Sun Ra and His Arkestra - Omniverse (December 2021 Sundazed Music / Modern Harmonic)

Recorded in New York in 1979 and released that year on Sun Ra's Saturn label, this is a solid, overlooked set in the vast Ra canon. The tracks aren't so much compositions as excursions, pure jazz, lots of reflective piano in trio, quartet, and sextet settings.

1. The Place Of Five Points 04:17

2. West End Side Of Magic City [Vita No. 5] 05:58

3. Dark Lights In A White Forest 10:42

4. Omniverse 08:33

5. Visitant Of The Ninth Ultimate 09:25

6. Over The Rainbow 02:54

7. The Sound Mirror 09:02

PRE ORDER

Love Is A Drag - For Adult Listeners Only (SUNDAZED MUSIC / MODERN HARMONIC 2018)

A once shocking 1962 LP of love songs...by men, for men. A long lost treasure featuring the cool & sophisticated vocals of Gene Howard and a cast of prime studio jazz musicians, performing a set of standards sung to a male suitor. Ahead of its time in every way. 

A fantastic, once-shocking album finally sees reissue - and brings with it the answer to a half-century mystery! Case file: A big band vocalist, a Hollywood photographer, and an LGBT music and history archivist - they are the heart of the story behind Love Is A Drag, a 1962 shrouded-in-mystery long-player comprised of love songs by men, for men. 

Decades ago, JD Doyle, renowned LGBT music historian and archivist, happened upon a copy of Love Is A Drag. Resonating with him immediately, the album presented compositions such as “The Man I Love” and “Mad About The Boy,” (songs that were intended to be sung by a woman to a man), and featured them as songs performed by a man to another man. Doyle would often play cuts from it on his radio show, Queer Music Heritage. He remained intrigued by the lack of either artist or producer credited on the album. A vague line of jacket text ambiguously announced, “For Adult Listeners Only - Sultry Stylings by a Most Unusual Vocalist.” 

And, the facts behind the album would have most likely remained unclear if it were not for one Murray Garrett (Hollywood star-photographer through the late 1940s to the 1970s). Out of the blue, Murray Garrett contacted JD Doyle and wanted to talk about the album. According to Garrett, through his photography career, he had forged a friendship and partnership with prolific big band vocalist, Gene Howard. The two worked together on projects, eventually teaming with Jack Ames, founder of Edison International Records. When queried for ideas for a potential Edison International release, Garrett recalled a performance he had once seen in Greenwich Village - a performance of a man singing love songs to another man, in serious fashion, i.e., not at all campy or overly-dramatic. 

Gene Howard (straight and happily married!) agreed to sing on the record, accompanied by a who’s-who of Los Angeles A-list session men. Completed, the record was issued on a “surrogate” label named Lace Records - an imprint hastily-created in order to avoid any misinterpretation of the Edison International focus. Upon release, the record sold well in Hollywood, with Frank Sinatra, Liberace, and Bob Hope among its biggest advocates.

1. Lover Man 02:35

2. He's Funny That Way 03:39

3. My Man 02:29

4. Bewitched 03:07

5. Bill 02:54

6. The Boy Next Door 02:56

7. The Man I Love 03:56

8. Mad About the Boy 02:37

9. He's My Guy 04:13

10. Jim 03:03

11. Stanger in Paradise 02:13

12. Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man 03:04

Mundell Lowe - Blues For A Stripper (SUNDAZED MUSIC / MODERN HARMONIC 2018)

Beyond hip! From cool jazz to hard bop. This extraordinary soundtrack, featuring many of the finest jazz musicians this side of anywhere, is a collection of small ensemble and large band arrangements so perfectly indicative of its era. It’s beyond hip and runs the gamut from cool jazz to hard bop. Moreover, it authorized the virtuosic freedom of the best of New York’s jazz community. 

The swingingly cinematic score was commissioned for a Sexploitation classic entitled Satan in High Heels, the story of a woman caught in the decadent nightlife of the Big City. Mundell Lowe’s compositions aptly complement and enhance the story’s mood and atmosphere while often juxtaposing humor with strains of profound symbolism. The score, a stellar example of “jazz noir” however, is never decaffeinated. It’s relentlessly vibrant and engaging. 

Mundell Lowe’s virtuosity knows virtually no bounds. His comprehensive and artistic musicality has placed him in among the top players in jazz. In addition to working at both NBC and CBS in New York he was the staff guitarist for Dave Garroway’s original Today Show. 

Both the film, and this score are respective examples of classic cult cinema. The music is often sensuous and sexy but at times as tough as a two-dollar steak. It’s the real deal.

1. Blues For A Stripper 03:27

2. From Mundy On 03:23

3. Montage 02:13

4. Coffee, Coffee 03:29

5. The Lost And The Lonely 03:38

6. Pattern Of Evil 02:27

7. Satan In High Heels 03:26

8. East Side Drive 02:50

9. Lake In The Woods 03:29

10. The Long Knife 02:18

Al Cohn - Cohn On The Saxophone (SUNDAZED MUSIC / MODERN HARMONIC 2018)

A swingin' beat-gen jazz classic back in print! Sax-man Al Cohn, best known for his work with fellow Lester Young tenor-sax disciple Zoot Sims, has all the pots bubbling on this classic 1956 LP. Five stars in Downbeat? You bet! 

Al Cohn first sprung on the national scene as one of the saxophonists on the Woody Herman hit "Four Brothers," a crazy arrangement of "Jeepers Creepers" featuring each "brother" on a wild-and-crazy swingin' sax solo. Along with fellow "brother" Zoot Sims, Cohn became one of New York's leading sax men, forming with Sims a quintet that played in the hot beatnik jazz scene of the day, even backing up Jack Kerouac on a few poetry recordings. 

Cohn on the Saxophone finds our man Cohn taking the lead on a series of great jazz standards. Al's sax voice on this session is smooth, lyrical; almost like he's talking to you or telling a story. Dig his smooth, supple playing on "We Three," or the gorgeously blue-toned notes he hits on "Singing The Blues" -- Cohn is very much a man at home with his instrument, and the band lays back and lets him spin his tales. 

When Cohn on the Saxophone was released, Downbeat magazine gave it the prestigious and rare five-star rating -- and almost 60 years down the pike it still sounds as vital and delicious as it did when it was released.

1. We Three 03:48

2. Idaho 03:39

3. The Things I Love 03:53

4. Singing the Blues 05:06

5. Be Loose 04:31

6. When Day is Done 03:55

7. Good Old Blues 04:50

8. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise 03:20

9. Abstract of You 03:45

10. Blue Lou 04:08