is more subdued and less winning. The title track sets Maya Angelou's poem "My Life Has Turned to Blue" to music, with soft Latin-jazz inflections punctuated by marimba (a sly nod to Angelou's own calypso recordings of the 1950s?) At the other extreme, a cover of "Just Once, " a track popularized by Quincy Jones and James Ingram, veers dangerously toward Lite FM territory. It should be noted that fans of tenor-sax playing will enjoy distinct solo spots by Bob Mintzer, James Moody, Tom Scott, Andy Snitzer, and Jimmy Heath. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

On her follow-up to the 2005 Grammy winner (for Best Jazz Vocal Album)R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal), classic jazz singer Nancy Wilson takes it nice and easy. Overall, it would have been nice to get more tracks with the "All Star Big Band, " which percolates beautifully on Duke Ellington's "Take Love Easy" and Vernon Duke's "Taking a Chance on Love." The joy with which Wilson surfs over these arrangements is infectious and allows the listener to overlook the occasional roughness of breathing and pitch. The rest of the album is more subdued and less winning. The title track sets Maya Angelou's poem "My Life Has Turned to Blue" to music, with soft Latin-jazz inflections punctuated by marimba (a sly nod to Angelou's own calypso recordings of the 1950s?) At the other extreme, a cover of "Just Once, " a track popularized by Quincy Jones and James Ingram, veers dangerously toward Lite FM territory. It should be noted that fans of tenor-sax playing will enjoy distinct solo spots by Bob Mintzer, James Moody, Tom Scott, Andy Snitzer, and Jimmy Heath. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever." -- All Music Guide "Considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, Billie Holiday lived a tempestuous and difficult life. Her singing expressed an incredible depth of emotion that spoke of hard times and injustice as well as triumph. Though her career was relatively short and often erratic, she left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since." -- PBS.org, "American Masters" A five-CD compilation of extremely rare live performance recordings from 1935-1959, plus a detailed liner timeline of performance information. In 1972, thirteen years after her death, Congress extended copyright protections to include recorded musical performances. Billie Holiday would have benefited greatly from such protection: during the more than twenty-five years of her career, Holiday gave an unknown number of live performances on TV & radio and in clubs & concert halls, many of which were recorded both officially and unofficially by sound engineers, fellow musicians, and fans. Today ESP-Disk', which for many years has been assembling unofficial recordings of several artists from before 1972, has released one of the most comprehensive collections of live Billie Holiday recordings to date, some previously available but most not. These recordings, laid out in chronologicalorder, not only demonstrate the arc of Holiday's development as a vocalist but give a rare behind-the-scenes look into how the singer approached her musicians and her audience. The first disc of this compilation opens with a twenty-year-old Billie Holiday performing with Duke Ellington in 1935, followed by a radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in New York two years later in which Holiday fronts the Count Basie Orchestra. The next four discs cover Holiday's career from 1949 to her death in 1959. During those ten years, advancesin radio and TV technology changed the way Americans consumed entertainment, and the mass proliferation of recorded media from that time leaves us with dozens of examples of Holiday's live performances. Set in the context of other early recorded media presentations, it is easy to imagine how revolutionary Holiday's singing sounded to mainstream American audiences, with her plaintive voice, blues inflections, and uncensored delivery. This magnificent set includes a portfolio of photographs and performance data detailing a historical timeline of rare radio/television broadcasts and concert performances--and the events and situations that lead to these powerful performances--along with explanations of some of her most popular material. The set also includes a rare and private recordingof she and some friends in an impromptu setting, with Holiday singing "My Yiddisha Mamma.

The Soundtrack Factory ( August 10, 2004 ), Genre: Jazz Instrument

This 24-track collection of historic Delta blues recordings kick off with Son House's earliest recorded material. These 7 tracks were recorded by House for Paramount in Grafton, WI in 1930 and are keystone recordings in the history of American music. They include the original rare versions of "Walkin' Blues" (later made famous by Robert Johnson) and "Death Letter Blues" (here called "My Black Mama Part II), covered by Jack White of the White Stripes. The remaining 17 tracks on this album are a chance for listeners to hear some lesser known Delta bluesmen, all contemporaries of Son House. While these men are perhaps not quite the genius that House was-with perhaps the exception of Willie Brown who often played with House (just check out "Future Blues" if you need convincing)-these lesser known artists are still all top drawer Delta bluesmen that add welcome context to the genre. Tracks - Side A: 1. My Black Mama - Part 1 (Son House) 2. My Black Mama - Part 2 (Son House) 3. Preachin' The Blues - Part 1 (Son House) 4. Preachin' The Blues - Part 2 (Son House) 5. Dry Spell Blues - Part 1 (Son House) 6. Dry Spell Blues - Part 2 (Son House) 7. Walkin' Blues (Son House) Side B: 1. Mississippi Jail House Groan (Rube Lacy) 2. Ham Hound Crave (Rube Lacy) 3. Mississippi Bottom Blues (Kid Baley) 4. Rowdy Blues (Kid Baley) 5. M & O Blues (Willie Brown) 6. Future Blues W (Willie Brown) Side C: 1. Cottonfield Blues - Part 1 (Garfield Akers) 2. Cottonfield Blues - Part 2 (Garfield Akers) 3. Dough Roller Blues (Garfield Akers) 4. Jumpin' And Shoutin' Blues (Garfield Akers) 5. Fare Thee Well Blues (Joe Callicott) 6. Traveling Mama Blue (Joe Callicott) Side D: 1. Bedside Blues (Jim Thompkins) 2. Outside Woman Blues (Blind Joe "Willie" Reynolds) 3. Nehi Blues (Blind Joe "Willie" Reynolds) 4. Married Man Blues (Blind Joe "Willie" Reynolds) 5. Third Street Woman Blue (Blind Joe "Willie" Reynolds)

On this album, jazz-cabaret singer-songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway pays tribute to her hometown Chicago's best-known musical export, the blues—-though her take is largely devoid of that genre's pared-down grit, instead exploring two of its offshoots: a sophisticated, elusive melancholy and upbeat, horn-heavy swing jazz. Callaway's penchant for the latter is evidenced by the jumping opening track, "Swingin' Away the Blues" and the percolating "Lover Come Back to Me" (on which she integrates her trademark scat singing). A "blue" mood is evoked on, for instance, "Blue Moon" and a not-entirely-convincing take on Sondheim's "No One Is Alone." But Callaway is also among the rare performers in the cabaret scene to write some of her own material, and she obliges here as well, with good results on the humorous "The I'm-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues" (on which she emulates brass instruments) and "Hip to Be Happy." --Elisabeth Vincentelli

On its third major-label album, the Los Angeles punk-pop group blends the title track's disaffected take on California living with the energetic, chart-ready rock & roll of the post-teen wish list "Los Angeles." "Do It Alone" is both a desperate plea for sex and a somewhat more poignant admission of loneliness that's a little more subtle than it first appears, while the anthemic chorus and radio-friendly hook of "Dead Living" shows the band's pop skills are still very much intact.

The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever." -- All Music Guide "Considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, Billie Holiday lived a tempestuous and difficult life. Her singing expressed an incredible depth of emotion that spoke of hard times and injustice as well as triumph. Though her career was relatively short and often erratic, she left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since." -- PBS.org, "American Masters" A five-CD compilation of extremely rare live performance recordings from 1935-1959, plus a detailed liner timeline of performance information. In 1972, thirteen years after her death, Congress extended copyright protections to include recorded musical performances. Billie Holiday would have benefited greatly from such protection: during the more than twenty-five years of her career, Holiday gave an unknown number of live performances on TV & radio and in clubs & concert halls, many of which were recorded both officially and unofficially by sound engineers, fellow musicians, and fans. Today ESP-Disk', which for many years has been assembling unofficial recordings of several artists from before 1972, has released one of the most comprehensive collections of live Billie Holiday recordings to date, some previously available but most not. These recordings, laid out in chronologicalorder, not only demonstrate the arc of Holiday's development as a vocalist but give a rare behind-the-scenes look into how the singer approached her musicians and her audience. The first disc of this compilation opens with a twenty-year-old Billie Holiday performing with Duke Ellington in 1935, followed by a radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in New York two years later in which Holiday fronts the Count Basie Orchestra. The next four discs cover Holiday's career from 1949 to her death in 1959. During those ten years, advancesin radio and TV technology changed the way Americans consumed entertainment, and the mass proliferation of recorded media from that time leaves us with dozens of examples of Holiday's live performances. Set in the context of other early recorded media presentations, it is easy to imagine how revolutionary Holiday's singing sounded to mainstream American audiences, with her plaintive voice, blues inflections, and uncensored delivery. This magnificent set includes a portfolio of photographs and performance data detailing a historical timeline of rare radio/television broadcasts and concert performances--and the events and situations that lead to these powerful performances--along with explanations of some of her most popular material. The set also includes a rare and private recordingof she and some friends in an impromptu setting, with Holiday singing "My Yiddisha Mamma.